After the debacle in 2023, when Parliamentarians gave a standing ovation to an elderly Ukrainian Waffen SS veteran, pressure mounted on Ottawa to speed up publishing the names of long-classified files containing the identities of hundreds of suspected Nazi war criminals welcomed by Canada after the Second World War. The files were prepared in the 1980s for the so-called Deschenes Commission, which studied Canada’s postwar immigration screening problems, especially when it came to former...

The small Jewish community in St. Catharines, Ont., is marking a significant milestone this week. Exactly 100 years ago, on Sept. 14, 1924, two cornerstones were laid for the foundation of what would become the current building housing Congregation B'nai Israel synagogue. The event was front-page news at the time. No one could have predicted that, a century later, city council would vote to designate the synagogue building an important heritage property, proving the contribution of the...

Shortly after attending last week’s funerals for some of the six hostages executed by Hamas, Israel’s antisemitism special envoy, Michal Cotler-Wunsh, flew to Canada for a speaking engagement. And while she was here, she made a point to attend the pro-Palestinian protesters’ return to the University of Toronto campus for their first fall rally and march. Cotler-Wunsh was appalled by what she saw on Sept. 6—both because the university once again allowed protesters to intimidate Jewish...

Maj. (Ret.) John Spencer is an American army veteran who heads the Modern War Institute at the U.S. Military’s prestigious West Point Academy in New York State. His books and courses about fighting historic urban and tunnel wars have been widely quoted–he’s even interviewed Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu-who name dropped the former combat officer’s research during his speech to Congress in July. The Israel Defence Forces like his work so much, they’ve brought Spencer with them...

Dozens of Jewish students at Concordia University joined the Montreal Jewish community Tuesday night Sept. 3, 2024, for a vigil in memory of the six Israeli hostages whose bodies were discovered after they had been executed. The event—held on campus right outside the Concordia student centre—came just a few days after four Jewish students and two pro-Israel clubs officially sued Concordia and its president, demanding better protection as the new academic year gets underway. The lawsuit, filed...

Toronto resident Maayan Shavit is set to fly to Israel on Monday to attend the funeral of her cousin Carmel Gat, one of the six Israeli hostages found executed two days ago in a Hamas tunnel under Rafah. Carmel, an occupational therapist and yoga instructor, was kidnapped while visiting her parents’ home in Kibbutz Be’eri. Terrorists also took Carmel’s brother, sister-in-law and their young daughter hostage. They then tied up their mother, 67-year-old Kinneret Gat—a teacher and tour guide—and...

When news broke of the Jewish National Fund of Canada losing its charitable status on Aug. 10, the move meant the Canada Revenue Agency also stripped the venerable Jewish charity of its ability to issue tax receipts to donors. This poses a serious challenge to the historic Zionist fundraising organization–which received $20.2 million in donations in 2023: will supporters still want to give money to JNF Canada for environmental and resilience projects in Israel if they can no longer write the...

The CEO of the embattled Jewish National Fund of Canada, Lance Davis, insists he is now “running a very tight ship” in the wake of the Canada Revenue Agency’s recent decision to strip the historic Zionist fundraising organization of its charitable status. Davis, who became JNF Canada’s CEO in 2017, maintains that many of the government's longstanding concerns had already been addressed in years past. In an interview with The CJN Daily, Davis blasted the CRA for deliberately choosing the...

Toronto police have arrested and charged three people—including two pro-Israel protesters—in connection with a violent incident at a weekly community rally in Toronto that saw an 88-year-old Jewish volunteer beaten and thrown to the ground. It happened on Sunday, Aug. 18, at the event held on Bathurst Street at Sheppard Avenue West. Video from the attack shows a car come to a stop beside the crowd of approximately 100 people waving Israeli flags. A young passenger exits the car, scuffles...

As Jewish overnight camps' summer 2024 sessions come to a close this week across most of Canada, several camp communities in Ontario have had to deal with sudden tragedies: the unexpected death of a councillor at one camp, and an accident at a different camp that took the lives of several cleaning employees. In each case, camp directors quickly called for outside help, which included bringing in alumni to offer support, inviting in a therapy dog, holding yoga sessions and even arranging...

The official revocation notice of the Jewish National Fund of Canada’s charity status, published in the Canada Gazette on Aug. 10, caught many by surprise—especially JNF officials themselves. Lance Davis, CEO of JNF Canada, says the venerable Jewish charity was “blindsided” by the Canada Revenue Agency’s move because it came so quickly, despite efforts to negotiate a solution. It also came only two weeks after JNF Canada said that, if no deal was reached, it would appeal the government’s...

On the night of Aug. 12, Jews around the world will mark the holiday of Tisha b’Av, the ninth day of the Hebrew month of Av. It's considered the saddest day on the Jewish calendar. On this date, it's believed the First Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BC. And nearly 500 years later, Roman Emperor Titus and his legions destroyed the Second Temple, in 70 CE, to stop a successful ongoing Jewish military revolt. As we hold our breaths to see if—or when—Iran and...

On July 25, the London Police Service picked up a very upset Darlene Zaifman-Guslits by her arms and legs, and carried her away from the front door of the Jewish Community Centre. The London resident had just been issued a trespass notice for refusing to leave the building where her community was hosting a speech by Conservative party leader Pierre Poilievre, about antisemitism. Whether she was booted out because some of her family members took part in a peaceful protest outside the venue...

Sharon Chodirker and Chaim Bell consider themselves lucky: they were among the tens of thousands of tourists and residents in Jasper who were evacuated from the forest fires that devoured a third of the buildings in the iconic Rocky Mountain resort town on July 24. The Toronto couple, who were on a hiking trip, managed to escape Jasper while smoke and ash rained down on their rental car. When they reached a safe spot across the border in British Columbia, they slept in their vehicle and dined...

Nohad Mansour, a 22-year-old combat veteran of the Israel Defense Forces, is keeping a close eye on developments back home in Israel—especially his native Druze village of Isfiya, overlooking Haifa. With the prospect of an imminent Iranian-led attack on Israel this week, the region, close to the Lebanese border, is a likely target for Hezbollah. His community is still grieving after a Hezbollah rocket exploded into a soccer field in the Druze city of Majdal Shams in the Golan Heights ten days...

With the synagogue’s shattered front glass windows still boarded up with plywood sheets and an emergency fundraiser underway to repair the damage, Toronto’s century-old Pride of Israel congregation opened its doors to host a large community solidarity rally on the evening of July 31. More than a dozen federal, provincial and municipal politicians, as well as a senior Toronto police inspector, spoke to the crowd of 1,500 and pledged to work harder to stop the wave of antisemitic hate that...

When the Israel Defense Forces announced on July 24 that one of their soldiers was badly wounded by Hezbollah rocket fire aimed at an army base in Northern Israel, they didn't disclose the young man's identity. But his parents want the Jewish community to know. Just before they flew to be with him at his hospital bedside, the parents of Ben Brown, asked members of their community in Toronto to begin praying for their son's recovery. Now Jews in Canada and around the world are keeping the...

Last week, the Federal Court of Canada sided with Jewish communities in Montreal and Toronto in their dispute with the federal government over new biological guidelines covering how cows are slaughtered. On July 24, the judge granted kosher meat producers a temporary injunction, effectively pausing the enforcement of new guidelines that are aimed at ensuring animals don’t feel undue pain when they’re killed. Jewish groups such as Montreal Kosher and the Kashruth Council of Canada argued in...

On Oct. 8, 2023, one day after the Hamas terror attack on Israel, Fred Hahn—the president of Ontario’s chapter of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE)—wrote a tweet on his social media account: “I’m thankful for the power of workers, the power of resistance around the globe. Because #Resistance is fruitful and no matter what some might say, #Resistance brings progress, and for that, I’m thankful.” It was a controversial post, due to the timing, though Hahn denies he was referring to...

On July 19, the International Court of Justice in The Hague demanded Israel leave the disputed territories of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, after occupying them since 1967. The UN’s high court also instructed Israel to repay Palestinian residents an untold sum for taking natural resources, segregating the Palestinians, forcing Palestinian families to flee their homes due to settler violence, transferring Israeli Jews into the area illegally and unlawfully turning what was once a legal...

Fredericton's annual LGBTQ pride parade wound its way through the New Brunswick capital on July 21—with the Fredericton Palestine Solidarity group leading the event as grand marshals. The march went ahead despite the mayor and provincial lieutenant-governor pulling out due to the event's distinctly political tone. Local Jewish leaders and groups, meanwhile, tried to keep the parade apolitical and convince sponsors to boycott it. The parade has become the latest anti-Zionist flashpoint in...

Six months have passed since the president of Harvard University was forced to resign after she refused to sanction pro-Palestinian protesters. Claudine Gay was one of several university leaders who came under fire at a congressional hearing in Washington, D.C., last December during an investigation into how America’s Ivy League schools were failing their Jewish students and staff. In January, Harvard appointed a presidential task force to study antisemitism, and named professor Derek Penslar...

The head of Windsor’s Jewish community, Stephen Cheifetz, is calling in the big guns to fight back “significantly” against the University of Windsor, which agreed last week to accept a list of demands by its pro-Palestinian tent encampment protesters. In exchange, the protesters agreed to take down their two-month-old tent city peacefully. The July 11 deal is being described by Jewish groups and even by the Windsor encampment students themselves as the most far-reaching victory to date by...

On the weekend, the IDF announced its forces had targeted a zone in the Khan Younis area of Gaza where the senior Hamas mastermind behind the Oct. 7 attack had been hiding. Initial reports said the attack aimed to take out Mohammed Deif, Hamas’ military chief. International condemnation was quick to blame Israel for dozens of civilians killed in the bomb blast. And while official Israeli channels endeavoured put their spin on the important military operation, a group of civilian Jewish...

At the end of June, a queer artist group's craft market was scheduled to celebrate Pride Month in Saskatoon with an event called Cheers for Queers. The organizers declared support for Palestine, later laying down an umbrella ban on Zionists. Jews could come, they said—just not Zionist ones. That's when a local parent recalled an interview they'd heard on this very podcast stream, aired exclusively to subscribers of The CJN Daily, in which a Montreal-based lawyer discussed ways to combat...