Bonjour Chai The Jewish Living Lab and The CJN Podcast Network

For the third year in a row, Bonjour Chai is proud to present the Great Canadian Seder, a coming-together of notable and insightful Canadian Jews from across different demographics and denominations.

Why is this year different from all other years? Because seders across Canada will likely be marred, like any good family gathering, by some kind of political argument over Israel. How should you navigate these murky waters and keep the peace while leaning back in your chair over a few cups of wine? And as haggadah-writers co-opt the Passover story for myriad unrequested adaptations, does this change whether the stories we tell should be universalized for broader audiences?

To hear answers, stories, musings, anecdotes and teachings, we're joined by prominent seder guests from around the country:


Emil Sher, author and playwright
Dahlia Kurtz, radio host
Zachary Paikin, foreign policy researcher
Gila Munster, drag performer
Marsha Lederman, author and Globe and Mail columnist
Michael Weisdorf, CEO, The CJN
Jonathan L. Milevsky, author and educator; and Raphi Zaionz, founder of mygoals Inc.
Naomi Harris, photographer
The Klezbians, musicians
Lissa Skitolsky, editor-in-chief, Cannabis Jew Magazine
Jamie Golombek, tax expert
The children and teachers at Gray Academy of Jewish Education

Credits

Bonjour Chai is hosted by Avi Finegold and Phoebe Maltz Bovy. The show is produced by Michael Fraiman and edited by Zachary Kauffman. Our theme music is by Socalled. The show is a co-production from The Jewish Learning Lab and The CJN, and is distributed by The CJN Podcast Network. Support the show by subscribing to this podcast, donating to The CJN and subscribing to the podcast’s Substack.

This week, the editor of Guernica resigned in protest of her own staff and publisher. The respected literary journal had recently published of an essay by an Israeli writer and translator, Joanna Chen, called "From the Edges of a Broken World". In the piece, Chen conveys Israelis, like their Palestinian neighbours, as human and worthy of compassion. The resulting backlash from left-leaning writers was swift, and Guernica ended up retracting the piece and apologizing for running it, after more than a dozen volunteer staff members quit in protest.

Except Jina Moore, the editor-in-chief, did not want to apologize. She stood by the piece. So she stepped down, and it sparked deeper conversations about safe spaces for Jewish authors and artists—such as the one on this week's episode of Bonjour Chai.

Writer Erika Dreifus joins to discuss her own work in searching out publications still friendly to Jewish and Israeli Jewish writers and the broader ramifications of an ever-more-restrictive literary environment.

What we talked about


Browse Erika Dreifus's list of literary publications and organizations that made public statements about Gaza, "Writers, Beware"
Read her blog post, "Where to Read (and Publish) Writing on Jewish Themes"

Credits

Bonjour Chai is hosted by Avi Finegold and Phoebe Maltz Bovy. Zachary Kauffman is the producer and editor. Michael Fraiman is the executive producer. Our theme music is by Socalled. The show is a co-production from The Jewish Learning Lab and The CJN, and is distributed by The CJN Podcast Network. Support the show by subscribing to this podcast, donating to The CJN and subscribing to the podcast's Substack.

Do your young kids have a smartphone? Most do. And parents have been witnessing the repercussions firsthand for years. This week, the subject came to the forefront when Jonathan Haidt, a Jewish writer, penned a piece in The Atlantic warning of the "terrible costs" of raising children with phones. A new mental health crisis, higher suicide rates, ever-more screen time: much of the ailments of modern youth can be attributed to smartphone use. Jewish kids are no exception, as this week's guest, Rabbi Eric Grossman, knows well; he is the head of the Akiva School in Montreal and agrees with much of Haidt's thesis.

Before that, we're joined by Ronit Novak, art director for The CJN, to discuss the ethics of a gruesome photograph of the corpse of Shani Louk, who was murdered on Oct. 7, winning a prestigious photography award. As you'll hear, even Shani's family and friends are split on whether the now-infamous image is a good thing or not.

What we talked about


Read Jonathan Haidt's piece in The Atlantic, "End the Phone-Based Childhood Now"
See the award-winning photos of the Israel-Hamas war, including one of Shani Louk

Credits

Bonjour Chai is hosted by Avi Finegold and Phoebe Maltz Bovy. Zachary Kauffman is the producer and editor. Michael Fraiman is the executive producer. Our theme music is by Socalled. The show is a co-production from The Jewish Learning Lab and The CJN, and is distributed by The CJN Podcast Network. Support the show by subscribing to this podcast, donating to The CJN and subscribing to the podcast's Substack.

A slew of headlines came out this week, within Canada and beyond, warning of a rising tide of antisemitism within Canada. It's not just Fox News and the National Post—_when the Times of Israel is reporting on Canadian Jews worrying their "golden age" is over, and the _Globe and Mail warns of a "dangerous slide into antisemitism", you know things have gotten bad.

Nobody knows this better than Ellin Bessner, host of The CJN Daily, who has been reporting on day-to-day antisemitic acts, political shifts and everything else in the Jewish community since she started her breaking-news podcast in May 2021. To help understand the cultural shift, as well as Canadian government's recent actions and internal divisions vis-a-vis Israel, she joins for a macro view of everything that's happened in the last month (and longer).

What we talked about


Subscribe to The CJN Daily at thecjn.ca
Hear Ya'ara Saks explain her now-infamous photo with Mahmoud Abbas on The CJN Daily
Hear Anthony Housefather waver on whether he'll stay in the Liberal Party, on The CJN Daily

Credits

Bonjour Chai is hosted by Avi Finegold and Phoebe Maltz Bovy. Zachary Kauffman is the producer and editor. Michael Fraiman is the executive producer. Our theme music is by Socalled. The show is a co-production from The Jewish Learning Lab and The CJN, and is distributed by The CJN Podcast Network. Support the show by subscribing to this podcast, donating to The CJN and subscribing to the podcast's Substack.

Editor's Note: This episode was recorded one day before Kate Middleton revealed she had been diagnosed with cancer, and thus the episode makes no reference to her health issues. We wish her a speedy recovery.

Kate Middleton, an English princess, made international headlines this past week for allegedly disappearing for a few weeks from the outside world. In an apparent effort to assuage public concerns, the British Royal family released a photo of her and her children—but the photo was visibly edited in numerous places. The Royal public relations department admitted to this, leading to further conspiracy theories about where the princess really is.

None of this is particularly Jewish. But it did raise some interesting parallels with the story of a popular Jewish royal, Queen Esther, central to the story of Purim, who had to hide her Judaism. It also made Bonjour Chai co-host Avi Finegold flick on his rabbi brain to think about how sacred Jewish texts and theology convey truth and transparency: how there is a clear, organized order in talmudic conversations and debates, a provenance that is missing as computer-altered images and artificial intelligence become mainstream.

For a special Purim edition of Bonjour Chai, Avi and Phoebe Maltz Bovy find the Jewish angles to the story of the maybe-missing princess, and then discuss Canada's ongoing legal changes that threaten to profoundly affect kosher slaughter and supply in this country.

Credits

Bonjour Chai is hosted by Avi Finegold and Phoebe Maltz Bovy. Zachary Kauffman is the producer and editor. Michael Fraiman is the executive producer. Our theme music is by Socalled. The show is a co-production from The Jewish Learning Lab and The CJN, and is distributed by The CJN Podcast Network. Support the show by subscribing to this podcast, donating to The CJN and subscribing to the podcast's Substack.

Malky Berkowitz wants a divorce. But the 29-year-old Orthodox woman, who lives in Kiryas Joel, north of New York City, can't get a _get—_a Jewish Orthodox divorce—because her husband won't allow it, even after four years of Berkowitz fighting for one.

Her case is just one of many taken up by Adina Sash, a feminist Orthodox activist in Brooklyn who posts online as @FlatbushGirl. But as Sash kept posting about Berkowitz, she found Berkowitz's story resonated more strongly with her audience than others. As time passed, and Berkowitz remained an agunah—_a "chained woman" whose husband denies her a _get—community support snowballed. "Free Malky" caught on: Sash organized rallies, commissioned an an airplane to fly a banner over New York and, most recently, organized a "sex strike", where women in support of the cause stopped going to the mikvah. (After menstruating, married Orthodox women must visit a mikvah to cleanse themselves before they can have sex with their husbands—so no bath means no sex.)

The story has garnered international headlines, drawing comparisons to the ancient Greek play Lysistrata and casting a spotlight on Sash, both positive and (when Orthodox men hear about it) extremely negative. Bonjour Chai's own Phoebe Maltz Bovy had many questions from a secular feminist perspective, so we invited Sash to join the show to explain the societal problems, Orthodox women's perceived agency and what life is like inside these insular communities.

What we talked about


Follow @FlatbushGirl on Instagram
How the Fast of Esther became linked to International Agunah Day, from The CJN archives
Read Phoebe's piece on the Guernica debacle in The CJN

Credits

Bonjour Chai is hosted by Avi Finegold and Phoebe Maltz Bovy. Zachary Kauffman is the producer and editor. Michael Fraiman is the executive producer. Our theme music is by Socalled. The show is a co-production from The Jewish Learning Lab and The CJN, and is distributed by The CJN Podcast Network. Support the show by subscribing to this podcast, donating to The CJN and subscribing to the podcast's Substack.