Jewish tradition says that the chanukiyah should be illuminated in a window where it can be seen from the outside. This intersection of private celebration and public visibility is part of the holiday and, in places like Canada, where multicultural…
The annual American Jewish Press Association’s Simon Rockower Awards recognize excellence in Jewish journalism. Once again, the Jewish Independent has been honoured with a Rockower for its work, winning first prize in its circulation category for editorial writing. The JI’s…
When Prime Minister Justin Trudeau stood in the House of Commons this month and apologized for his predecessors’ decision to turn away more than 900 Jewish refugees on the ship MS St. Louis in 1939, he also made a plea…
If you’ve got grade school-aged children, chances are they come home recounting fights on the playground and in their classrooms. Sometimes, it involves them, and other times, they are bystanders. There are kids who are hitting, name calling, mimicking and…
In the Wisconsin town of Baraboo, high school students in their final year before graduation take formal pictures on the steps of the town’s courthouse. Census figures say that the town of 12,000 in the country’s heartland is 94% white.…
Isn’t life wonderful? It has such potential to deliver joy, beauty, poetry and music for every one of us. More’s the pity that so many of us get only a small fraction of that potential for our portion. Still, gratitude…
Today, Nov. 9, is the 80th anniversary of Kristallnacht. Seen by some historians as the moment when the Nazis’ legalized discrimination against Jews turned irreversibly toward genocide, the date has been marked by the Vancouver Jewish community for several decades.…
“I’m writing this while the victims are still being buried at the Tree of Life congregation in Pittsburgh. This period, just after any death, is a hard time, and lot of meaningful things have been said in the media already.…
(photo from Tracy Le Blanc from Pexels) I am not normally someone who is especially active on social media. I am not normally someone who curates current events, even though I consume them like undergrads do coffee – habitually, obsessively,…
Israel’s Prime Minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, addresses the General Assembly of the Jewish Federations of North America, in Tel Aviv Oct. 24. (photo by Pat Johnson) The theme of the General Assembly of the Jewish Federations of North America in Tel…
