Canada’s Jewish community is growing—but also becoming more diverse, more intermarried and older.

As the 2026 census gets underway this month, Canadian sociologist Rachel Margolis explains why filling it out—especially the long form questionnaire—matters, and what it will reveal about Jewish life in Canada today.

The census gathers data on religion, ethnic origin, languages spoken at home and household composition—information researchers use to track key demographic shifts.

According to Margolis, a sociology professor at Western University in London, the most recent census shows 83 per cent of Canadian Jews identify religiously as Jewish, down from 89 per cent two decades ago, while the share identifying as Jewish by ethnic origin only has risen to 17 per cent (from 11 per cent). She also finds that 50 per cent of couples in households with at least one Jewish partner are now interfaith—up from about 40 per cent 20 years ago.

Margolis expects the next census to show an even more diverse community, shaped in part by recent immigration from Israel following Oct. 7, as well as from Ukraine and Latin America.

On this episode of The CJN’s flagship North Star podcast, Margolis joins to talk up the new census and reveal more of her fresh data about what Jewish life looks like now.

Related links

• Learn more about Rachel Margolis’ research into the Jewish demographics of her adopted home in London, Ont.
• The 2021 Census showed Jewish population growing slightly but costly housing prices were pushing young families out of Toronto, in The CJN.
• Robert Brym analyzed what he learned about Canada’s Jewish community in the 2021 census, in The CJN .

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner ( @ebessner )
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Izzy Helenchilde (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer), Alicia Richler (editorial director)
• 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 )
• Watch our podcasts on YouTube.
• Help others find this podcast by leaving us a review for “North Star” on Apple Podcasts via your iPhone or iPad device, or with your Android. (Spotify allows only starred ratings but you can do that, too!)

Retired Toronto homicide inspector Hank Idsinga’s new memoir about the systemic problems inside Canada’s largest police force contains disturbing allegations about the force’s persistent in-house discrimination and racism, including antisemitism. He also spells out for the first time his own family’s Jewish and Holocaust roots – a history he’s kept private for decades, while he oversaw some of the most high profile and gruesome murder cases in recent Canadian history.

Idsinga insists he did speak up about his encounters with anti-Jewish bigots while he was still carrying a badge, long before he left the force in the fall of 2023, but to no avail. That’s why despite Toronto’s police chief and other officials now vowing to investigate his evidence, Idsinga holds out little hope of seeing changes anytime soon, be it about antisemitism, anti-Black racism or other problems.

And despite recent public examples of the force’s efforts to show solidarity with Jewish employees, including holding Hanukkah candle lighting ceremonies in the lobby of police headquarters, designing a regulation police kippah, appointing a new Jewish chaplain and a Jewish liaison committee, Idsinga calls all that “window dressing”.

The veteran detective also draws a link between a unnamed senior staff member who he personally heard using antisemitic slurs, more than once, to the force’s tepid response to the violence and hate crimes targeting Canada’s largest Jewish community since Oct. 7, 2023.

In today’s wide-ranging interview with The CJN’s North Star podcast host Ellin Bessner, Idsinga shares his own family’s Holocaust trauma that saw his grandfather murdered in a gas chamber and his mother and her siblings hidden in convents. He reveals why he wanted to be a Nazi hunter before he decided to go into policing.

Related stories

• Learn more about retired police inspector Hank Idsinga’s book The High Road , published this week by Simon and Schuster Canada.
• Read Hank Idsinga’s interviews about the 2017 Honey and Barry Sherman murders, in The CJN archives .
• Will the Sherman murders ever be solved? Watch our conversation from 2023 with reporter Kevin Donovan who wrote a book on the investigation which Idsinga’s division was in charge of.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner ( @ebessner )
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer), Alicia Richler (editorial director)
• 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 )
• Watch our podcasts on YouTube.
• Help others find this podcast by leaving us a review for “North Star” on Apple Podcasts via your iPhone or iPad device, or with your Android. (Spotify allows only starred ratings but you can do that, too!)

A new documentary is challenging assumptions about one of the most visible—and most misunderstood—traditions in Orthodox Jewish life.

Sheitel: Beauty in the Hidden, by Halifax-native director Lynda Medjuck Suissa, explores why many Orthodox Jewish women cover their hair after marriage—and why many say it reflects not oppression, but identity, faith and choice. (And, yes, also a more genuine relationship with their husbands in the bedroom.)

Medjuck Suissa is Modern Orthodox herself. She snagged interviews with 30 well-known Orthodox women from Canada, the U.S. and Israel, including “The Challah Mom” Anat Ishai; rebbetizins Nechama Dubrawsky of Toronto’s Yorkville Jewish Centre, Faygie Kaplan of Chabad of Flamingo, and Rivky Gansburg of Chabad on Bayview; Mindy Pollak, a former Montreal city councillor; and Toronto educator Adrienne Gold Davis of the organization Momentum.

On today’s episode of The CJN’s North Star podcast, director Lynda Medjuck Suissa joins to explain why her late sister inspired the new film, and how she hopes it will lead to understanding and tolerance.

Related stories

• Learn more about “Sheitel” the documentary and find upcoming screenings in Vancouver May 6, Manhattan May 11, Winnipeg May 15, and Toronto June 15 and 22.
• Read about Orthodox Jewish female singers performing “For Women Only” concerts, in The CJN.
• https://thecjn.ca/arts-culture/jessica-roda/ The CJN’s Phoebe Maltz Body on Jewish Orthodox fashion dilemmas, in The CJN .

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner ( @ebessner )
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer), Alicia Richler (editorial director)
• 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 )
• Watch our podcasts on YouTube.
• https://www.youtube.com/@TheCJN Help others find this podcast by leaving us a review for “North Star” on Apple Podcasts via your iPhone or iPad device, or with your Android. (Spotify allows only starred ratings but you can do that, too!)

During the Senate’s year-long study on antisemitism, released a week ago on April 21, Senator David Arnot admits to becoming deeply upset when learning some Canadian Jews want to leave the country because they no longer feel safe.

The study began in Dec. 2024. During the year, Arnot and his colleagues on the Standing Senate Committee on Human Rights heard 44 witnesses over seven meetings. They also received 36 written briefs. It wasn’t nearly as extensive a study as one done two years ago on Islamophobia, and the committee had until the end of 2026 to release its findings, but Arnot and his colleagues felt the “clear and present danger” of antisemitism was so serious, they wanted their recommendations for action to come out immediately.

“We’re not asking for the government to sort of dither around and think about it. There’s nothing more to think about. There’s a blueprint right now. Implement that blueprint with immediacy,” he says.

Aside from asking Canada to restore the now-cancelled position of the special envoy on antisemitism, and create a federal task force on antisemitism, Arnot—a former provincial court judge and longtime Chief of Saskatchewan’s Human Rights Commission—believes our education system has failed to produce informed citizens. As a result, he believes young people are more susceptible to misinformation they find online.

On today’s episode of The CJN’s North Star podcast, Arnot joins host Ellin Bessner to explain why he is convinced there’s no more time to waste to fix “this black mark on Canadian society.”

Related links

• Read the report’s findings and get Canadian Jewish leaders’ reactions, in The CJN .
• Watch the news conference where the Senators share their report’s findings, on April 21.
• Hear why Senator Leo Housakos was unhappy that fringe anti-Israel and anti-Zionist groups and witnesses were permitted to testify during the hearings, on The CJN’s “North Star” podcast from Jan. 2026.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner ( @ebessner )
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer), Alicia Richler (editorial director)
• 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 )
• Watch our podcasts on YouTube.
• Help others find this podcast by leaving us a review for “North Star” on Apple Podcasts via your iPhone or iPad device, or with your Android. (Spotify allows only starred ratings but you can do that, too!)

As federal Liberals celebrate their newfound majority government—aided by floor crossings and three recent by-election victories—Canadian Jews are no so elated.

On Monday, April 27, B’nai Brith Canada releases its annual audit of antisemitic incidents; community members expect the numbers will break new records, as they have in many recent years. Earlier this month, Jewish leaders asked for $100 million in federal support following a series of attacks on synagogues and institutions. This past weekend underscored the need, as a suspect attempted to enter a synagogue in Thornhill during services, and wound up assaulting a congregant on the sidewalk outside after being barred from the building.

While police have made some arrests and some courts have handed down long sentences in hate crime cases, frequent protests—some moving through Jewish neighbourhoods—continue unimpeded.

On the one year anniversary of Mark Carney’s election win, the question remains: are Jewish Canadians any safer than they were before?

On today’s "North Star" episode, The CJN’s political panel weighs in.

We’re joined by Dan Mader, a Toronto-based Conservative strategist with Loyalist Public Affairs; David Birnbaum, a former Liberal MNA in Quebec’s national assembly for the Montreal area; and Noah Tepperman, a former NDP riding president in Windsor.

Related links

• What our CJN Political insiders predicted for 2026, on The CJN’s Jan 5 North Star edition.
• Why NDP leader elect Avi Lewis is bad for Canada’s Jewish community, on The CJN’s North Star with guest Noah Tepperman, NDP insider.
• Is Canada’s new Bill C-9 Combatting Hate Act going to make things safer for the Jewish community? We break it down with MPs Roman Baber and Anthony Housefather in The CJN.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner ( @ebessner )
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer), Alicia Richler (editorial director)
• 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 )
• Watch our podcasts on YouTube.
• Help others find this podcast by leaving us a review for “North Star” on Apple Podcasts via your iPhone or iPad device, or with your Android. (Spotify allows only starred ratings but you can do that, too!)

For about a dozen years, the City of Toronto has displayed Israel’s flag each spring on a ceremonial courtesy pole to mark the Jewish State’s Independence Day. The annual event drew little attention—until the Oct. 7 war reshaped the context and protests have spilled onto local streets ever since.

Last fall, a Jewish advocacy group sought to block what would have been the first Palestinian flag raising at Toronto City Hall. The court challenge failed. But the escalating tensions prompted Toronto City Council, including Mayor Olivia Chow, to vote on March 26 to end all foreign flag raisings as of Dec. 1, in hopes of “lowering the temperature.” Chow had previously called the Israeli flag ceremony “divisive.”

Toronto now joins other municipalities stepping back from the practice, including Calgary and Mississauga, where a sudden ban adopted on Passover cancelled the planned Israeli flag raising there this week.

On this episode of The CJN’s North Star, host Ellin Bessner went to what may be Toronto’s final Israel flag ceremony—one marked by defiance and sadness, and a surprising absence because for the first time in two years there were no protesters.

Related stories

• Opinion: Are Israeli flag raising in Canada good or bad for the Jewish community, on The CJN’s Not In Heaven podcast.
• Tensions over Palestinian flag raising last November at Toronto City Hall, in The CJN .
• Check out the list of flags raised at the City of Toronto courtesy flagpole in 2026. Israel was the last one, so far.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner ( @ebessner )
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer), Alicia Richler (editorial director)
• 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 )
• Watch our podcasts on YouTube.
• Help others find this podcast by leaving us a review for “North Star” on Apple Podcasts via your iPhone or iPad device, or with your Android. (Spotify allows only starred ratings but you can do that, too!)

On Israel’s 78th birthday, Israelis are marking that moment during a very different reality—two years after the October 7 attack, and in the wake of a ceasefire from a widening regional conflict that includes the U.S., Iran, Hezbollah in Lebanon.

In 1948, the founders declared Israel’s independence with a manually typed paper invitation to a secret, hurried ceremony in a secure basement, with a sense of both triumph and fear. Modern Israel has a powerful army, but the country continues to sacrifice its young defenders, while Israelis have spent countless hours in recent months sheltering in their secure basements and safe rooms to hide from incoming enemy rockets and drones.

This Yom ha-Atzmaut, our guests say the Jewish State is both an idea fulfilled, and a story that is still unfolding.

On today’s episode of The CJN’s North Star podcast, host Ellin Bessner brings you her interviews with two guests who embody the story of Israel: Hadassa Kingstone, 89, who was an eye witness to the birth of her country, and David Matlow, The CJN’s “Treasure Trove” columnist.

• Follow David Matlow’s “Treasure Trove” columns about the history of Israel through his vast collection of Zionist and Herzl memorabilia, in The CJN .
• Our readers share their own memories of Israel on her recent 75th birthday, in The CJN from 2023 .
• Hear Israeli American writer Yossi Klein Halevi, who lives part time in British Columbia, speak for Israel’s 76th birthday on why Israelis are "still an enormously powerful people” after Oct. 7, on The CJN Daily .

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner ( @ebessner )
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer), Alicia Richler (editorial director)
• 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 )
• Watch our podcasts on YouTube.
• Help others find this podcast by leaving us a review for “North Star” on Apple Podcasts via your iPhone or iPad device, or with your Android. (Spotify allows only starred ratings but you can do that, too!)

In his new book, Out of the Sky: Heroism and Rebirth in Nazi Europe, Matti Friedman sets out to uncover the short life of Holocaust heroine Hannah Senesh and several of her comrades. It is the second book of late to revisit the story of the Hungarian-born Zionist who became a British-trained parachutist sent from Mandatory Palestine into Nazi-occupied Europe.

Friedman argues that after Senesh’s capture and execution in 1944, the young State of Israel helped shape her into a national icon because of a broader need for stories of heroism to inspire the next generation. His book is dedicated to the memories of two modern-day symbols of Jewish bravery after Oct. 7 whom Friedman knew personally: slain hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin, the young Nova Festival captive and Yuval Shoham, his friend who was an IDF tank corpsman and went searching for Hersh while on duty in Gaza before he, too, lost his life.

The book arrives ahead of Yom ha-Shoah, Yom ha-Zikaron—the memorial day for Israel’s war dead including victims of terrorism, which begins tonight—and Yom ha-Atzmaut, Israel’s Independence Day, which falls the day after.

On today’s episode of The CJN’s North Star podcast, host Ellin Bessner speaks with Matti Friedman about why, tragically, heroism is still being asked of the descendants of Senesh’s generation.

Related links

• Learn more about Matti’s Friedman and his new book “Out of the Sky: Heroism and Rebirth in Nazi Europe” by McClelland and Stewart Canada .
• Watch the new rap song about Hannah Senesh by Kosha Dillz, on YouTube .
• Hear Canadian author Douglas Century explain why he resisted Hannah Senesh’s life in his new book which came out in November 2025, called “Crash of the Heavens”, on The CJN’s North Star podcast.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner ( @ebessner )
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer), Alicia Richler (editorial director)
• 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 )
• Watch our podcasts on YouTube.
• Help others find this podcast by leaving us a review for “North Star” on Apple Podcasts via your iPhone or iPad device, or with your Android. (Spotify allows only starred ratings but you can do that, too!)