Culturally Jewish

Earlier this month, 18 Canadian theatre companies—including the world's largest queer theatre company, Buddies in Bad Times Theatre, based in Toronto—joined a cultural and academic boycott of Israel, in solidarity with Gaza. It was just the latest evolution in a trend that has been particularly noteworthy since Oct. 7, 2023, when the North American arts community turned sharply against pro-Israel and Jewish artists in all fields, noteably theatre, film, literature, poetry. The progression has led us here. After years of isolation, there is more hunger than ever for proudly Jewish art, with calls for increased Jewish arts grants and community support. Here to echo those calls are two Jewish artists who have experienced these struggles in the last two years: Shaina Silver-Baird is a writer, actor and the creator of the TV series Less Than Kosher, and Hal Niedzviecki was the editor of Broken Pencil, Canada's magazine covering independent zine culture, which he abruptly closed after facing backlash from progressive activists to denounce Israel. In this series finale of Culturally Jewish, The CJN's podcast covering Canadian Jewish artists, hosts Ilana Zackon and David Sklar sit down for a frank conversation and take stock of the last two years—while also expressing hopes for the future. Credits Hosts: Ilana Zackon and David Sklar Producer: Michael Fraiman Music: Sarah Segal-Lazar Support The CJN Subscribe to The CJN newsletter Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt) Subscribe to Culturally Jewish (Not sure how? Click here)

Daniel Pelton hadn't felt much of a musical connection to his Jewish heritage before Oct. 7. But after reality changed for Jews around the world—including his hometown of Calgary—Pelton decided to learn more about both the Holocaust and its artistic representations. He read The Tattooist of Auschwitz, which inspired him to adapt the tattoo numbers used in the book—34902-32407—into musical notes, using their 12-tone counterparts. The result evolved into a 11-minute epic, which Pelton supplemented with two other tracks to create a new trio of songs, released on Jan. 27 for the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. To record the three works, Pelton teamed up with Calgary's National Music Centre and successfully applied for a grant to record with the "Violins of Hope", authentic violins once owned by Holocaust victims and survivors. Hear all the three works and learn how he embarked on this journey on this week's episode of Culturally Jewish, The CJN's podcast spotlighting Canadian Jewish artists. Credits Hosts: Ilana Zackon and David Sklar Producer: Michael Fraiman Music: Sarah Segal-Lazar Support The CJN Subscribe to The CJN newsletter Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt) Subscribe to Culturally Jewish (Not sure how? Click here)

When Adam Wolfond was in his primary school years, the public education system wasn't giving him the support he needed as a nonverbal autistic student. So his mother, Estée Klar, along with other educators and allies, created their own kind of classroom, where neurodivergent kids could feel more free to learn in their own ways, pacing around the room or sitting in bean bag chairs. For Wolfond, using a text-to-speech device, he was finally able to respond in full sentences at his own pace—and discover his own poetic voice. This month, he is debuting an art exhibition at the Koffler Arts Centre in Toronto, "What If My Body is a Beacon for the World?", running from Jan. 9-26. The exhibit includes video installations and projections, along with bean bag chairs and sticks laying around the ground, which are central to Wolfond's way of living and communicating. Wolfond and Klar join Culturally Jewish, The CJN's arts podcast, to describe their artwork and journey to get here. Credits Hosts: Ilana Zackon and David Sklar Producer: Michael Fraiman Music: Sarah Segal-Lazar Support The CJN Subscribe to The CJN newsletter Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt) Subscribe to Culturally Jewish (Not sure how? Click here)

Erez Zobary spent a long time downplaying her Jewish identity in her music career. Her earlier work—a blend of R&B, pop, soul and jazz—dealt with issues relevant to her audience of largely twentysomethings: love lives, quarter-life crises, feeling stuck and aimless. It may not be surprising, then, that a woman whose songs so often looked inward would eventually turn to her heritage. As she tells Culturally Jewish, The CJN's arts and culture podcast, her songs began feeling increasingly disconnected from who she really was, and she wanted to try something drastically different. The result is Erez, her new album, which dives deep into her Yemenite family history—specifically her grandmother's escape from Yemen to Israel as part of Operation Magic Carpet. Zobary joins the show to explain her process and backstory, and to share how she feels releasing an album with Middle Eastern musical flourishes, covered in Hebrew writing, just one year after Oct. 7. Credits Hosts: Ilana Zackon and David Sklar Producer: Michael Fraiman Music: Sarah Segal-Lazar Support The CJN Subscribe to The CJN newsletter Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt) Subscribe to Culturally Jewish (Not sure how? Click here)

After Wendy Litner's mother passed away, Litner was surprised that she still heard her voice—felt her presence, even, looking over her shoulder... often judging her. The feeling inspired Litner to write a new web series called My Dead Mom, released on Crave earlier this month. The show gives a modern, distinctly feminist twist to the stereotype of a Jewish mother ceaselessly nagging her daughter. And, as Litner explains on the latest episode of Culturally Jewish, it's less about saying goodbye than accepting the evolution of a relationship with those who've passed on. Also in this episode, co-hosts Ilana and David discuss their own history of using art to process grief and trauma, and give their biweekly round-up of Jewish art events across the country. Credits Hosts: Ilana Zackon and David Sklar Producer: Michael Fraiman Music: Sarah Segal-Lazar Support The CJN Subscribe to The CJN newsletter Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt) Subscribe to Culturally Jewish (Not sure how? Click here)

This podcast is a proud media partner of Jewish Futures, a day-long arts and culture salon for Jewish arts workers, hosted by the UJA Federation of Greater Toronto on Nov. 24. The 2024 program emphasizes networking, communal learning and the exploration of Jewish artistic identity, providing a foundation for building resilience and leadership for Toronto's Jewish cultural community. Learn more and get your tickets here. Joseph Landau didn't grow up speaking Yiddish—but something about the language compelled him. Whenever he spent time with his grandfather, Landau would ask him to translate certain words, slowly building a vocabulary. He joined WhatsApp groups that communicated in the language, sought out secular Yiddish-speaking communities and eventually began speaking Yiddish to his own young son. That journey, not coincidentally, has dovetailed with Landau's musical career. As the driving force behind Yosl and the Yingels, Landau writes original songs—entirely in Yiddish—that blend jazz and folk melodies with classic klezmer motifs. Their debut EP, Zikhroynes, releases Nov. 15, 2024._ Landau joins the hosts of Culturally Jewish to discuss life in the Yiddish-speaking arts world, from the politics of klezmer retreats to the reaction of non-Jewish audiences across the city of Toronto. Credits Hosts: Ilana Zackon and David Sklar Producer: Michael Fraiman Music: Sarah Segal-Lazar Support The CJN Subscribe to The CJN newsletter Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt) Subscribe to Culturally Jewish (Not sure how? Click here)

Last month, The CJN Podcast Network debuted its first original fiction podcast, Justice: A Holocaust Zombie Story. The seven-part audio drama is a work of subversive Holocaust education designed for the digital age, with many of its gruesome facts grounded in truth. Any shock value from merging zombies with Holocaust education was a deliberate attempt at turning heads, particularly among younger, non-Jewish audiences. That's according to the show's creator, Michael Fraiman—who also produces _Culturally Jewish—_and sits in the guest chair for the first time. He and Ilana Zackon were invited by the Toronto Holocaust Museum to record a live conversation about the show, its origins and its intentions, hosted on the night before Halloween. Listings Learn more about Jewish Futures, Toronto's day-long conference for Jewish arts workers, and register for the event happening Nov. 24 See what the Toronto Holocaust Museum is doing for Neuberger Holocaust Education Week 2024, including a conversation between Maclean's editor Sarah Fulford and author Tobias Buck Show Credits Hosts: Ilana Zackon and David Sklar Producer: Michael Fraiman Music: Sarah Segal-Lazar Support The CJN Subscribe to The CJN newsletter Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt) Subscribe to Culturally Jewish (Not sure how? Click here)

Jacob Samuel has a couple references to his Judaism in his stand-up routine. In the past, whenever he brought it up, it usually created a moment of tension before a laugh. But in the year since Oct. 7, especially in his hometown of Vancouver, he's noticed a shift. It's harder to talk about his Jewish identity onstage. He brings it up later, or takes out a couple jokes if the laugh isn't big enough. Yet Samuel, who won a Juno award for his debut comedy album in 2021, is determined to keep telling audiences he's Jewish. As he tells The CJN's arts podcasters on Culturally Jewish, that visibility is important, even with antisemitism on the rise. And getting people comfortable enough to laugh along with him is critical. Samuel is will be hitting the road this month, performing in Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal before returning to B.C. for a headline show at the Chutzpah! Festival in Vancouver. Credits Hosts: Ilana Zackon and David Sklar Producer: Michael Fraiman Music: Sarah Segal-Lazar Support The CJN Subscribe to The CJN newsletter Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt) Subscribe to Culturally Jewish (Not sure how? Click here)

Arnie Lipsey has spent decades working in animation. But on the side, years ago, he began painting on canvas, using archival family photos for inspiration. He began colourizing and adapting them, eventually reinterpreting them entirely through a modern lens. That often resulted in jarring, traumatic scenes quietly unfolding behind his smiling family members: spiralling tornados, fiery trains, even the barbed-wire fences of a concentration camp. The result is an unsettling, engrossing new series of 30 paintings in a new series on display at the Museum of Jewish Montreal until December 2024. The Past Is Before You blends fond memories and childlike innocence with a traumatic family story of escape from Nazi Europe. Lipsey joins The CJN's arts podcast, Culturally Jewish, to explain his process and share some of the real-life history behind the art. Credits Hosts: Ilana Zackon and David Sklar Producer: Michael Fraiman Music: Sarah Segal-Lazar Support The CJN Subscribe to The CJN newsletter Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt) Subscribe to Culturally Jewish (Not sure how? Click here)

When Tuesdays with Morrie was first published in 1997, it elevated Jewish author Mitch Albom to a level of literary stardom that reverberated beyond the book world. The story—which detailed Albom's frequent visits with his former professor, Morrie Schwartz, who was dying of ALS—has since been adapted into a TV movie and an off-Broadway production in 2002 before a New York City revival earlier this year. And now, a new staging is bringing this two-hander play to the Winnipeg Jewish Theatre—starring The CJN's own arts podcaster, David Sklar. David took a few moments out of rehearsal to sit down with his director, Mariam Bernstein, to talk about the Jewish themes inherent to the story. But before that, Ilana Zackon catches us up on her busy summer, which included a stop at the KlezKanada retreat in rural Quebec and the Ashkenaz Festival in downtown Toronto, and later offers up some nationwide arts listings, including a couple controversial films about the Middle East debuting at the Toronto International Film Festival this week. Credits Hosts: Ilana Zackon and David Sklar Producer: Michael Fraiman Music: Sarah Segal-Lazar Support The CJN Subscribe to The CJN newsletter Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt) Subscribe to Culturally Jewish (Not sure how? Click here)

You may have heard Talia Schlanger's voice on CBC Radio or NPR, where she has spent years hosting music programs and interviewing artists. Somewhere, in the back of her mind, she was taking notes, planning for her own eventual leap into the music industry—a leap she finally took this past February, with the release of her debut album, Grace for the Going. But while she credits her years as a broadcaster as helping with her creative process, as she admits on The CJN's arts podcast, Culturally Jewish, she was surprised at how unprepared she would be when it came to the business side of things, such as marketing, grant writing and distribution. Hear Schlanger describe her personal journey and Jewish identity—including the inspiration she drew from her grandparents who survived the Holocaust, and why she began wearing her Magen David necklace after Oct. 7. Credits Hosts: Ilana Zackon and David Sklar Producer: Michael Fraiman Music: Sarah Segal-Lazar Support The CJN Get free emails from The CJN Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt) Subscribe to Culturally Jewish (Not sure how? Click here)

At the onset of the Holocaust, after Maxwell Smart's family began being targeted and killed in Nazi-occupied Europe, he became separated from his mother, who made one final request of her young son: "Please run away." He did as he was told. He ended up spending one and a half years living in the cold, desolate woods of Eastern Europe, meeting and making friends with other young Jews until liberation. As one of Canada's best-known living Holocaust survivors, Smart—who moved to Montreal after the war—has told his story many times before to schools, museums and journalists. Now it's the plot of a new film, The Boy in the Woods, which premiered in late 2023, and this month became widely available digitally on-demand through many streaming services. Smart joins The CJN's arts podcast Culturally Jewish to share his story and feelings about bringing his story to the silver screen, while filmmaker Rebecca Snow explains how she met Smart and why she decided to make the leap from documentary to narrative film with such heavy subject matter. Credits Culturally Jewish is hosted by Ilana Zackon and David Sklar. Our producer is Michael Fraiman, and our theme music is by Sarah Segal-Lazar. We're a member of The CJN Podcast Network. To support The CJN and receive a charitable tax receipt, please consider a monthly donation by clicking here.

Danila Botha wants you to know something about her writing: it's not autobiographical. She pulls ideas and themes from real life, from the media and history, from current affairs and what she sees in the world. She is not personally a glitter-strewn closeted lesbian Orthodox woman, nor is she a drug addict who once met Anne Frank in a dream. But these are the kinds of concepts—distinctly Jewish stories with shades of halachic heterodoxy—that are packed into Things That Cause Inappropriate Happiness, her new collection of short stories, released April 2024. Botha joins The CJN's arts podcast, Culturally Jewish, to discuss her new collection and offer a glimpse into life as an openly Zionist author in an industry that has become infamously inhospitable to Zionist authors. Credits Culturally Jewish is hosted by Ilana Zackon and David Sklar. Our producer is Michael Fraiman, and our theme music is by Sarah Segal-Lazar. We're a member of The CJN Podcast Network. To support The CJN and receive a charitable tax receipt, please consider a monthly donation by clicking here.

When Jaclyn Grossman was an 18-year-old opera student, her teacher heard her soprano voice and informed her she'd sing the music of Richard Wagner. Grossman didn't know much about the German composer, but quickly fell in love with his music. She was not particularly phased by the fact that Wagner was infamously antisemitic, included offensive Jewish stereotypes in his works, and is even de facto banned in Israel. Years later, she began researching operas written by Holocaust victims and survivors. She co-founded the Likht Ensemble to perform their works and toured the continent singing these nearly forgotten Yiddish pieces. And only then did she realize that her two passions existed within an extremely controversial space. This week, opera fans can hear Grossman in the Edmonton Opera's production of Das Rheingold; then, in July, she heads to Ontario's Festival of the Sound to sing in Yiddish in Postcards. In advance of these contrasting shows, Grossman sits down with our arts podcast, Culturally Jewish, to explain how she reconciles these two worlds—and why Jewish fans shouldn't cancel Wagner. Relevant links Learn more about the Edmonton Opera's production of Das Rheingold Learn more about Postcards at the Festival of the Sound Visit the website for the Likht Ensemble Credits Culturally Jewish is hosted by Ilana Zackon and David Sklar. Our producer is Michael Fraiman, and our theme music is by Sarah Segal-Lazar. We're a member of The CJN Podcast Network. To support The CJN and receive a charitable tax receipt, please consider a monthly donation by clicking here.

During the pandemic, David Sklar—an actor, playwright and co-host of The CJN's arts podcast Culturally Jewish—wrote a theatre script called Vial. The plot focuses on a college professor who feels conflicted when one of her far-left-wing Jewish students writes an extreme essay about Israel; the professor, who starts off adamantly pro–free speech, begins to reconsider her stance when the essay sparks wider outrage and fierce debates on campus and beyond. In 2023, a colleague of Sklar's—a drama teacher at Dawson College, a CEGEP in Westmount, Montreal—reached out to see if Sklar had any unpublished work she could bring to her students for a month-long workshop. Sklar offered Vial: it wasn't especially relevant at the time, but she was free to use it. Then Oct. 7 happened. That's why, this month, a group of theatre students—with only two Jews among them—are studying this controversial script about campus politics and free speech, while pro-Palestinian activists stage tent-in protests literally blocks away. Sklar flew to Montreal to spend a few days speaking with the students in person, and now he reports back on what those conversations were like—while also playing clips of what Dawson students Dalia Leblay, Rachel Bruder-Wexler and Bram Lackman-Mincoff thought of the script. Credits Culturally Jewish is hosted by Ilana Zackon and David Sklar. Our producer is Michael Fraiman, and our theme music is by Sarah Segal-Lazar. We're a member of The CJN Podcast Network. To support The CJN and receive a charitable tax receipt, please consider a monthly donation by clicking here.

On December 1, 2023, Charles Officer passed away at age 48. The award-winning filmmaker was revered in the national arts community, having directed documentaries such as Invisible Essence, about the cultural impact of The Little Prince, and The Skin We're In, a film adaptation of author Desmond Cole's popular essay on racism in Canada. His movies were purposeful and personal, tackling topical issues with incisive commentary and deep research. The 2024 Hot Docs film festival in Toronto will be commemorating Officer's life with a tribute screening of his 2010 film Might Jerome on May 4, including a Q&A panel with some of his industry colleagues. Two friends and collaborators join Culturally Jewish to describe Officer's unique life as a Black Jewish arts worker in Canada: Jake Yanowski, who cofounded the production company Canesugar Filmworks with Officer, and Michael Levine, one of Canada's foremost literary agents. Credits Culturally Jewish is hosted by Ilana Zackon and David Sklar. Our producer is Michael Fraiman, and our theme music is by Sarah Segal-Lazar. We're a member of The CJN Podcast Network. To support The CJN and receive a charitable tax receipt, please consider a monthly donation by clicking here.

Irena Gut Opdyke was a Polish nurse who, during the Second World War, was forced to become a housekeeper for a high-ranking German officer. At some point, she was offered the chance to save a dozen Jewish lives. She agreed, hiding them in a space nobody would think to look—in the German officer's basement. Later honoured as a Righteous Among the Nations, Irena's story is not very well known. But a group of Quebecois filmmakers is about to change that. Irena's Vow, being released in theatres across Canada on April 19, is a historical drama that marks a rare Canadian-made entry into the Holocaust film genre. Lead actress Sophie Nélisse joins Culturally Jewish to discuss what filming was like and what she hopes audiences will take away. And before that, hosts David and Ilana explain—with good reasoning—why neither one of them actually watched Irena's Vow... or, in fact, almost any other Holocaust movie. (Hint: it involves generational trauma.) Credits Culturally Jewish is hosted by Ilana Zackon and David Sklar. Our producer is Michael Fraiman, and our theme music is by Sarah Segal-Lazar. We're a member of The CJN Podcast Network. To support The CJN and receive a charitable tax receipt, please consider a monthly donation by clicking here.

When a member of the Jewish community in London, Ont., recently decided to go through with medical assistance in dying (MAiD), it sent shockwaves through the tight-knit community. Some were angry and confused, others were sympathetic and supportive—and others felt mixed emotions, including the father of Jordi Mand, a playwright and screenwriter. Mand discussed the topic extensively with her father (and then her brother, and others), and soon came to realize how controversial the idea of medically assisted death was within Judaism. The emotional scenario set the stage for her latest play, In Seven Days. It tells the story of a woman who returns home to learn that her father has decided to end his life via MAiD in a week's time, leaving her, their family and even the local rabbi scrambling to try and change his mind before then. The production debuted at the Grand Theatre in London, and will come to the Meridian Arts Centre in Toronto by way of the Harold Green Jewish Theatre Company from May 4-16, 2024. Ahead of the play's Toronto debut, Mand and director Philip Akin sat down with the hosts of Culturally Jewish for a frank talk about death, life, comedy and the nature of choice. And before that, the hosts discuss recent controversies in the Jewish arts world, including the poorly worded Oscar acceptance speech by the director of The Zone of Interest and the cancellation of next month's Hamilton Jewish Film Festival. Credits Culturally Jewish is hosted by Ilana Zackon and David Sklar. Our producer is Michael Fraiman, and our theme music is by Sarah Segal-Lazar. We're a member of The CJN Podcast Network. To support The CJN and receive a charitable tax receipt, please consider a monthly donation by clicking here.

On March 5, the biggest comedy festival in the world, Just for Laughs, announced it was cancelling this year's events in its hometown of Montreal and filing for bankruptcy protection. The news shocked international comics and local Montrealers—but Andy Nulman, who co-founded the festival in 1985 and spearheaded its expansion through the 1990s, wasn't entirely surprised. Though he took a step back from the company in 1999 and left entirely in 2015, he'd been hearing of JFL's financial troubles in the media, just as most in-person events had taken a hit since the pandemic. And yet, as he recounts on Culturally Jewish, The CJN's podcast about Canadian Jewish arts, seeing that the enormous summer festival would be cancelled entirely still blindsided him—and hit him emotionally. In this in-depth conversation, Nulman discusses the global shifts that led to JFL's recent troubles, the way Montreal's Jewish community supported the festival from its earliest days, and why he's optimistic that Just for Laughs hasn't truly had its last laugh forever. Hear in this episode: Milton Berle in 1991, who was invited to perform at age 83 Tim Allen's set in 1990, which helped get him Home Improvement Howie Mandel in 2002, who later led a group that bought the comedy festival in 2018 Credits Culturally Jewish is hosted by Ilana Zackon and David Sklar. Our producer is Michael Fraiman, and our theme music is by Sarah Segal-Lazar. We're a member of The CJN Podcast Network. To support The CJN and receive a charitable tax receipt, please consider a monthly donation by clicking here.

Eric and Erin Warner's grandfather lived to the admirable age of 103. And in that time, the Jewish immigrant to Canada saw Toronto change in innumerable ways, from the migration of Jews out of the Ward and Kensington Market to mass communication shifting from the radio to the internet. It's a life's story that Eric, who's worked in music promotion and production since he was a teenager, wanted to tap into—in part to help his own young children understand where their family came from. He roped in his sister, Erin, to sing on the album, and his longtime friend Jason Craig to help write the songs. The result is a concept album, A Song for Ira, released in February 2024, which debuted with a live show at the Miles Nadal JCC on Family Day. The concept is that two grandparents, Harold and Ruth, are gifted songwriting classes, which they use to write eight folksy tracks about growing up in a bygone Jewish Toronto. Writing about mid-20th century family vacations and longstanding Jewish institutions, the album paints a picture of the past for the benefit of the future. The Warner siblings and Jason Craig join Culturally Jewish to describe the songwriting process and why they believe writing music is an ideal way to speak to younger audiences. Credits Culturally Jewish is hosted by Ilana Zackon and David Sklar. Our producer is Michael Fraiman, and our theme music is by Sarah Segal-Lazar. We're a member of The CJN Podcast Network. To support The CJN and receive a charitable tax receipt, please consider a monthly donation by clicking here.

Seth Zosky is a massive fan of Kanye West. He owns the shoes, has heard all his songs, and—as a drummer—dove deep into Kanye's innovative use of the retro 808 drum machine. So when Kanye started coming out as an unhinged antisemite in 2023, making ridiculous comments on podcasts and social media about Hitler, spouting conspirary theories and tweeting about going "death con 3 on Jewish people", Zosky was heartbroken. He decided to transform his emotions into a new production. Working with his close friend, the rapper CJ Capital (who is not Jewish, but also a major Kanye fan), as well as Dan Petrenko and Tracey Erin Smith, both of whom are Jewish theatre creators in the Prairie provinces, Zosky spent a year developing a new play. Pain to Power: A Kanye West Musical Protest debuts at the Winnipeg Jewish Theatre on Mar. 9, about a month after Kanye's latest album, Vultures 1, which was just released this week. Pain to Power adopts Kanye's music and reclaims it into a work of art that Zosky believes the multimillionaire rapper would absolutely hate. He and Petrenko, the artistic director of the Winnipeg Jewish Theatre, join Culturally Jewish to discuss the origins of the show and their artistic process—which included a trip to Israel in early October 2023 that ended up being cut short when they got caught in Hamas's terrorist attack, hearing missiles exploding over their heads from inside Ben Gurion airport, moments before they caught the last flight out on Oct. 7. Credits Culturally Jewish is hosted by Ilana Zackon and David Sklar. Our producer is Michael Fraiman, and our theme music is by Sarah Segal-Lazar. We're a member of The CJN Podcast Network. To support The CJN and receive a charitable tax receipt, please consider a monthly donation by clicking here.

Ari Gross has never written a comic book before. But when he decided to try making one, he found his background came in handy. A machine learning engineer by day with a background in data science, Gross completed his PhD on the history and philosophy of science and technology—a perfect fit for writing a comic that brings 20th-century Toronto and Kabbalistic ideas onto the printed page. Add in the math required to map out a comic book by word count per panel, then panels per page, and you have a passion project that's coming to fruition after years of prep and planning. His forthcoming comic debut, Wardens, follows a 20-year-old Jewish woman living in The Ward, the popular immigrant neighbourhood in downtown Toronto. After a tragedy befalls her family, a creature called "The Schmata" rises to cause chaos. The comic is peppered with Yiddish, deeply nostalgic and steeped in Jewish ideas, based on significant research into life in The Ward. Having recently launched his Kickstarter campaign to raise funds to complete the project, Gross joins our Culturally Jewish podcast to discuss the origins of this supernatural tale and what research went into its creation. Credits Culturally Jewish is hosted by Ilana Zackon and David Sklar. Our producer is Michael Fraiman, and our theme music is by Sarah Segal-Lazar. We're a member of The CJN Podcast Network. To support The CJN and receive a charitable tax receipt, please consider a monthly donation by clicking here.

On Jan. 9, a group of Jewish Hollywood entertainers—among them David Schwimmer, Amy Schumer, Debra Messing, Jason Alexander and Michael Rapaport—published an open letter, signed by hundreds of Jewish media industry professionals, that slams the Motion Picture Academy for ignoring Jews in its "Representation and Inclusion Standards", unveiled in 2020. The standards call for representation from underrepresented groups throughout the cast and crew of film and TV productions, clearly defining "underrepresented groups" in a list of identities that include Asian, Indigenous, Hispanic, Hawaiian, LGBTQ+, women and people with cognitive or physical disabilities—but, notably, not Jews. The open letter is the latest splash in the ongoing conversation about how Jews are represented in the arts. Jewish roles routinely go to non-Jews, and while Jewish stories are more common today than they were 20 years ago, many still feel superficial, sometimes off-the-mark and written by non-Jewish writers. Given the rise of antisemitism and assumptions about Jewish people in a post-Oct. 7 world, media representation matters more than ever. But how easy is it to always cast Jewish actors in Jewish roles? Not as easy as you think, according to Jess Greenberg, head of the Montreal-based Greenberg Casting agency. As she explains, productions are bound by budget constraints, physical geography and sometimes the financing company's own goals. She joins Ilana Zackon to pull back the curtain on casting Jewish on The CJN's arts podcast, Culturally Jewish. Credits Culturally Jewish is hosted by Ilana Zackon and David Sklar. Our producer is Michael Fraiman, and our theme music is by Sarah Segal-Lazar. We're a member of The CJN Podcast Network. To support The CJN and receive a charitable tax receipt, please consider a monthly donation by clicking here.

On January 2, the Belfry Theatre in Victoria, B.C., announced it is cancelling a forthcoming production of The Runner, a one-man play—created by a non-Jewish theatre artist—that tells the story of an Orthodox Jewish volunteer who decides to help a young Palestinian woman instead of an Israeli soldier. The decision to cancel the production came after weeks of protests from anti-Zionists, including graffiti sprayed on the theatre's walls and a disrupted public meeting that was set up to facilitate a community dialogue about the play. While The Runner is still set to run as part of Vancouver's PuSh Festival (alongside a Palestinian work called Dear Laila), the Canadian play has disappeared from the archives of CBC's podcast about Canadian theatre, PlayME, opening up the question of whether art that tackles controversial subjects should be outright cancelled because of public outcry. In the opinion of the hosts of Culturally Jewish, The CJN's arts podcast, the answer is firmly "no". In our first episode of 2024, we take a deep dive into the play itself, the controversy surrounding its deliberately racist characters, the slippery slope of cancel culture and how this damages the relationship between Jewish arts workers and broader Canadian institutions. Credits Culturally Jewish is hosted by Ilana Zackon and David Sklar. Our producer is Michael Fraiman, and our theme music is by Sarah Segal-Lazar. We're a member of The CJN Podcast Network. To support The CJN and receive a charitable tax receipt, please consider a monthly donation by clicking here.

If you've heard of Gila Münster, who bills herself as "Toronto's cross stitching, cross-dressing Jewish American Princess," it's probably because of her drag queen storytelling events. After the height of the pandemic, she began partnering with public libraries across Southern Ontario, hosting story hours for children to supplement nighttime performances. Then came the protests. In the summer of 2023, for the first time in her life, protesters began showing up outside libraries where she was scheduled to perform. Around the same time, Münster found herself at the centre of a city-wide debate, as she became the only drag storyteller approved to come into Toronto District School Boards classrooms for drag storytime—and the school board refused to give parents the option to opt their children out. And then, after facing months of right-wing backlash in-person and online, Oct. 7 happened. Suddenly, Münster—who is Israeli, and has worked for the UJA Federation and Hillel in Toronto—found herself being verbally attacked by her queer friends on the left, too, who strongly support the Palestinian cause and skew anti-Zionist. All this has forced Münster into a unique space, navigating a thin line between two increasingly unfriendly political sides. She joins The CJN's arts podcasters on Culturally Jewish to describe her controversial year, explain the Jewish history of drag and discuss her upcoming annual variety show, 8 Gays of Hanukkah, happening Dec. 17 in Toronto. Credits Culturally Jewish is hosted by Ilana Zackon and David Sklar. Our producer is Michael Fraiman, and our theme music is by Sarah Segal-Lazar. We're a member of The CJN Podcast Network. To support The CJN and receive a charitable tax receipt, please consider a monthly donation by clicking here.

Ruth Rakoff had only written one book before, a memoir based on her cancer diagnosis. That was in 2010. Two years later, her brother David Rakoff—an acclaimed writer and storyteller—died of Hodgkin's lymphoma. That traumatic period, in part, inspired her to spend nearly a full decade writing her second book, Untethered, a novel published in Sept. 2023 by Cormorant Books. In Untethered, two siblings branch off into different Jewish worlds, one marrying into an ultra-Orthodox community while the other tries to fend off depression on a kibbutz, eventually reuniting to confront their shared generational trauma during a time of crisis. Rakoff spoke with the hosts of Culturally Jewish to describe her writing process, how her own time in an ultra-Orthodox Israeli community influenced the story, and how its themes resonate even stronger in the wake of Hamas's attack on Israel on Oct. 7. Also in this episode: Ilana recounts the Jewish Futures arts salon in Toronto last week, plus she and David give a rundown of the most exciting Hanukkah events happening in the next couple weeks. Credits Culturally Jewish is hosted by Ilana Zackon and David Sklar. Our producer is Michael Fraiman, and our theme music is by Sarah Segal-Lazar. We're a member of The CJN Podcast Network. To support The CJN and receive a charitable tax receipt, please consider a monthly donation by clicking here.

The story of Chiune Sugihara has become relatively well known among the Jewish community. The Japanese diplomat, known as "Japan's Schindler", wrote transit visas for thousands of European Jews, helping them flee Nazi persecution and the concentration camps. Among the many families saved by Sugihara visas was the Bluman family, which wound up in Vancouver, B.C.—but the story didn't end there. Even two generations later, the family's trauma still lingered, just as Sugihara's own children and grandchildren suffered from the aftermath of the Second World War. Those cross-generational stories, and their empathetic parallels, form the spine of a new chamber opera, I Have My Mother's Eyes, premiering Nov. 18 at the Chutzpah Festival in Vancouver. The improvised opera, composed by Rita Ueda, will explore the emotional core behind both the Japanese and Jewish families, which has created a unique bond filled with tragedy and hope. And as Ueda tells us on Culturally Jewish, The CJN's arts and culture podcast, to tell an emotional story onstage, there's no better medium than opera. Ueda and George Bluman join to share how they transformed Bluman's remarkable family history into an international opera show. Credits Culturally Jewish is hosted by Ilana Zackon and David Sklar. Our producer is Michael Fraiman (reach him by email at mfraiman@thecjn.ca), and our theme music is by Sarah Segal-Lazar. We're a member of The CJN Podcast Network. To support The CJN and receive a charitable tax receipt, please consider a monthly donation by clicking here.

When Niv Shimshon woke up to the horror of what happened in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, he immediately contacted his friends and family back in his home country. The Israeli-born photographer—who moved to Canada 10 years ago, now living in Hamilton with his wife and two young children—could only donate a bit of money to his family's kibbutz and offer words of support. Feeling helpless, he decided to take action. He began contacting Jewish and Israeli photographers across Israel and North America, inviting them to contribute to a fundraising project, wherein they would sell prints of their work and donate all proceeds to the kibbutzim attacked near the Gaza border. Word quickly spread, and soon Shimshon had assembled a collective of more than 20 photographers on the website Photographers for Israel. In less than a week, they've raised $1,500 in net profit for their cause. Ilana Zackon sat down with Shimshon and one of the project's Canadian contributors, Brant Slomovic, a emergency physician-turned-photographer, about their initiative and how Jewish artists from afar can help Israel in these difficult times. Show notes Visit the store at photographersforisrael.com See more of Niv Shimshon's work on his website See Brant Slomovic's work on his website Get tickets to "Jewish Futures: An Arts and Culture Salon", happening Nov. 26 at the Prosserman JCC Credits Culturally Jewish is hosted by Ilana Zackon and David Sklar. Our producer is Michael Fraiman, and our theme music is by Sarah Segal-Lazar. We're a member of The CJN Podcast Network. To support The CJN and receive a charitable tax receipt, please consider a monthly donation by clicking here.

It's no secret that the arts industry—theatre, film, music, visual arts, dance; pick your favourite—is mostly filled with left-leaning individuals. Unfortunately for Jewish artists, that means the arts community is also largely anti-Zionist (or pro-Palestinian), and given how big a role networking and affiliations play in booking gigs and landing shows, publicly voicing opposing political views can risk their friendships and careers. It's a tightrope upon which many Jewish artists have to balance every day. But in times like these, with Hamas and Israel engaged in a bitter war that's resulted in thousands of innocent lives killed between both sides, that balancing act becomes even trickier. Today, three artists from across the country join Ilana and David to pull back the curtain on what life has been like these past two weeks, how they're navigating relationships suddenly tainted with politics, and how social media is making everything so much worse. You'll hear from Jordan Nahmias, a coach, consultant and artist in Toronto; Tracey Erin Smith, a theatre creator in Calgary; and Sam Mogelonsky, a visual artist and the director of arts, culture and heritage at the UJA Federation of Greater Toronto. Credits Culturally Jewish is hosted by Ilana Zackon and David Sklar. Our producer is Michael Fraiman, and our theme music is by Sarah Segal-Lazar. We're a member of The CJN Podcast Network. To support The CJN and receive a charitable tax receipt, please consider a monthly donation by clicking here.

In Matthew Jocelyn's ideal world, audiences would look at upcoming programming from the Koffler Centre of the Arts in Toronto and ask, "Really? The Koffler is doing that?" Ruffling feathers isn't new for the artistic leader, who spent 28 years in France, where he worked in some of the nation's top opera houses and was awarded as a Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters. After returning to Canada, he took the helm at Canadian Stage, Canada's largest not-for-profit theatre company, which drew mixed reactions and a minor outcry from supporters expecting a more traditional direction for the acclaimed theatre. By 2016, a profile in Maclean's described him as "one of this country's most brilliant creative forces—and one of its most controversial." On Oct. 2, 2023, he took over full-time as the general director of the Koffler Centre, Canada's most prominent historically Jewish arts institution. How will he balance Jewish programming with the centre's broader mandate? How will he handle the inevitable calls from BDS supporters to divest from Jewish artists and funding sources? And what can visitors expect to see from the centre in the future? Jocelyn joins Culturally Jewish, The CJN's arts and culture podcast, to answer those questions and more. Jewish Futures is a conference for Toronto's Jewish artists and cultural workers exploring the future of Jewish cultural and artistic life. What future do we want to create together? How can the past and presentation of memory help to inform our present? How do we share our stories to guide our futures? Learn more and buy tickets here. Credits Culturally Jewish is hosted by Ilana Zackon and David Sklar. Our producer is Michael Fraiman, and our theme music is by Sarah Segal-Lazar. We're a member of The CJN Podcast Network. To support The CJN and receive a charitable tax receipt, please consider a monthly donation by clicking here.

Sarah Segal-Lazar's momma never actually wanted her to be a doctor—nor did becoming an artist really shock her. But the Canadian musician and actor nonetheless drew inspiration from that common trope, where the offspring shunts the professional expectations of their parents, to write the hilarious theme song to The CJN's arts and culture podcast, Culturally Jewish. Not that the jingle is Segal-Lazar's biggest achievement this calendar year. She just released her latest album, Valleys, a folksy, emotional record that bounds between foot-thumping country bar tunes and delicate odes to broken relationships. The Montreal-born musician and actor wrote it between her home city and Prince Edward Island, where she spends chunks of the summer embracing her rustic side in what feels like one of the least Jewish parts of the country. Listen to Valleys here, and hear her explain her artistic process and personal journey on today's episode of Culturally Jewish. Credits Culturally Jewish is hosted by Ilana Zackon and David Sklar. Our producer is Michael Fraiman, and our theme music is by Sarah Segal-Lazar. We're a member of The CJN Podcast Network. To support The CJN and receive a charitable tax receipt, please consider a monthly donation by clicking here.

Most Canadians have never heard of Fanny "Bobbie" Rosenfeld, a woman who left early 20th century Russia and wound up in Barrie, Ont., where she cultivated her love of sports into Olympic glory—including a gold medal. In some ways, hers is a standard turn-of-the-century Jewish immigrant story, portraying a woman who succeeded by sheer force of will in a new country against her traditional parents' wishes. On the other hand, it's an unconventional tale, given her pioneering feminist attitude and how few people today even know Bobbie's story—including in her hometown of Barrie. But if you're in the city this week, you can catch a new biographical play about her life, simply titled Bobbie. The goal of the show, its creators say, is not just to raise awareness about this forgotten Canadian Jewish icon, but also to analyze how antisemitism seeps into mainstream culture and ask what Canadians—Jewish or not—can do about it. Director Lynn Weintraub and playwright Trudee Romanek join Culturally Jewish to share Bobbie's life story and describe how, and why, they made this creative new theatre production. Credits Culturally Jewish is hosted by Ilana Zackon and David Sklar. Our producer is Michael Fraiman, and our theme music is by Sarah Segal-Lazar. We're a member of The CJN Podcast Network. To support The CJN and receive a charitable tax receipt, please consider a monthly donation by clicking here.

There's a certain type of Jew, usually Ashkenazi, sometimes Israeli, with a mop of curly hair, an acousitc guitar and an affinity for marijuana, who will inevitably love bands like The Grateful Dead and Phish. Those groups are collectively known as "jam bands", which play lengthy, musically complex songs, often in concert, always with a hefty reliance on improvisation. Once synonymous with psychedelic drugs, the jam band scene has gone mainstream in recent decades—and for a myriad reasons we'll dissect on today's episode of Culturally Jewish, Jews are buying front-row tickets. This summer, the Ashkenaz Festival in Toronto is putting on its first-ever summer jam concert series. Producer Michael Fraiman visited the first show to ask concert-goers why they felt Jews loved jam bands; after that, Ashkenaz artistic director Eric Stein joins Ilana and David for a discussion about the surprisingly deep connections between Deadheads and Yiddishkeit. Credits Culturally Jewish is hosted by Ilana Zackon and David Sklar. Our producer is Michael Fraiman, and our theme music is by Sarah Segal-Lazar. Additional music this episode by La Banda Morisca and The Other Ones. Special thanks to everyone who spoke to us at the Ashkenaz concert: Jason, Don, Howard, Isabella, Aviva, Max and Sam. We're a member of The CJN Podcast Network. To support The CJN and receive a charitable tax receipt, please consider a monthly donation by clicking here.

When Bobbi Goddard travelled to Mexico in February 2020, she planned on staying just a couple months. But when the pandemic began, locking down borders and economies, she was happy to stay longer, practice Spanish and catch an opportunity to kickstart her dream career as a country music singer. It wasn't the first time she'd chased a dream—and accomplished it. Born in Kindersley, Sask., she grew up in the Northwest Territories, Medicine Hat and Calgary before converting to Judaism (and moving to Israel for a stint, teaching herself Hebrew) and ultimately winding up in Mexico. She's currently on tour with her band, Bobbi and The Others, across Western Canada. Credits Culturally Jewish is hosted by Ilana Zackon and David Sklar. Our producer is Michael Fraiman, and our theme music is by Sarah Segal-Lazar. We're a member of The CJN Podcast Network. To support The CJN and receive a charitable tax receipt, please consider a monthly donation by clicking here.

Jacob Balshin didn't take a conventional route to stand-up comedy. The Thornhill native majored in philosophy before working a string of random jobs—at Pizza Pizza, a pet store, Costco, Bulk Barn—all while honing his craft. Now he's releasing his debut comedy album, 30 And Breathing Funny, which he recorded in downtown Toronto on his 30th birthday, filled with stories of dates, drugs and dentists, all delivered in his giggly deadpan style. After that, David Sklar sits down with director Kevin McKendrick in Victoria, B.C., about their new show, The Guardsman, by Ferenc Molnár, and the surprising Jewish connections that both the playwright and McKendrick have. Credits Culturally Jewish is hosted by Ilana Zackon and David Sklar. Our producer is Michael Fraiman, and our theme music is by Sarah Segal-Lazar. We're a member of The CJN Podcast Network. To support The CJN and receive a charitable tax receipt, please consider a monthly donation by clicking here.

One day, after Shaina Silver-Baird graduated from theatre school, the rabbi from her bat mitzvah called her up to ask her if she'd be a cantor for an upcoming wedding. Silver-Baird was not religious; she didn't go to synagogue, speak Hebrew or understand exactly what she was getting into. But she agreed. Years later, from that experience, a web series was born: Less Than Kosher, which premiered at the 2023 Toronto Jewish Film Festival and is now streaming on Highball TV. The digital series follows Viv, a flailing pop star who, like Silver-Baird, winds up singing cantorially. Underscoring the electro-pop prayer remixes is a surprising amount of heart, digging into the definition of spiritual identity among secular Jews. Silver-Baird and the show's co-creator, Michael Goldlist, join Culturally Jewish to explain. Credits Culturally Jewish is hosted by Ilana Zackon and David Sklar. Our producer is Michael Fraiman, and our theme music is by Sarah Segal-Lazar. We're a member of The CJN Podcast Network. To support The CJN and receive a charitable tax receipt, please consider a monthly donation by clicking here.

When Jeff Rothpan moved to the United States decades ago to pursue comedy as a career, he couldn't imagine he'd one day be working with some of his idols, including Steve Martin and John Cleese. But that's where life took him, and since then, he's written for internationally recognized ventriloquist Jeff Dunham, Canadian model Pamela Anderson and the TV show Roast Battle Canada, for which he was nominated for Best Writing at the Canadian Screen Awards. Rothpan joins to chat about his lengthy career, including how he made the leap stateside and how Israelis—and Muslims—have reacted to Jeff Dunham's "Islamic terrorist" puppet character. Credits Culturally Jewish is hosted by Ilana Zackon and David Sklar. Our producer is Michael Fraiman, and our theme music is by Sarah Segal-Lazar. We're a member of The CJN Podcast Network. To support The CJN and receive a charitable tax receipt, please consider a monthly donation by clicking here.

Among the first major massacres of the Holocaust infamously took place in Babyn Yar, Ukraine, where Nazis murdered more than 33,000 Jews in 1941. Today, the harrowing site—when not under fire by invading Russian forces—is a rising tourist attraction, not just for its historical significance, but also a mesmerizing new synagogue and memorial that was completed 80 years later, in April 2021. Designed by international architect Manuel Herz, the synagogue literally unfolds like a pop-up book, celebrating life, optimisim, creativity and the Jewish literary spirit. The story of the synagogue, from its historical origins to its construction and completion, is now an art exhibit at the Koffler Centre of the Arts in Toronto, running until Nov. 12, 2023. We spoke to Herz shortly after its opening in April about his incredible monument, his take on Jewish architecture and why so many Holocaust memorials seem obligated to be dreary and serious. Show notes Learn more about the Koffler exhibit, "The Synagogue at Babyn Yar: Turning the Nightmare of Evil into a Shared Dream of Good" Read about the Babyn Yar Synagogue at Manuel Herz's website Watch a video of the synagogue in action Credits Culturally Jewish is hosted by Ilana Zackon and David Sklar. Our producer is Michael Fraiman, and our theme music is by Sarah Segal-Lazar. We're a member of The CJN Podcast Network. To support The CJN and receive a charitable tax receipt, please consider a monthly donation by clicking here.

When Lisa Rubin, artistic and executive director of the Segal Centre for Performing Arts in Montreal, caught Prayer for the French Republic in New York City last year, she walked out of the theatre certain of one thing: she had to put this show on. She knew it wouldn't get a long run on Broadway, overshadowed by Tom Stoppard's Leopoldstadt next door, and few other theatre companies would pick up a three-hour-long family drama with a large cast, heavy Jewish content and a mandate to discuss the many faces of antisemitism. But for her and the Segal, it was the perfect fit. Hosts Ilana and David got the chance to visit the Segal and go backstage, speaking with Rubin, her actors, subject-matter experts and audience members who caught a sneak peek. Credits Culturally Jewish is hosted by Ilana Zackon and David Sklar. Our producer is Michael Fraiman, and our theme music is by Sarah Segal-Lazar. We're a member of The CJN Podcast Network. To support The CJN and receive a charitable tax receipt, please consider a monthly donation by clicking here.

In March 2023, Alison Darcy and Joseph Shragge, the co-artistic directors of Scapegoat Carnivale, a theatre company in Montreal, debuted their latest work, Vertip. The show is about a puppeteer who uses stereotypical puppets, based on old Eastern European traditions, including a money-grubbing Jewish loan shark named Zyhd. One day, Zyhd comes to life—and starts demanding money. It's a different approach to tackling antisemitism, and not one that all audiences have been comfortable with. As Darcy and Shragge explain in the debut episode of Culturally Jewish, people aren't sure whether they should laugh along with the jokes or automatically condemn these outdated icons of real cultural heritage. Listen and subscribe to the first episode of Culturally Jewish, The CJN's new podcast about the burgeoning, fascinating and diverse Canadian Jewish arts scene. Credits Culturally Jewish is hosted by Ilana Zackon and David Sklar. Our producer is Michael Fraiman, and our theme music is by Sarah Segal-Lazar. We're a member of The CJN Podcast Network. To support The CJN and receive a charitable tax receipt, please consider a monthly donation by clicking here.

Join actors David Sklar and Ilana Zackon as they schmooze with creative Jews of all disciplines, taking you behind the scenes of what matters most to Canada's Jewish arts community—and why our cultural representation matters.