This weekend, starting on Dec. 12, thousands of Jewish teens from nearly 70 countries, including Canada, will be participating in BBYO’s annual #GlobalShabbat weekend, featuring dances, Havdalah services and other meaningful Jewish events in between. These BBYO high schoolers can thank Vancouver student Levi Moskovitz for helping raise a lot of the money to pay for it.

Moskovitz, a Grade 12 King David High School student with a passion for finance, is halfway through his term serving as BBYO International’s treasurer. Elected in February, he’s the sole Canadian teen on the current leadership board of the century-old Jewish youth organization. As treasurer, a title known as Grand Aleph Gizbor, Moskovitz has many duties—among them, overseeing a global fundraising blitz last week, called #GivingBBYODay, where they raised $1.6 million in a single day.

But Moskovitz, 17, is equally proud of his success revitalizing BBYO chapters here in Canada and attracting hundreds of new teens to find community and a safe space after Oct. 7.

On today’s episode of The CJN’s North Star podcast, we hear from Levi Moskovitz in Vancouver to hear why BBYO is sort of a family business. His father, Rabbi Dan Moskovitz, himself a former BBYO international leader, also joins, and we’ll hear from BBYO’s regional director in Winnipeg, Jonah Posner.

Related links

• Read more about why Levi Moskovitz was nominated this fall as one of The CJN’s Chai Achievers

.

• Learn more about BBYO’s Canadian activities, including in the Vancouver area and Winnipeg's Global Shabbat Dec. 12.

• Discover when this Ontario teen was elected president of the international B’nai Brith Girls organization, in The CJN, from 2014.

Credits

• Host and writer:

Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)

• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music:

Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN

(+ get a charitable tax receipt)

• Subscribe to North Star

(Not sure how?

Click here)

Toronto police, investigating the suspected hate-motivated theft of mezuzahs from a seniors apartment complex over the weekend, now tell The CJN they have raised their original count of 20 cases to approximately 30.

But community leaders—including rabbis, political offices and some tenants—believe the true number is significantly higher, anywhere from 60 to 110. Police acknowledge their count is probably low, but they need the victims to report the crime before they can confirm it.

Beginning Sunday, Toronto police’s hate crime unit and other officers combed through the 14-storey West Don Apartment complex in the Jewish area of Bathurst and Steeles. By the following afternoon, volunteers from the Jewish Russian Community Centre and Unapologetically Jewish replaced more than 60 mezuzahs.

But the disturbing crime spree has left many residents shaken, including one who reportedly asked if the mezuzah could be installed inside their apartment, not outside, to avoid being targeted. The City of Toronto has stationed personnel from the public housing division’s Community Safety Unit at the seniors building for the next couple of weeks “for safety and security support”.

On today’s episode of The CJN’s North Star podcast, host Ellin Bessner brings you her on-the-scene report, where you’ll hear from tenants including Lev Zaidel and Shoshana Pellman, and also from some of the volunteers, including local Rabbi Yirmi Cohen, Rabbi Mendel Zaltzman and Rabbi Shmuel Neft, who showed up to help.

Related links

• Read more about how the Jewish community came together to help the seniors who were victims of the mezuzah theft, in

The CJN

.

• Learn more about how to

donate mezuzahs

through the Jewish Russian Community Centre.

• This Toronto condo complex had 7 mezuzahs stolen in 2017. What did the victims say? In

The CJN

.

Credits

• Host and writer:

Ellin Bessner ( @ebessner)

• Production team:

Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)

• Music:

Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN

(+ get a charitable tax receipt)

• Subscribe to North Star

(Not sure how?

Click here )

Over the last two weeks, the Polish government has been doubling down on its official narrative that, during the Second World War, its own people were the victims of the Germans—not responsible for collaborating in the murder of millions of Jews during the Holocaust.

That policy has been law since 2018, and has led to strained relations with Israel, Holocaust survivors and academic scholars, including award-winning Canadian professor Jan Grabowski. Grabowski, a historian at the University of Ottawa and the child of a Warsaw Holocaust survivor, has spent years researching how ordinary Poles denounced, betrayed and helped carry out the murder of 200,000 Jews—mostly without any prodding from the Nazis.

That’s why Grabowski, who has been sued by the Polish state over this issue, has been closely monitoring the recent flare-ups involving Poland, Israel, and even Germany, which began at the end of November.

It started on Nov. 19, when the new U.S. ambassador to Poland—an observant American Jew who used to run the Jerusalem Post—told a startled Warsaw conference that it was “a grotesque falsehood” and a “historic injustice” to blame Poland for Holocaust crimes committed by others.

After that, a popular far-right member of the Polish parliament stood outside the gates of Auschwitz to oppose the country’s plan to adopt a new antisemitism strategy. He called for Jews to be kicked out of the country.

Then, on Nov. 25, the Israeli ambassador to Poland was summoned over a social media post from Yad Vashem.

On today’s episode of The CJN’s flagship news podcast North Star, Grabowski joins to unpack why his native country continues distorting the truth about its past involvement in the Holocaust, and how Polish officials are dismissing the historical records he’s unearthed, which tell a more nuanced story of who killed Poland’s Jews.

Related links

• Example

Credits

• Host and writer:

Ellin Bessner (

@ebessner

)

• Production team:

Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)

• Music:

Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN

(+ get a charitable tax receipt)

• Subscribe to North Star

(Not sure how?

Click here

)