Chai Montreal (Chai Montreal)

On today's episode, we discuss updates on Iran with Alexander Grinberg, researcher at the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security.

An expert on Iran, Alexander delves into the past and current relationship between Iran and Israel, and provides insight into the Iranian regime. We also speak about the Nuclear Deal, and the resolution proposed by the United Kingdom, France and Germany, and backed by the United States, highlighting concerns regarding the insufficient substantive cooperation by Iran with the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Lisa speak with Alexander in English for the first part of the episode, and Sarah asks questions in French in the second half.

On this episode of Chai Montreal, we speak with Ariela Freedman, the author of Léa: A Novel. Ariela, who teaches literature at Concordia's Liberal Arts College, discusses what motivated her to write about and share Léa’s story, and the amazing influence Léa had on her community.

Lisa and Ariela discuss Ariela's newest book, a novel based on the life of Léa Roback, a Jewish union organiser, activist and feminist. Born in 1903 in Montreal, Lea grew up in Beauport, a village outside of Quebec city, where she grew up in the only Jewish family in town. The Roback family returned to Montreal when Léa was an early teenager, and a few years later Lea began working in the city’s factories. After a few years studying and living in Europe, Léa returned to Montreal and became an active advocate for social justice and human rights, which continued for the majority of her life.

We love celebrating and highlighting the stories of strong Jewish women, and Léa Roback is a name to remember.

"Look out the window. The sky’s almost covered.
Some grayish white clouds, some almost black,
but between them you can see a bit of blue.
I focus on the blue." - Léa Roback

On today’s podcast episode, Lisa speaks with Davyn Ryall (Director) and Michael Aronovitch (Actor) of Act’s to Grind Theatre’s latest production at Mainline Theatre: Cherry Docs. 

Written by David Gow and first appearing on the stage in 1998, the play is about a Jewish legal aid worker who has been assigned to defend a neo-Nazi who has been accused of a racially motivated murder. A play that is as pertinent today as it was when it was first produced.

In this episode, Lisa speaks with James McAuley, former Paris correspondent and current Global Opinions contributing columnist at The Washington Post, and author of The House of Fragile Things: Jewish Art Collectors and the Fall of France. The House of Fragile Things is the collective biography of four prominent Jewish families in France between 1870 until the Second World War: the Camondos, the Rothschilds, the Ephrussis, and the Cahens d'Anvers. The families all gave bequests to the state of France in the form of a private house museum and/ or large collections of French art (mainly of French 18th Century Art) that they collected over many years. 

The fascinating and evocative book is an important work to commemorate these families and a part of Jewish history that shouldn't be forgotten. 

In his book, James brings to life the stories of some of Paris’s most prominent Jewish families before WWII so that we remember their lives and contributions to their country – despite their country’s failures to live up to the assertions of the famous French motto - Liberté, égalité, fraternité.

On this episode, Lisa speaks with Eda Holmes, Artistic and Executive Director of Centaur Theatre, and director of Centaur’s newest production, Sexual Misconduct of the Middle Classes. The play was written by acclaimed Canadian playwright Hannah Moscovitch, for which she won the 2021 Governor General’s Award for English-language drama. During the interview, we’ll hear about Eda’s reasons for choosing Hannah Moscovitch’s newest play and the production process.

We’ll also hear about Eda’s vision to bridge the gap between the francophone and anglophone theatre communities in Montreal.

In this episode, award-winning author Weina Dai Randel discusses her newest historical fiction novel, The Last Rose of Shanghai (National Jewish Book Awards Finalist). Set in Shanghai in 1940, The Last Rose of Shanghai tells the story of Ernest Reismann, a Jewish refugee from Germany, and Aiyi Shao, a young Chinese heiress and nightclub owner. 

Weina discusses her research process to accurately describe 1940s Shanghai and the situation of Jewish refugees fleeing persecution from Europe who were able to seek refuge in the city and the Chinese inhabitants living living under the Japanese occupation. 

Join us this episode as we discover the first main stage play at Centaur Theatre in 2022, A Play for the Living in the Time of Extinction. Lisa chats with Rose Plotek, Associate Artist of Centaur Theatre and the director of A Play for the Living in the Time of Extinction. Written by Miranda Rose Hall and starring award-winning actor Warona Setshwaelo, the play features the character of Naomi, a dramaturg confronting impending climate disaster who is having a conversation about life with the audience.

Visit Centaur Theatre's website for more details about the play and to buy tickets.

Details for Centaur Theatre’s Saturday Salon with playwright Miranda Rose Hall can be found here.

Welcome back to Chai Montreal: The Podcast. After a brief hiatus, we’re excited to be back and continue to share important stories from our community.

On this International Women’s Day, we wanted to speak with an inspirational woman who is working hard to make our world, and more specifically, our planet, a better place to live. Our guest on today's episode is Naomi Scherer, an Italian living in France, she recently made some big life changes to live life more ecologically correct. Naomi works in business development at Circouleur, France’s first and only recycling paint company. Circouleur’s business model of saving and recycling paint that other companies send to the incinerator is like what Naomi has done in her own home renovation – saving materials and items that would have been thrown away and giving them a second life. All while reducing the impact on the environment. You can follow Naomi's eco-renovation journey on Instagram at @maison_circulaire.

At Chai Montreal, our aim is to celebrate Jewish stories and we’re glad we can bring attention to stories of strong Jewish women like Naomi who use their passion to make a positive impact. Hearing her talk about how her Jewish grandparents' history of resilience and drive is built into her DNA is truly inspiring.

Do you know the Jewish history behind International Women’s Day? National Women’s Day, the precursor to International Women’s Day, was established in New York City by Theresa Serber Malkiel. Malkiel was the head of the Woman’s National Committee of the Socialist Party of America and created the first day celebrating women in 1909. Born in 1874 into a Jewish family, she and her family fled persecution in the Russian Empire (in what is now Ukraine) to the US. An American labour activist, suffragette and educator, Malkiel dedicated her life to the liberation of women.

In the spirit of Malkiel, and all of us strong Jewish women, Chai Montreal wishes you a happy International Woman’s Day!

In this episode, we speak with Dr. Dov Maimon, Senior Fellow at the Jewish People Policy Institute, about the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Is the current war in Ukraine history repeating itself? Is this the beginning of a new era in Europe of a new type of imperialism? We discuss the implications for Europe, Israel and the Jews of Ukraine and Russia. Dr. Dov Maimon gives his view on how Israel should prepare for the arrival of thousands of people immigrating to Israel as a result of the invasion, and what communities around the world are doing to help all Ukrainians.

In the last few minutes of the episode, we speak with Dr. Dov Maimon in French, discussing Israel's preparedness for Ukrainian immigrants and the responsibility of Jews around the world to assist Ukrainians in need.

In this episode, Lisa speaks with author Ann Lambert about her murder mystery series and the themes intertwining her three books, The Birds that Stay, the Dogs of Winter and Whale Fall, published by Second Story Press.

If you’re from Montreal, it’s not too often that you read a description of your hometown as the backdrop of a novel, so it’s a treat to be able to envision our city as we follow the characters of Ann Lambert’s series.

As you’ll hear in the interview, we don’t want to give too much of the plot away, so you’ll have to read The Birds that Stay to find out why there’s a Chai necklace on the cover.

You can meet Ann Lambert and get your signed copy of her books at Paragraphe Bookstore on McGill College in Montreal on October 23, 2022 at 2pm.

On this episode, Lisa speaks with Guy Rex Rodgers, Founder of the English Language Arts Network (ELAN) and director of What We Choose to Remember.

Bill 101, the Charter of the French Language became law in 1977, limiting who could attend English school in Quebec and how much English could appear on store signs, amongst other limitations the bill set. Bill 101 was introduced in the backdrop of decades of French-English tensions.

What We Choose to Remember, the new documentary film by director Guy Rex Rodgers, focuses on the impact that Quebec history has on the anglophone community of the province today. Based on 20 hours of interviews, What We Choose to Remember presents the interviewees’ stories in their historical and political context. The interviewees consist of a group of diverse members of the Montreal anglophone community, including those with Jewish, Italian, Portuguese, Lebanese, Vietnamese and Chinese heritages. What they have in common is that they are all immigrants or descendants of immigrants searching for a better, more peaceful life for themselves and their families.

What We Choose to Remember is showing in person at the Hudson Film Festival on May 13, 2022 and online until May 22, 2022.

We're celebrating Chai Montreal: The Podcast's 10th episode this week! We're also celebrating Shavuot, the holiday that, starting in Biblical times, marked the wheat harvest in the Land of Israel.

Shavuot is one of many Jewish holidays that are intrinsically linked to the land of Israel. Our guest this week is Joel Haber, a licenced tour guide in Israel and food guru. Joel talks to Lisa about the tradition of eating dairy on Shavuot, and the different types of foods eaten in Israel that were brought by various communities when they made aliya, as well as some newer traditions.

Joel is a food researcher and writer and contributor to publications such as The Nosher and has a blog Taste of Jewish Culture. He is also a licenced tour guide in Israel (don't miss his wonderful tour of Shuk Machaneh Yehudah in Jerusalem!). Join us as we discover some delicious dairy foods, both sweet and savoury, from various Jewish communities in Israel.

On today’s episode of Chai Montreal: The Podcast, we speak with co-creator and showrunner Jennifer Podemski and executive producer Christina Fon, of the limited series Little Bird, premiering on APTN and Crave on Friday, May 26.

Little Bird is a six part limited series that follows Bezhig Little Bird, played by Darla Contois, taken from her family at the age of 5 on the Long Pine Reserve in Saskatchewan and adopted and raised by a Jewish family in Montreal. Her mother, Golda Rosenblum, played by Lisa Edelstein, didn’t know the circumstances surrounding her adoptive daughter’s removal from her birth family. Now in her 20s, Bezhig, or Esther as she’s now known, embarks on a journey to the Canadian prairies to trace her roots. She discovers that her forcible removal from her parents was part of what was later coined as ‘the Sixties Scoop’.

Between 1951 and 1984, an estimated 20,000 or more First Nations, Métis and Inuit infants and children were taken from their families by child welfare authorities and placed for adoption in mostly non-Indigenous households, mostly out of province, or out of the country. The mass removal of Indigenous children from their homes, supported by government policies, later became known as the Sixties Scoop.

Little Bird explores universal themes of resilience in the face of trauma and loss.the documentary explores the connections between the ground-breaking movement for Indigenous narrative sovereignty and the impact of the child welfare system as experienced through the Little Bird series’ Indigenous creatives, crew and Sixties Scoop advisors.

In this episode, we speak with Daniel Patt, a software engineer at Google and founder of From Numbers to Names, an artificial intelligence platform that helps Holocaust descendants discover photos of their loved ones, and help identify the millions of unidentified faces in Holocaust photo and video archives.

Daniel explains his inspiration to create From Numbers to Names and the matching success stories only a week into the platform being available to the public. Daniel also discusses the impact this meaningful project has had on his own family and the response he's received from the Jewish community.

In this episode of Chai Montreal: The Podcast, Lisa speaks with Alice Abracen, the playwright of The Covenant, playing at the Segal Centre in Montreal from November 13 to December 3, 2022. Throughout the interview, we discover what inspired Alice to write the play and the research she undertook to bring the story of the artistic acts of protests of those imprisoned in Theresienstadt to the stage.

The story of The Covenant is a story of horror, antisemitism and persecution, but it’s also a story of resistance, resilience, and community. It’s a story based on the past, but one that is pertinent to the present and important to remember for the future.

On today’s episode, we speak with Roberta Cremoncini, Director of The Estorick Collection located in Islington, London. The Estorick Collection began as a private collection by Eric Estorick, an American Sociology professor and the son of Russian Jewish immigrants, and his wife Salome Dessau, who escaped Germany in 1932 and settled in England, where she studied art and became a textile designer. Roberta will explain the origins of the collection, the artists featured in the collection, and the current exhibition.

In the last few minutes of the interview, Sarah speaks with Roberta in Italian about the popularity of Modern Italian Art in Italy, and her interests in this period of art.

Keep listening until the end of the episode, to hear the amazing story of how Eric Estorick, founder of The Estorick Collection, helped save over 1000 Torah scrolls from Czechoslovakia in the 1960s.

Chag Purim Sameach! 

For our special Purim episode, we chat with Dana Cappel from Beit Issie Shapiro, Israel’s leading developer and provider of innovative therapies and state of the art services for children and adults with disabilities. Dana discusses Beit Issie Shapiro’s collaboration with students from the Holon Institute of Technology to create DIY costumes for children who use mobility apparatuses.

For more details and to see the DIY costume instructions, see links below:

Website: https://en.beitissie.org.il/making-purim-costume-dreams-come-true-for-kids-with-disabilities-across-the-globe/

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/beitissieshapiro0/videos

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/beit.issie/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/beitissie/?hl=en

In today’s episode Omree Wechsler, Senior researcher for cyber policies and strategies at the Yuval Ne’eman Workshop for Science, Technology, and Security at Tel Aviv University, and an expert in cyber security policy, discusses how cyber warfare is being used in the current military invasion of Ukraine. He explains the types of cyber attacks attributed to Russia and launched against Ukraine as well as the emergence of “hacktivists” supporting Ukraine in cyberspace.

We discuss Israel’s role as a “Cyber Security Powerhouse” and its extensive and long-standing experience in cyber defense policies, and Omree provides some guidance on how governments and organisations can prepare and protect themselves against cyber attacks.

Omree's publication for Tel Aviv University is titled "What the Ukraine Crisis Means for Cyber Warfare".

An introduction to Chai Montreal: The Podcast

On this episode, Lisa catches up with Canadian Member of Parliament Anthony Housefather about Bill C-250, the Private Members’ Bill proposed to amend the Canadian Criminal Code to prohibit statements, other than in a private conversation, that willfully promote antisemitism by condoning, denying or downplaying the Holocaust.

MP Housefather also discusses other measures taken by the Canadian Government to combat antisemitism, his role as the President of the Canada Israel Friendship Group, and the actions taken by the International Parliamentarians to Combat Antisemitism, a group of Canadian, American, British, Australian, New Zealand and Israeli elected officials, to hold social media companies accountable for monitoring hate speech and dis-information.

From 1976 to 1983, a campaign was waged by Argentina’s military dictatorship against suspected left-wing political opponents. It is estimated that between 10,000 and 30,000 individuals were murdered, and many of them were disappeared, meaning that they were taken by authorities and never seen or heard from again.

When the military junta filled the presidency of Argentina in March 1976, it closed the National Congress, imposed censorship, banned trade unions and brought state and municipal governments under military control. A violent campaign against suspected dissidents also commenced.

In this episode, Lisa speaks with Marc Raboy, Professor Emeritus at McGill University, and author of Looking for Alicia: The Unfinished Life an Argentine Rebel. Marc discusses his journey researching his family connection to Argentina that led him to discover the story of Alicia Raboy, a young Jewish journalist from the Argentinian city of Mendoza. Alicia was a member of the Monteneros, a left-wing organization that opposed the military junta.

The 17th annual Festival du Cinéma Israélien de Montréal, presented by the Communité Sépharade Unifiée du Québec, occurs this year from May 18 to June 1 2022 and brings 25 films to Montreal viewers.

Lisa and Sarah speak with Chantal and Gérard Buzaglo, Co-Presidents of the Festival, about the diverse films being screened this year and the importance of showcasing diverse stories through Israeli film. Like the Festival, this episode is bilingual. Lisa speaks with Chantal in English in the first half, and Sarah and Gérard speak about the Festival in French in the second half.

This year the festival will be in a hybrid format, with most films available to be streamed online, along with several film screenings in person; a wonderful opportunity to stay up to date with the latest Israeli films.

For more details and to buy tickets, visit the Festival du Cinema Israelien de Montreal website.

For tickets to the Israeli documentaries screened as part of the Pre-Festival Literary Selection, visit the Blue Metropolis International Literary Festival website.