Over the Labour Day weekend, while many Canadians were soaking up the declining rays of summer or doing last-minute back-to-school shopping, Middle East politics eclipsed everything else – well, for those of us who track these things closely, which, it…
One of my twins urges us, after every meal, to offer him dessert. What started as a “desserts on Shabbat, weekends and holidays” and “dessert is a sometimes food” became ”let’s have dessert after nearly every lunch and dinner,” all…
When I assess all the positive things that Jews have contributed to humanity, and contrast that with the treatment my people have undergone as recompense, I am at a loss. Jews conceived a supreme being responsible for the creation of…
Earlier this summer, I gave each of my Tzofimot (Grade 8 campers) metal kitchen tongs and told them that we were crabs. Then we all ran around the camp click-clacking our tong pincers and yelling “Crabs!” at the top of…
Leslyn Lewis, a candidate for the Conservative Party of Canada leadership that will be decided in the coming days, made a stir last week when she invoked the Nuremberg Code, apparently with regard to coronavirus vaccines. The Nuremberg Code is…
As a former World Jewish Congress Ronald S. Lauder Fellow, I attended the first Ronald S. Lauder Fellowship Diplomacy Summit. The fellowship is an international cohort of top Jewish students with an interest in global Jewish advocacy who are invited…
Before the pandemic, we were once at synagogue on Shabbat when the clergy person leading the family service reminded us that, hey, Elul was here, and we could hear the shofar blown if we came to morning minyan. The next…
Editor: Your editorial of Aug. 19 entitled “Does history matter?” recounts some of the terrain of recent right-wing Polish political machinations against an open, self-critical approach to Shoah research and discourse in the country. It is sad, unfortunate and, I…
The promise of the internet was that people could access unprecedented volumes of information for the benefit of themselves and society as a whole. What has regrettably proven to be the case is that it is a fount from which…
When they were having their animated disagreements so many centuries ago, could the wise Jewish sages Hillel and Shammai have imagined how much we would still look to them today to help us navigate our fragmented world? Mishna Avot, a…
