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There's a fact Zilka Joseph likes to toss out to prove how old the Bene Israel culture is: the community, native to the Indian subcontinent, spent centuries unaware of what Hanukkah was. That's because the first Bene Israel people arrived on the shores of modern-day India in 175 BCE, according to some estimates—almost a full decade before the Maccabees fought back against King Antiochus. Blending into the local culture, the Bene Israel people built their unique community without contacting outside Jews until centuries later.
Joseph tells this story, and others, in her new book of poetry, Sweet Malida: Memories of a Bene Israel Woman, published by Mayapple Press. A blend of historical lessons, personal stories and beautiful poems, Joseph weaves together a tapestry of life in India, connecting past and present, examining how her culture has stayed alive despite waves of migration, assimilation and an exodus to Israel shortly after the state's establishment.
Joseph discusses all this on the latest episode of Rivkush, The CJN's podcast spotlighting remarkable Jews of colour, hosted by Rivka Campbell.
Credits
Rivkush is hosted by Rivka Campbell. Michael Fraiman is the editor and prodcer. Our theme music is by Westside Gravy. The show is sponsored by the Canadian Race Relations Foundation and is a member of The CJN Podcast Network. Support the show by subscribing to this podcast or donating to The CJN.
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When Sarah Kolker returned to her hometown neighbourhood in Philadelphia as a young adult, she noticed a run-down park that she grew up around. She remembered how her mom wouldn't let her go to the park at all. But now, the artist and social justice advocate was inspired to help reimagine the public space entirely.
She joined in starting petitions, holding community gatherings, and meeting with politicians and block captains—and ultimately wound up painting a large, colourful mural in the park with her friend and neighbour. Today, with improved lighting and funding from the city, the park hosts festivals regularly and has become a renewed space for children and adults.
Kolker doesn't pretend like her art transformed the place on its own—but it was a key compotent to help galvanize, inspire and unite her hometown community.
It's similar to the work she does as the director of jkid4all, a program for Jewish families of colour in Philadelphia, which aims to foster a cohesive, welcoming, diverse Jewish community in the city. Kolker joins Rivkush, The CJN's podcast about inspiring Jews of colour, to discuss her work both inside and beyond her Jewish community.
Credits
Rivkush is hosted by Rivka Campbell. Michael Fraiman is the editor and prodcer. Our theme music is by Westside Gravy. The show is sponsored by the Canadian Race Relations Foundation and is a member of The CJN Podcast Network. Support the show by subscribing to this podcast or donating to The CJN.
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Fehlende Folgen?
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As an Orthodox Jewish woman of colour, Leah Finkelstein knows what it's like to feel like an outsider. Unfortunately, her kids know, too—like when one of them scored a record-breaking triple double for his yeshiva's basketball team, resulting in the school proudly celebrating the box score on an image on social media... with a photo of a different, white teammate. (She complained; they ended up taking it down—not even reposting it with her son's own face.)
Incidents like these, and those endured by her fellow Jews of colour, inspired her to create a new organization in 2023, Am Echad Inclusive Alliance. Based out of New Jersey, the group embraces diversity within the Orthodox community; as the founder, Finkelstein herself is the driving force, engaging new members by hosting communal Shabbat meals and even offering to accompany them to shul.
To discuss her goals and her views on how racism permeates the Orthodox world, Finkelstein joins Rivkush, The CJN's podcast about Jews of colour, for an in-depth conversation.
Credits
Rivkush is hosted by Rivka Campbell. Michael Fraiman is the editor and prodcer. Our theme music is by Westside Gravy. The show is sponsored by the Canadian Race Relations Foundation and is a member of The CJN Podcast Network. Support the show by subscribing to this podcast or donating to The CJN.
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Devyani Saltzman was born into the arts and culture world, the daughter of two filmmakers—one Jewish, one Indian. Raised on production sets, she went on to write dozens of articles for newspapers and magazines, become the founding curator at Toronto's Luminato festival and work at numerous arts institutions, including the Art Gallery of Ontario, where she was the director of public programming from 2018 to 2021.
Her current goal is to change the behind-the-scenes makeup of the arts world. Despite how diverse the industry seems from audiences' perspectives, she says, boards are still largely white and many institutions run in an old-fashioned, top-down way. Even when people of colour are included, it's easy to feel like a token gesture.
In this episode of Rivkush, The CJN's podcast featuring Jews of colour, Saltzman sits down with Rivkush for an in-depth conversation about her career, the state of the arts industry and how things can change for the better.
Credits
Rivkush is hosted by Rivka Campbell. Michael Fraiman is the editor and prodcer. Our theme music is by Westside Gravy. The show is sponsored by the Canadian Race Relations Foundation and is a member of The CJN Podcast Network. Support the show by subscribing to this podcast or donating to The CJN.
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As the descendent of Holocaust and residential school survivors, Tamara Podemski understands generational trauma better than most. She grew up hearing those stories and internalizing those struggles, and now carries these themes in her work as an actress and singer—along with her personal experiences living in ethnic societies that didn't always accept her, including Jewish spaces.
Podemski joins Rivkush, our podcast featuring Jews of colour sitting down for in-depth conversations, to discuss her rocky upbringing in Jewish Toronto, her connection to traditional First Nations territories and her upcoming role in the second season of the hit FX series Reservation Dogs.
Credits
Rivkush is hosted by Rivka Campbell. Michael Fraiman is the editor and prodcer. Our theme music is by Westside Gravy. The show is sponsored by the Canadian Race Relations Foundation and is a member of The CJN Podcast Network. Support the show by subscribing to this podcast or donating to The CJN.
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When Chaya Lev converted to Judaism, she was determined to move to Israel. Later on, after surviving breast cancer, she decided to transform her dream into reality, making aliyah in 2016 and starting an Afro-inspired dance movement in the Middle East.
But after Hamas launched a lethal terror attack on Oct. 7, it changed her life. With rockets being fired and Israeli sirens blaring, she and her synagogue congregants grabbed their building's Torah scrolls and started running through the streets on Simchat Torah to safety—a scene she says she will never forget.
Now, weeks into a war with Hamas, and with Israel's image in the West shifting for the worse, Lev is speaking out to her thousands of social media followers, challenging the argument that Palestinians are "people of colour" in a fight against colonial Israel. She joins Rivkush, The CJN's podcast about Jews of colour, to describe what life has been like on the ground during this conflict.
Credits
Rivkush is hosted by Rivka Campbell. Michael Fraiman is the editor and prodcer. Our theme music is by Westside Gravy. The show is sponsored by the Canadian Race Relations Foundation and is a member of The CJN Podcast Network. Support the show by subscribing to this podcast or donating to The CJN.
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Sara Braun grew up as a Black Jewish woman in a small town in the Netherlands, which was, she says, exactly what most North Americans imagine: windmills stretching up from fields of tulips and delicious smells wafting from rustic kitchens. But that's where the picturesque scenes end. While her Blackness was more or less accepted—treated as exotic, though not demeaned—her Judaism was not. She downplayed her religious identity all through her school years... until she turned 18 and moved to New York City with just $400 in her pocket.
From there, she found herself embracing the Hasidic lifestyle, marrying a Jewish man and intuitively speaking Yiddish to her newborn children. She has since become a singer, motivational speaker and mother of five children, offering her story as one of inspiration for women looking to chase their dreams—even if that means taking leaps and making sacrifices.
She recounts her journeys, both geographical and spiritual, in a book released earlier this year, That Black Hasidic Lady. She sat down with Rivka Campbell for an extended interview on The CJN's podcast about fascinating Jews of colour, Rivkush.
Credits
Rivkush is hosted by Rivka Campbell. Michael Fraiman is the editor and prodcer. Our theme music is by Westside Gravy. The show is sponsored by the Canadian Race Relations Foundation and is a member of The CJN Podcast Network. Support the show by subscribing to this podcast or donating to The CJN.
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With the third largest Jewish Diaspora in the world, Canada has no shortage of communal organizations: B'nai Brith, the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center, plenty of Federations, cross-country campus Hillels—the list goes on. All of them, in some way, claim they are combatting antisemitism.
So do we really need another one?
Daniel Koren thinks so. After working at The CJN, B'nai Brith Canada and Hasbara Canada over the past decade, this May he founded Allied Voices for Israel, a campus organization that promotes Zionism by bringing together Jewish and non-Jewish students for trips to Israel, media fellowships and summer retreats. And, as he shares on this episode of Rivkush, the origin for the idea can be traced to his heritage as a Bukharan Jew whose own family traditions are a medley of Middle Eastern and Central Asian customs—nothing like the Ashkenormative standards that have come to define Jews, and to an extent Israel, in mainstream North American culture.
Credits
Rivkush is hosted by Rivka Campbell. Michael Fraiman is the editor and prodcer. Our theme music is by Westside Gravy. The show is sponsored by the Canadian Race Relations Foundation and is a member of The CJN Podcast Network. Support the show by subscribing to this podcast or donating to The CJN.
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One of Israel's most exciting rappers is Nissim Black, the Seattle-born Hasidic musician whose conversion story is as fascinating—and heartfelt—as his art. Born in Seattle to parents who themselves helped pioneer rap music, Black was always asking big questions and seeking genuine answers, but never found a meaningful connection until he found Judaism.
Now living in Israel with his wife and seven children, Black is on a mission to blend rap with his religion, and has emerged as one of the most successful in the scene. He's the subject of an upcoming HBO comedy series about his life, the face behind a whisky brand and an active podcaster. On Sept. 7, 2023, he will be headlining the campaign launch for the UJA of Greater Toronto—and in the lead-up, he sat down with Rivkush for an extensive interview about his journey and his music.
Credits
Rivkush is hosted by Rivka Campbell. Michael Fraiman is the editor and prodcer. Our theme music is by Westside Gravy. The show is sponsored by the Canadian Race Relations Foundation and is a member of The CJN Podcast Network. Support the show by subscribing to this podcast or donating to The CJN.
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Charly Wai Feldman is a woman of the world. Born in Montreal to a Jewish father and mother from Hong Kong, she lived in Jamaica and Vietnam before settling in the United Kingdom with her husband, himself of Indian descent (but grew up in Germany and Singapore). But while her nationality is an evolution, a central underpinning has always been her Jewish faith.
As she puts it in this episode of Rivkush, "The whole principle of learning how to exist as a diaspora and being able to exist as a diaspora really hit home for me, at a time when I was looking for that sense of belonging."
Today, Wai Feldman is a documentary filmmaker whose most recent work, Long Distance Swimmer: Sara Mardini, profiles the prominent Syrian refugee as found herself propelled to international stardom as an Olympic athlete and global ambassador for refugees. She spoke to Rivkush shortly after her film debuted at the Hot Docs film festival in Toronto.
Credits
Rivkush is hosted by Rivka Campbell. Michael Fraiman is the editor and prodcer. Our theme music is by Westside Gravy. The show is sponsored by the Canadian Race Relations Foundation and is a member of The CJN Podcast Network. Support the show by subscribing to this podcast or donating to The CJN.
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When Tamás Wormser, a documentary filmmaker from Montreal, first heard about a small community of Jewish Ugandans who live in a rural village, he knew he had to visit. He was struck by the poverty: no running water, no electricity, no cutlery. And of course, without television for entertainment, they turn to each other. They sing and dance.
Wormser was taken aback: this community, which he'd considered "poor" by Western standards, was in fact much richer than any other he'd witnessed in Europe or North America, with tighter social cohesion and a true dedication to the Jewish faith. Thus began the seven-year process of filming Shalom Putti, a documentary that screened at this year's Toronto Jewish Film Festival.
The film follows the community's journey to being officially recognized as Jews by the State of Israel. An Orthodox rabbi visits, agreeing to help them, leading to a process that takes years, scrutinizes their faith, exposes prejudices and examines the postcolonial effects of who decides what a "Jew" really is. Wormser joins the podcast to discuss.
Credits
Rivkush is hosted by Rivka Campbell. Michael Fraiman is the editor and prodcer. Our theme music is by Westside Gravy. The show is sponsored by the Canadian Race Relations Foundation and is a member of The CJN Podcast Network. Support the show by subscribing to this podcast or donating to The CJN.
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During the infamous Sixties Scoop, the Canadian government forcibly relocated tens of thousands of Indigenous children, separating them from their families and placing them in foster homes or adoptive households. Little Bird, a new show by Crave and APTN, which premiered May 26, follows one young woman who was taken from her reserve in Saskatchewan at age five and raised in a Jewish home in Montreal, having her name changed from Bezhig Little Bird to Esther Rosenblum. In her 20s, Bezhig returns to the Prairies to find the family she lost and discover the secrets of her past.
When the idea for Little Bird was pitched to filmmaker Jennifer Podemski, who has First Nations and Jewish heritage, she quickly agreed to take on the project. She joined The CJN podcast Rivkush for an in-depth conversation about the historical realities and lingering trauma that still affect Indigenous Canadians today, as well as the complicit role that some Jewish families played—and what we can do moving forward.
This episode was recorded live at Holy Blossom Temple on May 28, in partnership with the podcast's sponsor, the Canadian Race Relations Foundation. Read more about the partnership here.
Credits
Rivkush is hosted by Rivka Campbell. Michael Fraiman is the editor and prodcer. Our theme music is by Westside Gravy. The show is sponsored by the Canadian Race Relations Foundation and is a member of The CJN Podcast Network. Support the show by subscribing to this podcast or donating to The CJN.
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Loolwa Khazzoom has been advocating for the acknowledgement of Jewish multiculturalism since the 1990s. It's what led her to start the Jewish Multicultural Project, which works with Jewish institutions to provide resources for raising awareness about diverse Jews, as well as numerous other organizations that spotlight Jews from the Middle East and North Africa.
Despite all her years doing this work, she still encounters confusion, resistance and even denial that Jewish diversity is an issue. And when community leaders decide to do the work, they feel they have to construct artificial bridges to connect Azhkenazim with Jews of colour—instead of simply asking the diverse members of their own community.
In this wide-ranging interview, Khazzoom dives into her history of Jewish multicultural activism, as well as her experiences with self-healing, Iraqi Jewish music and educating people about what a diverse global Jewish community really looks like.
Learn more about her work, including her books, albums and articles, at khazzoom.com.
Credits
Rivkush is hosted by Rivka Campbell. Michael Fraiman is the editor and prodcer. Our theme music is by Westside Gravy. We're a member of The CJN Podcast Network. To learn how to support the show by subscribing to this podcast, please watch this video.
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Michael Twitty is a multiple award–winning chef, author and food historian who is proudly Black, gay and Jewish. His star has been rising for years, from his 2010 blog Afroculinaria to his James Beard Award–winning book The Cooking Gene to his latest work, Kosher Soul.
But his success hasn't helped him evade judgment or presumptions—mostly because of his Jewish identity. In this personal interview, Twitty sat down with Rivkush for a deep hour-long conversation about race, religion, politics and food, just days after a white nationalist killed 10 Black people and injured three others in a supermarket in Buffalo in May 2022.
Credits
Rivkush is hosted by Rivka Campbell. Michael Fraiman is the editor and prodcer. Our theme music is by Westside Gravy. We're a member of The CJN Podcast Network. To learn how to support the show by subscribing to this podcast, please watch this video.
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Last week, Joel Etienne made headlines following his clash with the Conservative Party of Canada. Etienne, who was running to lead the party, claimed he raised the requisite $300,000 and garnered 500 signatures, but was rejected by the party regardless. After initially filing for an appeal, he dropped it and resolved the matter privately, broadly throwing his support behind the party.
In this wide-ranging interview, Etienne talks about his political ambitions, as well as his careers in the media and law; his upbringing in Moncton as the son of a refugee; and his beliefs and thoughts about the future of Judaism in Canada.
Credits
Rivkush is hosted by Rivka Campbell. Michael Fraiman is the editor and prodcer. Our theme music is by Westside Gravy. We're a member of The CJN Podcast Network. To learn how to support the show by subscribing to this podcast, please watch this video.
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When Susannah Heschel was growing up, discussions about civil rights were part of her daily life. They were, in fact, unavoidable—her father, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, was one of the leading Jewish figures of the movement, who walked beside Martin Luther King Jr. on his famous Selma march.
But a lot has changed since then. Heschel, now a professor of Jewish studies at Dartmouth College, understands better than most how those deep connections between Black and Jewish communities in North America have shifted over the decades. Jews today cannot take for granted the actions of their community 50 years ago. She joins to discuss these ideas, as well as her father's legacy, the role of religion in civil rights and the evolution of German-Jewish thinking.
This episode was recorded live on Nov. 21, 2021, as part of Limmud Toronto.
Credits
Rivkush is hosted by Rivka Campbell. Michael Fraiman is the editor and prodcer. Our theme music is by Westside Gravy. We're a member of The CJN Podcast Network; find more great Jewish podcasts at thecjn.ca.
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If you ask Jared Jackson, founder of the American organization Jews in All Hues, he'll tell you white supremacy has seeped into mainstream North American Judaism. Jackson doesn't use "white supremacy" to refer to swastikas and white hoods, but rather how Jewish spaces are often uncomfortable for Jews of colour, with so much of the community discourse being steered by white-skinned Ashkenazi people.
Jackson joins today to discuss these ideas and explain how his organization is helping to change how race plays into the question of Jewish identity.
Relevant links
Learn about Jackson's organization at jewsinallhues.orgRead "An opportunity to confront white supremacy and create a Jewish, intersectional future" at forward.comCredits
Rivkush is hosted by Rivka Campbell. Michael Fraiman is the editor and prodcer. Our theme music is by Westside Gravy. We're a member of The CJN Podcast Network; find more great Jewish podcasts at thecjn.ca.
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J-Rob is a Montreal-based musician, poet, video game streamer and Black Jew. He doesn't fit into any single box—even his music, from track to track, sounds radically different. Balancing these multiple identities fuels his art, some of which he shares with us today.
Follow J-Rob on Instagram at @halfwhitefullblack.
Credits
Rivkush is hosted by Rivka Campbell. Michael Fraiman is the editor and prodcer. Our theme music is by Westside Gravy. We're a member of The CJN Podcast Network; find more great Jewish podcasts at thecjn.ca.
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At one point during David Ben Moshe's two years in prison, he saw a fellow inmate reading a strange religious book in a foreign language—which he later learned was Hebrew. At that moment, he discovered Judaism, beginning a process that would lead him to an Orthodox conversion, marrying an Israeli woman and raising kids in Israel.
At least, that was the plan. But when Ben Moshe tried to become an Israeli citizen, he was slowed down by one bureaucratic hurdle after another, sending him into an endless kafkaesque purgatory of paperwork, deadlines and outright racism.
Relevant links
Follow David on Twitter @realdbenmosheRead about his story on tabletmag.comCredits
Rivkush is hosted by Rivka Campbell. Michael Fraiman is the editor and prodcer. Our theme music is by Westside Gravy. We're a member of The CJN Podcast Network; find more great Jewish podcasts at thecjn.ca.
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The ongoing debate over what Jews "are"—a religion? A nationality? An ethnicity?—inevitably gets more complicated when considering the hundreds of thousands of Jews of colour living around the world. Nowhere is this question trickier than in Israel, where a plurality of Jews identify as Mizrahi or Sephardi.
Hen Mazzig, an acclaimed Israeli writer of Mizrahi descent, has thought often about how the perception of Jews shapes up against the reality. Jews have been persecuted for thousands of years for not being the right "race"—yet Jews are not a race, not when Jews of colour live at the intersection of Judaism and various other identities.
Mazzig joins today for an extensive interview about these ideas, how he came out as gay while serving in the Israeli army, and what the political situation for Mizrahi people is like in Israel. Follow him on Twitter @HenMazzig.
Credits
Rivkush is hosted by Rivka Campbell. Michael Fraiman is the editor and prodcer. Our theme music is by Westside Gravy. We're a member of The CJN Podcast Network; find more great Jewish podcasts at thecjn.ca.
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