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If you can’t keep track of what day it is today, here’s a chance to make it memorable: make a donation to The Canadian Jewish News, and you’ll get a tax receipt for 2023. It also gets you on the delivery list for a reimagined quarterly magazine, starting in April. It’s the best way to support Bonjour Chai and The CJN.
Euphemistic Russio-Hungarians: Phoebe Maltz Bovy on the old roots of Gen Z confusion about Jewish identity
“Born Bettye Naomi Goldstein on February 4, 1921, in Peoria, Illinois, both of her parents were immigrants. Her Russian father Harry worked as a jeweler, and her Hungarian mother Miriam was a journalist who gave up the profession to start a family.”
This passage, from a Smithsonian magazine 2021 biographical essay about Betty Friedan, has stuck with me. Which is a bit random because it has nothing to do with my reason for being there in the first place. I was reading up on the author of the 1963 feminist classic The Feminine Mystique, for reasons entirely unrelated to The Canadian Jewish News, and could not get over this essay not mentioning that Friedan was Jewish. Imagine explaining, in detail, the whiteness of Friedan’s feminism, but also how it emerged from her understandings of the civil rights movement, and just generally focusing on the intersectionality of it all, and, again, not mentioning that she was a Jewish lady…
What’s the deal with dissent? Are mainstream Canadian Jews reconsidering their full-throated support for the Israeli war effort?
Recently, a video from the Toronto Eaton Centre depicted a heated exchange between an individual and one of about 150 pro-Palestinian protesters chanting slogans in front of the Zara clothing store. The clip shows police keeping apart the protestors and the person filming; trying to keep the situation calm in the midst of the bustling shopping season around them.
Meanwhile in Israel, the IDF announced the mistaken killing of three hostages who managed to escape captivity. The next night, families of hostages still held by Hamas and supporters rallied in Tel Aviv chanting the slogan ‘Now’. They meant that now is the moment to re-evaluate, to pause the violence and prioritize negotiations.
In the immediate aftermath of the Oct. 7 attack, many Jews and other Israel sympathizers felt the need to put aside political differences and unite behind the Israeli government. Two-and-a-half-months later, is that still the case? As pro-ceasefire protests step farther into public space at busy malls abroad, and Israelis call for a new approach to the war at home, do Canadian Jews feel permission to break ranks with the Israeli government? Avi Finegold and Phoebe Maltz Bovy wrap up 2023 breaking down everything you have to know about the current moment.
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