North Star with Ellin Bessner

The CJN Podcasts
The CJN Podcasts
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Newsmaker conversations from The Canadian Jewish News, hosted by Ellin Bessner, a veteran broadcaster, writer and journalist.

  1. 1d ago

    Canada's Jewish leaders call for armed guards, more police at all their institutions

    Warning: This podcast contains a clip of hateful language. Both B’nai Brith Canada and Montreal’s Jewish federation, Federation CJA, have issued a call to change legislation in some provinces, including Quebec, that currently prevents private armed guards from working at Jewish institutions. B’nai Brith Canada also wants “a sufficient police presence at every Jewish institution in Canada.” CIJA, the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, also called for more resources to keep Jewish communities safe. Police and provincial officials in Belleville told a media conference Sept. 24 that the synagogue shooter had the motivation, means and materials to carry out a mass-casualty attack aimed at the Jewish community that could have destroyed the Sons of Jacob synagogue on Yom Kippur evening. While the police force did not have prior intelligence warnings about the shooter, who died in hospital on Sept. 21, Chief Murray Rodd said the former army corporal carried out a deliberate attack, “a hate crime,” and that proactively stationing an on-duty police officer at the synagogue “was the right place at the right time.” His message to Canadian police forces: “It is clearly time that we all be proactive.” Canada’s ministers of justice and public safety have condemned the Belleville attack. In a document released the same day as the Belleville police chief’s media conference, Ottawa pledged to do more to stop antisemitism, which the government now describes as “a threat to national security.” The report also defines modern antisemitism as a phenomenon that can include anti-Zionism. On today’s episode of North Star, Yair Szlak, president and CEO of Federation CJA, speaks about security issues for Canada’s second-largest Jewish community and what they want to see happen. The interview was taped before the Belleville attack. Related stories Belleville police confirm the Yom Kippur shooter was planning a mass casualty attack and a hate crime directed solely at the Jewish community, in The CJN. Learn more about longstanding calls in Quebec to allow private armed guards or off-duty Montreal police to protect Jewish buildings, in The CJN from 2024. How a Queen’s University student trapped in the synagogue during the shooting thought “that was it” for him, in The CJN. Credits Host and writer: Ellin Bessner ( @ebessner ) Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Izzie Helenchilde (producer and video editor),l Michael Fraiman (executive producer), Alicia Richler (editorial director) Music: Bret Higgins Support our show Subscribe to The CJN newsletter Watch our podcasts on YouTube Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)

  2. 3d ago

    'Someone was protecting us': Belleville's guest Rabbi Oded Peles on surviving the Yom Kippur attack and what's next

    Israeli Rabbi Oded Peles was a few minutes late starting the Yom Kippur evening service in Belleville, Ont., on Sept. 20, because he paused to help two female congregants light extra candles outside the sanctuary. Seconds later, a hail of bullets tore into the stained-glass windows beside the pulpit at Sons of Jacob synagogue, where Rabbi Peles would have been standing to lead the congregation in prayer. Rabbi Peles was unharmed, and no one else in the building was injured. Outside, as we now know, a 29-year-old former Canadian soldier armed with a shotgun—who’d been released from the Forces several years ago for reasons the military is not disclosing—opened fire, critically wounding a Belleville policeman stationed on duty for the High Holiday event. The policeman remains in hospital in critical but stable condition. The shooter died in hospital on Sept. 21, police said. This was Rabbi Peles’s second year officiating at the small Canadian synagogue as a guest slot from his regular duties at a synagogue in Jerusalem. He praised the shaken community for continuing on with services as best as they could. He said he drew inspiration from the lessons of his father, who survived the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Now he believes the response must go beyond prayer. He’s vowed to help strengthen the small Belleville Jewish community and draw attention to antisemitism, starting by building bridges of peace today in Rome at some previously scheduled interfaith meetings at the Vatican. On today’s episode of The CJN’s North Star podcast, we hear Rabbi Peles’s firsthand account of the attack, his reflections on faith and survival, and his hopes for what comes next. We’ll also hear from synagogue member Douglas Lobel, who’s been watching antisemitism grow in Belleville since Oct. 7, 2023, and warned city officials something like this could happen. Toronto’s Derek Kreindler also joins to explain why he launched a grassroots fundraising campaign to help support the wounded Belleville police officer, Const. Jeff Smith. Related links: Read more about growing antisemitism in the Belleville area and why the city’s mayor and councillors were warned such an attack could happen, in The CJN. Learn more about donating to the Jewish community’s grass roots GoFundMe campaign to help wounded Belleville Const. Jeff Smith and his family. A separate fundraiser is also underway now by Canadian Women Against Antisemitism, CIJA, and the Jewish Federations of Canada who have jointly launched a campaign to help Belleville’s synagogue upgrade security, help other small Canadian congregations do the same, and to send thank you letters to the Belleville police. Credits Host and writer: Ellin Bessner ( @ebessner ) Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Izzie Helenchilde (producer and video editor),l Michael Fraiman (executive producer), Alicia Richler (editorial director) Music: Bret Higgins Support our show Subscribe to The CJN newsletter Watch our podcasts on YouTube Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)

  3. Sep 18

    Deborah Lyons: Canada’s Advisory Council to Combat Antisemitism Must Deliver

    Amb. Deborah Lyons has stayed out of the public eye for the past year, ever since she abruptly stepped down as Canada’s last special envoy on preserving Holocaust remembrance and combatting antisemitism. Lyons resigned three months early from her high-profile role, in July 2025, at the time telling The CJN she felt “despondent and despairing” over how few Canadians stood up against anti-Jewish hatred since Oct. 7, 2023. In February 2026, the federal government scrapped her role, along with her entire office—and did the same with the special representative for Islamophobia. The work, Ottawa announced, was to be folded into a new advisory council reporting to the minister of Canadian identity and culture. In June, Prime Minister Mark Carney promised this council’s first job is to tackle antisemitism, even though critics noted the council included appointed members who held publicly anti-Israel positions. But Lyons came out of retirement on Sept. 15 to put the federal government, this new council and Prime Minister Carney on notice. During a talk at a high-profile conference in Toronto on antisemitism and democracy, Lyons revealed she disliked how the council was launched. She says she told the public servant in charge of the council that “they must deliver soon. We cannot get to Hanukkah without some real results and deliverables from the council, in my view, because a lot of work has already been done. They just need to pick it up.” On today’s episode of The CJN’s North Star podcast, Lyons explains why she expects more from the Carney government than just money for security. We also hear from former U.S. Antisemitism Special Envoy Deborah Lipstadt, who joined Lyons in a panel discussion, and from Irwin Cotler, Canada’s first antisemitism czar. Related links Read why Deborah Lyons resigned early as Canada’s Special Envoy on Holocaust Remembrance and Combating Antisemitism, in July 2025, in her only public interview, in The CJN. Why the members appointed to the Advisory Committee on Rights, Equity and Inclusion were seen as problematic by Jewish leaders, in The CJN . Learn more about Ottawa scrapping the Special Envoy position on Antisemitism and also the Special Representative post on Islamophobia, in Feb. 2026, in The CJN. Credits Host and writer: Ellin Bessner ( @ebessner ) Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Izzie Helenchilde (producer and video editor),l Michael Fraiman (executive producer), Alicia Richler (editorial director) Some audio in this episode thanks to freelance journalist Dave Gordon/Toronto. Music: Bret Higgins Support our show Subscribe to The CJN newsletter Watch our podcasts on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@TheCJN Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)

  4. Sep 14

    Israel’s new Toronto consul general says boycotts are not the solution

    Nadav Zysblat has just begun his posting as Israel’s new Consul General in Toronto and Western Canada at a particularly difficult moment in Canada-Israel relations. In the days surrounding his arrival, Canada announced it would bring forward measures to ban trade in goods from illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank, while a boycott campaign targeted pro-Israel singer Boy George’s Vancouver concert. Zysblat, a career Israeli diplomat, says his job is to strengthen—not retreat from—the relationship. Pushing back against calls for boycotts, he wants to expand trade and business ties at the provincial level, restore direct flights between Canada and Israel, and support local Holocaust education initiatives. Zysblat has served previously in Washington and Shanghai. Two days before the Carney government’s West Bank announcement, Zysblat sat down with The CJN’s North Star podcast host Ellin Bessner to record his first Canadian interview. He told Bessner he wants to find new areas of cooperation with Ontario, the Prairies and B.C., particularly in sectors including natural resources, health care, AI, quantum computing and secure technology. They talked about how boycotts are not helpful to building relationships, how they hurt Canada’s interests rather than solve the problem in the Middle East, and why he feels Israel could actually be “an answer” to Canada’s current push to diversify its economy, amidst the economic trade war with the U.S. Related links Learn more about Prime Minister Mark Carney’s recent announcement on Sept 8 that Canada will cut off imports of products made in illegal West Bank settlements and also East Jerusalem, and go after companies and entities who finance the settlement movement, in The CJN, Discover the background to a protracted Canadian case brought by anti-Israel activists in 2017 over labelling of wines produced by Psagot and Shiloh wineries located in the West Bank, and the last development in 2022, in The CJN. Read the Israeli Embassy’s statement Sept. 8 condemning Canada pledging to join the U.K. and France in banning imports of products produced in West Bank settlements. Credits Host and writer: Ellin Bessner ( @ebessner ) Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Izzie Helenchilde (producer and video editor),l Michael Fraiman (executive producer), Alicia Richler (editorial director) Music: Bret Higgins Support our show Subscribe to The CJN newsletter https://thecjn.ca/north Watch our podcasts on YouTube Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)

  5. Sep 11

    Beth Tzedec, Canada’s largest synagogue, erecting perimeter fence for High Holidays

    Work crews affixed a row of black metal fence posts into cement around the front and along both sides of Beth Tzedec Congregation in midtown Toronto on Sept. 10, laying the foundation for a new permanent security fence at Canada’s largest synagogue. The unprecedented installation is happening just one day ahead of Rosh Hashanah and subsequent High Holidays, which begin on the evening of Sept. 11. Synagogue officials say the fence won’t be finished before the start of the holiday, but is being done to minimize the potential for a shooting from the street as large crowds gather over the next month. It’s also to prevent people gaining unauthorized access close to the building. The fence will cover the entire property, except for the rear of the building where fencing has long been in place around the parking lot and school playground. The installation comes two days after Toronto police and Mayor Olivia Chow held a media conference outlining stepped-up security plans for the Jewish community between the High Holidays and Oct. 7 commemorations. “Jews, Jewish institutions and even Jewish neighbourhoods are being targeted. It is despicable,” Chow told reporters on Sept. 8. At Beth Tzedec, the security budget has doubled since the spike in antisemitism following Oct. 7, 2023, and is now approaching $500,000 a year, according to Senior Rabbi Steven Wernick. He says the synagogue estimates it needs another $1.5-2 million to reach what he calls the “maximum reasonable safety” it can achieve. The growing security environment includes lockdown drills, bollards, reinforced doors and armed police. But Rabbi Wernick also laments the normalization of safety measures which Jewish people have come to expect, simply to enter a synagogue in Canada. On today’s episode of The CJN’s North Star podcast, host Ellin Bessner speaks with Rabbi Wernick about the difference between being safe and feeling safe—and why the new fence will be a striking sight for congregants arriving for services. Related Links Read what the Toronto Police Service and Mayor Olivia Chow said they will do to protect “despicable” targeting of Toronto Jews, between the High Holidays and the Oct. 7 commemorations, in The CJN. Rabbi Steven Wernick of Beth Tzedec describes why his heart broke earlier this year while his congregation did a lockdown drill with Toronto police, in The CJN. Hear Rabbi Wernick’s reaction to Prime Minister Mark Carney’s speech on antisemitism omitting anti-Zionism as one of the causes, on The CJN’s North Star, in June 2026. Credits Host and writer: Ellin Bessner ( @ebessner ) Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Izzie Helenchilde (producer and video editor), Michael Fraiman (executive producer), Alicia Richler (editorial director) Music: Bret Higgins Support our show Subscribe to The CJN newsletter https://thecjn.ca/north Watch our podcasts on YouTube Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)

  6. Sep 9

    New Israeli Oct. 7 film about to premiere at TIFF, amid boycott calls

    This week, the Toronto International Film Festival will take over the city’s downtown. Among the many films slated for red-carpet premieres is Our Loves, the latest by award-winning Israeli filmmaker Avi Nesher, which will receive its worldwide debut on Sept. 13.– the second day of Rosh Hashana. The film follows ordinary people navigating troubled relationships when Hamas’s massacre unfolds on Oct. 7—but the plot stays focused on how it affects their personal lives, rather than digging into the graphic horrors of that day. Some anti-Israel activists have called for the film to be boycotted from TIFF, and some Israeli media outlets report that there will be protests. Last year’s festival was mired in controversy over Barry Avrich’s The Road Between Us, a Canadian documentary about one Israeli man’s journey to save his son during Oct. 7, which was scheduled for a debut, then cancelled abruptly—and ultimately reinstated, with an apology from TIFF’s CEO. But Nesher told Ellin Bessner, host of The CJN’s North Star podcast, that he sees his film’s global debut here in Canada as a victory against the growing international boycott of Israeli art and artists. Listen to the full episode to hear why he still believes TIFF is not a political festival, and how he feels about fictionalizing stories surrounding Oct. 7 only three years after the tragedy. Related links Learn more about Avi Nesher’s Oct. 7 -themed film Our Loves premiering at TIFF on Sept. 13 at the TIFF Lightbox. Watch the trailer for the film. Read more about TIFF CEO’s apology to the Jewish community in 2025 after cancelling, then uncancelling, Barry Avrich’s Oct. 7 film, in The CJN. Credits Host and writer: Ellin Bessner ( @ebessner ) Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Izzie Helenchilde (producer and video editor),l Michael Fraiman (executive producer), Alicia Richler (editorial director) Music: Bret Higgins Support our show Subscribe to The CJN newsletter https://thecjn.ca/north Watch our podcasts on YouTube Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)

  7. Sep 4

    Federal court orders Carney government to release more Nazi war criminal documents

    The Federal Court has ordered Canada to release another group of Nazi war criminal documents from the 1985 Deschênes report laying bare the government's controversial immigration policies that allowed several thousand collaborators into Canada after the Second World War. The federal Library and Archives Canada has fought the release for years citing privacy laws protecting longstanding diplomatic intelligence agreements with allies including Ukraine, Russia and even the United States to keep the information secret. Much of the Deschênes report has been made public, albeit with redactions, but the second part, with the list of names, has not. For decades, B'nai Brith Canada and others have lobbied and used court challenges to force the government to be more transparent about the chapter in Canadian history. In his ruling ordering the release, issued Sept. 1, the Federal Court justice Simon Fothergill described almost all the information on the eight disputed pages as "innocuous", citing the passage of time. However, B'nai Brith Canada's lawyers weren't successful in winning the release of one other page, which deals with a secret pact between U.S. post-war intelligence and Canada's RCMP. Government lawyers argued releasing it would heighten current tensions between Canada and the American government during this period of great tension over tariffs. The judge rejected Ottawa's "bald" statement, writing it was "not a sufficient basis to refuse disclosure of very specific information related to efforts by the United States to resettle suspected Nazis and Nazi collaborators in Canada following World War II." B'nai Brith Canada's director of research Richard Robertson told The CJN in an interview Sept. 3 that the trade war argument was "incredibly frustrating" but the human rights organization views the latest court win as "all part of moving the needle". "All Canadians, should know that the parts of the [Deschenes] report that have been released indicate that our government colluded or even went as far as working at the direction of the United States to allow Nazi war criminals to enter Canada, "Robertson said. "And this is something that the government has seemingly tried to withhold from Canadians, and so decisions like this bring us just that little bit closer to understanding this whole story and enabling us as a society to learn from our mistakes and to heal from some of the trauma that they caused." The documents have not yet been released to B'nai Brith Canada, and the judge did not set a timeline for this to be done. On today's episode of The CJN's North Star podcast, hear the background to this case, in an encore presentation of an interview host Ellin Bessner did in February 2025, with historian Howard Margolian, who worked with the Justice Department to investigate Nazi war crimes, and with Sam Goldstein, a former legal director for B'nai Brith Canada. Related links: Read B'nai Brith Canada's statement on the latest legal battle, and read the judge's written decision issued Sept. 1, 2026. Read why Canada was reluctant to prosecute known Nazi war criminals, in The CJN from Feb. 2024.

  8. Sep 2

    Why Toronto’s Orthodox Rabbis won’t officiate at MAID funerals, or provide burial plots

    A landmark letter on MAID, approved recently by Toronto's main Orthodox rabbinical council—also called the Vaad HaRabbanim—is sounding the alarm about what the group notes is the increasing prevalence of medically assisted death making "inroads" into the local Jewish community. Citing the figure of 5,000 patients in Ontario in 2023 who the council describes as being "euthanized by medical practitioners", the leading Orthodox rabbis said they need to take steps to "curb this disturbing trend": going forward, they will not officiate at the funerals of MAID patients and will refuse to permit MAID patients to be buried in plots in their synagogues' cemetery sections. The letter was adopted a while ago, but had not been made public. The CJN received a copy of it in the summer of 2026. On August 28, one of the Vaad's presidents, Rabbi Yacov Felder, sent the MAID statement out in an email blast to his own congregation, Shomrai Shabbos Chevrah Mishnayos. On today's episode of The CJN's North Star podcast, host Ellin Bessner unpacks the Vaad HaRabbanim's MAID policy on funeral rites. She hears their wider concerns about the proliferation of MAID over the past decade and discusses the reaction to the statement coming from other rabbinical leaders, starting with Rabbi Jennifer Gorman, the current president of the Toronto Board of Rabbis. Gorman's group of 56 rabbis has now issued its own new statement in response to what she called the Vaad's "surprising" and "harsh" approach to Jews and their families, whom her board feels are entitled to be treated with compassion—even though their statement does not endorse medically assisted death. We also hear from Montreal Orthodox leader Rabbi Reuben Poupko, who explains why – despite his own strong opposition to MAID – he believes the Toronto Vaad’s approach stigmatizes people who choose MAiD and penalizes their families. Related links: Read our full-length print feature on this controversial Vaad HaRabbanim of Toronto statement on MAID burials, in The CJN . Listen to Rabbi Louis Sachs, now of Beth Sholom Congregation in Toronto, and Dr. Karen Devon, a surgeon at Women's College Hospital, discuss Jewish approaches to MAID and whether Ottawa should expand it for mental illness, on The CJN’s North Star from 2024 . Read more about how Jewish nursing homes are or are not permitting residents to undergo MAID, which has led to a court case in Vancouver, in The CJN from 2020. Credits Host and writer: Ellin Bessner ( @ebessner ) Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Izzie Helenchilde (producer and video editor),l Michael Fraiman (executive producer), Alicia Richler (editorial director) Music: Bret Higgins https://www.youtube.com/@TheCJN https://www.brethiggins.com/ Support our show Subscribe to The CJN newsletter https://thecjn.ca/north Watch our podcasts on YouTube Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt) [Ed. note: An earlier version of the podcast incorrectly identified Rabbi Green as a member of the Toronto Vaad]

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Newsmaker conversations from The Canadian Jewish News, hosted by Ellin Bessner, a veteran broadcaster, writer and journalist.

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