Episodios
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Bernie Farber helped create the Canadian Anti-Hate Network (CAHN) in 2018, and sat as its founding chair until shortly after Oct. 7, 2023. The organization—which investigates, publicizes and works with journalists to report on hateful far-right extremist groups—was infamously silent in the weeks following the Hamas slaughter and kidnapping of 1,200 people in Israel, which sparked waves of antisemitic acts across Canada. It was around that time that Farber quietly stepped down as chair. Amid the tension and silence, many wondered how correlated the two events were.
Now, in a candid conversation with his old friend (and fellow progressive Jew) Ralph Benmergui on Not That Kind of Rabbi, Farber opens up about the real reason why he left CAHN. Further on, he reflects on decades of work educating non-Jewish communities about antisemitism and traces how progressive Jews and Zionists—once embraced and even looked up to by other minority and community organizations—came to be challenged and excluded from left-wing circles.
Credits
Not That Kind of Rabbi is hosted by Ralph Benmergui and produced by Michael Fraiman. We’re a member of The CJN Podcast Network. To support The CJN and receive a charitable tax receipt, please consider a monthly donation by clicking here.
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In 2018, at a time when the faith beat in Canadian newspapers was steadily declining, John Longhurst made an unusual deal with the publisher of the Winnipeg Free Press. He wanted to help expand the paper's audience by reporting on religion, particularly within local communities: Mennonite, Indigenous, Catholic, Muslim, Jewish, whomever. The publisher thought it was a nice idea, but how would they get the money?
For Longhurst, the answer wasn't difficult. He went out and fundraised it.
Since then, after every other faith reporter in the country has retired, been fired or passed away, Longhurst—who is also a Winnipeg correspondent for The CJN—has found himself the last man standing in his field, his career kept afloat by annual crowdfunding campaigns. And on June 12, he is launching his new book, Can Robots Love God and Be Saved?, a collection of articles and essays he's written during his decades covering religion.
Longhurst joins Ralph Benmergui, himself a spiritual director, for a zoomed-out conversation about the state of religion in Canada today: what's changed over recent decades, what the data shows and how reporting on religion has evolved.
Credits
Not That Kind of Rabbi is hosted by Ralph Benmergui and produced by Michael Fraiman. We’re a member of The CJN Podcast Network. To support The CJN and receive a charitable tax receipt, please consider a monthly donation by clicking here.
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Rabbi Beni Wajnberg has worked in Brazil, Argentina, Singapore, New York, Tennessee, California, Montana and beyond. When it came down to settle down with his family and put down roots, he chose Hamilton, Ont., where he's now the spiritual leader at Beth Jacob Synagogue.
Throughout his travels, he's found that one thing connects all those far-flung places' Jewish communities: they're all Jews by choice. They take the time to invest in their community and actively live Jewish lifestyles. That, he says, is the difference between being a stakeholder in a synagogue, as opposed to simply paying dues and rarely going to shul. As he puts it: "Never pay dues."
Rabbi Wajnberg joins Ralph Benmergui to share his own spiritual journey, the lessons he's learned and what God means to him on the latest episode of Not That Kind of Rabbi.
Credits
Not That Kind of Rabbi is hosted by Ralph Benmergui and produced by Michael Fraiman. We’re a member of The CJN Podcast Network. To support The CJN and receive a charitable tax receipt, please consider a monthly donation by clicking here.
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Marsha Lederman is a catastrophizer. As the daughter of Holocaust survivors, the author and Globe and Mail columnist has gone through life worrying about everything that can go wrong, to the point that she wrote a book about things going wrong in her life. Kiss the Red Stairs, released August 2023, investigates the ramifications of intergenerational trauma as she navigates her own divorce while recalling her parents' stories of the Holocaust.
For Yom HaShoah 2024, Lederman joins Ralph Benmergui on Not That Kind of Rabbi, a podcast about personal lives and spiritual journeys, to share her story and explain why this solemn day of commemoration is actually a day she feels embraced by her community.
Credits
Not That Kind of Rabbi is hosted by Ralph Benmergui and produced by Michael Fraiman. We’re a member of The CJN Podcast Network. To support The CJN and receive a charitable tax receipt, please consider a monthly donation by clicking here.
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You may not think of keeping Shabbat as environmental activism—but Jonathan Schorsch does. The founder of the Green Sabbath Project is on a mission to tackle climate change by adapting the biblical Jewish practice into something universally good for our planet. After all, in the Venn diagram of environmentalism and observant Judaism, "Not driving one day a week" falls right in the middle.
For Earth Day, Schorsch joins Not That Kind of Rabbi from his base in Berlin to explain his movement and pitch anyone who cares about environmentalism, Jewish and non-Jewish, on adopting the classical idea of Shabbat by simply relaxing every Saturday without technology, consumerism or an ecological footprint. As his organization puts it, "Make one day every week an Earth Day."
Credits
Not That Kind of Rabbi is hosted by Ralph Benmergui and produced by Michael Fraiman. We’re a member of The CJN Podcast Network. To support The CJN and receive a charitable tax receipt, please consider a monthly donation by clicking here.
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Alan Zweig was on the road to becoming, like so many other midtown Toronto Jews, a lawyer. Instead, in his early 20s, he zigzagged off the course and wound up taking multiple lengthy trips to India, changing his perspective on life and work. He chose film school instead, propelling him into a decades-long documentary career that began all those years ago with semi-verité shorts made with his friends.
One of those friends was Ralph Benmergui. Now, ages after they first met, the pair reconnects to reflect on their shared origin story, spiritual journeys across the world, impending mortality and the next stage in both their careers: podcasting. Zweig will host a new one on the Canadaland network called The Worst, while Benmergui of course hosts his longstanding program, Not That Kind of Rabbi, here at The CJN.
Credits
Not That Kind of Rabbi is hosted by Ralph Benmergui and produced by Michael Fraiman. We’re a member of The CJN Podcast Network. To support The CJN and receive a charitable tax receipt, please consider a monthly donation by clicking here.
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Toby Lloyd didn't grow up religious. But the British Jewish author became fascinated with Orthodoxy—how different people, even in the same family, can interpret biblical texts as either literal or metaphorical. Wanting to tap into the meaning and effects of people's belief systems, as well as reinterpreting stories from the Torah and wrapping it in the guise of horror, Lloyd wrote his debut novel, Fervour, out March 19.
The story blends difficult family dynamics, a critique of religion and intergenerational Holocaust trauma, when a patriarchal grandfather survivor dies, sparking his adult children to suspect their own daughter of falling deep into Jewish mysticism and becoming a witch. To explain how and why he wrote the book, Lloyd joins Ralph Benmergui on Not That Kind of Rabbi for a conversation about writing and the role of religion in modern British Jewry.
Credits
Not That Kind of Rabbi is hosted by Ralph Benmergui and produced by Michael Fraiman. We’re a member of The CJN Podcast Network. To support The CJN and receive a charitable tax receipt, please consider a monthly donation by clicking here.
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Diane Flacks has always felt the power of Jewish guilt. But when when she decided she wanted a divorce, that guilt grew to a whole new level. She constantly questioned the process, even while she was going through it, thinking about whether it was the right move or not.
To process these thoughts and emotions, the theatre artist decided to transform this experience into her latest one-woman show, Guilt (A Love Story). Using humour and self-reflection, Flacks lays bare the story of what happened between her and her ex-wife, the impact of divorce on their kids and all the things she feels guilty about from a generational lens.
The show just finished its run at the Tarragon Theatre in Toronto, and is going to the Montreal's Centaur Theatre from Mar. 12-30 before heading to Winnipeg at the Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre from Apr. 3-20. Ahead of those tour dates, Flacks joins old friend Ralph Benmergui on Not That Kind of Rabbi, a show about personal journeys and spirituality, to describe the story behind the play and how Jews default to comedy to analyze life.
Credits
Not That Kind of Rabbi is hosted by Ralph Benmergui and produced by Michael Fraiman. We’re a member of The CJN Podcast Network. To support The CJN and receive a charitable tax receipt, please consider a monthly donation by clicking here.
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Last month, the flagship Yuk Yuk's location in downtown Toronto hosted a stand-up comedy fundraiser for Friends of the Israel Defense Forces. Predictably, anti-Israel protesters swarmed it. The club's founder and owner, Mark Breslin—who organized the event—tried to get in through a back entrance, only to find more protesters waiting there for him and his family. Through cries of "Baby killer" and "Genocidal maniacs", they entered, got the police riot squad called in, and the show went on as planned.
It's not the first time Breslin has encountered hatred because of his identity—which is, he says, more founded in tradition than religion.
Breslin went into depth about his upbringing and beliefs in an engrossing sit-down interview with his old friend Ralph Benmergui, at the Prosserman JCC on Feb. 13, as part of a series of live tapings of The CJN's podcast Not That Kind of Rabbi.
Credits
Not That Kind of Rabbi is hosted by Ralph Benmergui and produced by Michael Fraiman. We’re a member of The CJN Podcast Network. To support The CJN and receive a charitable tax receipt, please consider a monthly donation by clicking here.
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Rabbi Zelig Golden likes to describe Judaism as a religion of deep roots, interconnectivity, compassion and feminine divinity, reminding the world that Adam came from the adamah. It's this philosophy that inspired Wilderness Torah, an organization based in California that promotes "healing, belonging and resilience," in an attempt to reshape how Jews feel about their culture—and the planet.
But this is not eco-Judaism, or pantheism, or humanism. To better understand the philosophy, Rabbi Golden sits down with Ralph Benmergui for a deep conversation about earthly exile, Mother Nature and the panentheism inherent to his worldview.
Credits
Not That Kind of Rabbi is hosted by Ralph Benmergui and produced by Michael Fraiman. We’re a member of The CJN Podcast Network. To support The CJN and receive a charitable tax receipt, please consider a monthly donation by clicking here.
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The climate crisis is the fault of no single person or country, but rather a widespread ideology of materialism and overwhelming lack of compassion for the natural world. What's worse—the crisis is intensifying each year.
These are some of the themes espoused by Rabbi Yonatan Neril, the founder and director of the Interfaith Center for Sustainable Development in Jerusalem, and the author of the Eco Bible series of books, which offer spiritual commentary on the Torah. In his telling, we need a spiritual transformation to reconnect with the world and stop suppressing the issue to confront it with more force.
Ahead of Tu b’Shevat, and a few weeks after the United Nations' COP 28 climate conference, Not That Kind of Rabbi host Ralph Benmergui, who's working on a book about how climate as a spiritual crisis, sat down with Rabbi Neril to better understand the deep connection between spirituality, Judaism and our natural world—and where we go from here.
Credits
Not That Kind of Rabbi is hosted by Ralph Benmergui and produced by Michael Fraiman. We’re a member of The CJN Podcast Network. To support The CJN and receive a charitable tax receipt, please consider a monthly donation by clicking here.
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If you're feeling anxious and afraid, you should know: you're not alone. Tensions are high everywhere across the Jewish community right now as Hamas and Israel engage in a violent war with ramifications across the world. But instead of doom-scrolling social media, finding horrible images and hate-filled comments, it's important to find time to step back—far away from social media—and assess your own mental health.
The CJN and the Prosserman JCC held a live event on Oct. 17, 2023, to bring together three specialists in the field of psychology to help the community better cope with these difficult times. Spiritual counsellor and podcast host Ralph Benmergui sat down with Lynda Fishman, author of Repairing Rainbows, a social worker who specializes in trauma; and Dr. Barbara Landau, a recipient of the Order of Canada, who is a conflict mediator and the co-chair of the Canadian Association of Jews and Muslims, an organization that builds interfaith understanding and empathy.
More tools to help navigate these difficult times:
Read Lynda Fishman’s guide to help Canadian Jews support one another, especially anyone grievingListen to Deanne Matlow's 10 tips for how parents can discuss the Israel-Hamas war with their kids on The CJN DailyCredits
Not That Kind of Rabbi is hosted by Ralph Benmergui and produced by Michael Fraiman. We’re a member of The CJN Podcast Network. To support The CJN and receive a charitable tax receipt, please consider a monthly donation by clicking here.
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Welcome to the newest season of Not That Kind of Rabbi! Ralph's spiritual deep-dive podcast is back, now joining The CJN Podcast Network. After more than three years and 80 guests, we'll be focusing on Jewish Canadians, exploring the inner lives of public figures.
To kick things off, we're hosting a special live taping on Tuesday, October 17, 2023, at the Prosserman JCC in Toronto. Ralph will sit down with his old friend and Yuk Yuks founder Mark Breslin. Get tickets here.
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Many lifetimes ago I was a stand-up comic. There were a lot of great comics that started with me back then. Way funnier too. One was Lawrence Morgenstern. He loved the craft and put his heart and soul into it Lawrence passed away a little while ago . This time on NTKR I speak with his longtime partner Rosalynne Gelade as we swap stories about one very funny gentle giant.
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Two of the top three Jewish holidays are about to happen. Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah and the day of atonement, Yom Kippur. They are referred to as the days of awe. Or, if you're fasting on Kippur for 25 hours with no food, water, cars, cell phones or even sex, then for some it's the days of awww. Avrum and I will talk High Holidays and what they mean to us on this edition of Not That Kind of Rabbi. Dontae to keep us going at pateron.com/NTKR
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This time on Not That Kind of Rabbi we begin a new chapter by welcoming friend ad wise person, Avrum Rosensweig to the podcast. We'll talk about God, the journey to and away from that G word and why Avrum threw out his yellow suede shoes.
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This time on Not That Kind of Rabbi it's the Passover edition. I'm joined by one of Toronto's Rabbinic brightest lights. Rabbi Aaron Levy from Makom Creative Downtown Judaism. We talk freedom, slavery and what the heck the Passover meal (Seder) is really all about. We start by showing Charlton Heston (Moses) the door.
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Brian Fraser is many things. A Minister, organizational development wizard, runner and tying it all together, a jazz lover. We talk about the whole darn mess in a jazzy kinda way on this episode of Not That Kind of Rabbi.
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When I first saw Jeremy Hotz do stand-up, he looked nervous, very nervous. Turns out in the end he has extreme anxiety disorder, oh and he's very funny. After 30 years it's so great to reconnect.
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Lara Rae is a comedian. A very good one. Lara Rae is Trans and a comedian. Lara Rae is deeply spiritual, Trans and a comedian. She is also someone I have had the pleasure of knowing for a very long time. Thing is, it's been years since we've had a chance to come together. Well, the time has come. Listen and enjoy.
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