Most Jewish holidays date back thousands of years. We commemorate the time when an ancient Persian with a triangle hat tried to kill the Jews, when the Maccabies rededicated the temple in Jerusalem, when we escaped slavery in Egypt and the seas parted ways. But in the past century, Jews have added three new holidays, all of which fall in the span of a week.

We're now at the tail end of the trilogy of "memory days": Yom HaShoah, Yom ha-Zikaron and Yom ha-Atzmaut. And, perhaps because they're recent additions, the way in which we mark them is susceptible to shifting, particularly after Oct. 7. Just this week, former hostages and survivors of Oct. 7 marched in the March of the Living in Poland. The USC Shoah Foundation is expanding its mission beyond the Shoah, collecting testimonies of antisemitism in the modern world.

It begs the question: How do you memorialize events when you're still living through them?

That's the topic for this week's episode of Not in Heaven, a podcast about the future of communal Judaism. Avi Finegold, Yedida Eisenstat and Matthew Leibl join to discuss these traditions, memory engineering, and how the stories we tell about the past shape our present—and our future.

Credits

• Hosts: Avi Finegold, Yedida Eisenstat, Matthew Leibl
• Production team: Zachary Judah Kauffman (editor), Marc Weisblott (editorial director), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music: Socalled

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• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to Not in Heaven (Not sure how? Click here)

It's election season in Canada, with a record-breaking 7.3 million voters having already cast their ballots ahead of April 28. And between Passover seders and weekly Shabbat sermons, there's been no shortage of opportunities for Jewish communal leaders to weigh in on federal affairs during this high-stakes election cycle.

But should they?

An Israeli think tank recently used AI to analyze 4,400 sermons from 2021 to 2024. Across denominations, about half of all sermons focused on politics—with a clear jump to roughly two-thirds post-Oct. 7, including 80 percent of modern Orthodox sermons.

Rabbis are divided. Some see it as their duty to guide their community and stand up for values they believe to be in the best interest of the Jewish people; others prefer to keep divisive topics out of synagogues, focusing instead on what binds us together.

It's a ripe topic for our first-ever episode of Not in Heaven, The CJN's new podcast about the future of communal Judaism, taking over our previous weekly debate program, Bonjour Chai. Avi Finegold returns with a new panel of rabbinic voices: Yedida Eisenstat is a scholar, writer and associate editor at the Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization in Washington, D.C.; and Matthew Leibl is a freelance rabbi in Winnipeg with a background in sports radio.

Credits

• Hosts: Avi Finegold, Yedida Eisenstat, Matthew Leibl
• Production team: Zachary Judah Kauffman (editor), Marc Weisblott (editorial director), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music: Socalled

Support The CJN

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to Not in Heaven (Not sure how? Click here)

It's that time of year again, when all of us at Bonjour Chai reach out to noteworthy, interesting, prominent Canadian Jews to share their thoughts, stories and memories of Passover. This is the fourth annual Great Canadian Seder, featuring political musings on national borders, Donald Trump and Israeli hostages; nostalgia for a bygone Canada; and one very unique love letter to Moses.

Plus, to kick things off, we're sitting down with the new hosts of this soon-to-be-rebranded podcast, Rabbi Matthew Leibl and Yedida Eisenstat,. Stay tuned later this month for the launch of Not in Heaven, a podcast discussing the future of Jewish communal life, right in this same podcast feed.

In this year's seder, you'll hear from:

• Jonathan Rothman, staff reporter at The CJN
• Jacob Samuel, comedian
• Diane Flacks, actor and writer
• Mike Wilner, sports columnist and broadcaster
• Maya Ben David, performance artist
• Rabbi Susan Tendler, Beth Tikvah Congregation
• Talia Schlanger, singer and radio host
• Rabbi Sean Gorman, executive director of Mercaz
• Gary Topp, countercultural promoter
• Bryan Borzykowski, chair of The CJN board

Credits

• Hosts: Avi Finegold and Phoebe Maltz Bovy (@BovyMaltz)
• Production team: Zachary Judah Kauffman (editor), Michael Fraiman (producer)
• Music: Socalled

Support The CJN

• Subscribe to the Bonjour Chai Substack
• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to Bonjour Chai (Not sure how? Click here)