This week's abrupt resignation of Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland from cabinet has rocked the federal government. It happened the same day Sean Fraser, the minister of housing, infrastructure and communities, stepped down; both he and Freeland join a long and growing list of cabinet members and Liberal backbenchers either resigning their cabinet positions, deciding not to run again in the next election, or outright calling for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to step down.

They're not alone: all signs point to the federal Conservatives crushing the Liberals in next year's election. Multiple recent byelections, including the heavily Jewish Toronto-St. Paul's in midtown Toronto, have swung from red to blue in recent years. And it's against that backdrop that Hal Niedzviecki, the author and founder of the recently-in-the-news, now-defunct Broken Pencil magazine, posted on social media, "For the first time in my life I'll be voting Conservative."

One week after discussing the Israel-induced implosion at Broken Pencil on this very podcast, we invite Niedzviecki to discuss the changing political climate, how the progressive left is losing support, and his side of what happened at the indie publication he founded in 1995.

Credits

• Hosts: Avi Finegold and Phoebe Maltz Bovy (@BovyMaltz)
• Production team: Michael Fraiman (producer), Zachary Kauffman (editor)
• Music: Socalled

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This week, the New Israel Fund of Canada, JSpace Canada and Canadian Friends of Peace Now released a survey of 588 Jewish Canadians that aimed to figure out the community's relationship to Israel. In short: it's complicated.

The survey, managed by Leger, found that 94 percent of respondents agreed Israel "has the right to exist as a Jewish state"—yet only 51 percent self-identified as "Zionist". This startling contradiction could reveal how tarnished the brand of Zionism has become, regardless of Jewish Canadians' opinions on Israel itself, and dispels the myth of the Jewish community being monolithic about its opinions towards the Holy Land, its voting patterns and its values. Can Zionism be saved? Or should we all just ditch labels and talk about the issues?

To learn more about the key takeaways, we invited Ben Murane and Maytal Kowalski, the executive directors of the New Israel Fund of Canada and JSpace Canada, respectively, to come on Bonjour Chai and explain their motivations for commissioning the survey and how we can digest the data. Listen to that interview above.

After that, Avi and Phoebe dig into the anthology book On Being Jewish Now, which Phoebe had previously not read—then was called out for—and has since read every page of. Avi read it, too, and they dig into the politics of not paying Jewish writers for their work while purporting to support Jewish artists.

Credits

• Hosts: Avi Finegold and Phoebe Maltz Bovy (@BovyMaltz)
• Production team: Michael Fraiman (producer), Zachary Kauffman (editor)
• Music: Socalled

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The war between Israel and Hamas has claimed yet another casualty in the Canadian arts world: Broken Pencil, an independent magazine that has covered zine culture since 1995, has been shut down. Founder and publisher Hal Niedzviecki wrote on their website that "the values of the zine and small press community have shifted," adding that "the relentless pursuit of ideological purity and identity politics has overshadowed the core mission of Broken Pencil." He cited calls for his resignation, a petition for the publication to join the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement, and pushes to cover what's happening in Gaza as reasons for his eventual decision.

This leads to a few obvious questions. Does a Canadian publication that covers the zine world have a responsibility to focus on Gaza? Can people not hold complex views on creators and the things they create—or must everything we enjoy be ideologically syncronized?

Avi and Phoebe discuss on the latest episode of Bonjour Chai. And before that, they dig into the role of activism in literature, pressures faced by Jewish fiction writers and the efficacy of antisemitism summits. Do they do anything—and do we really need another one?

Credits

• Hosts: Avi Finegold and Phoebe Maltz Bovy (@BovyMaltz)
• Production team: Michael Fraiman (producer), Zachary Kauffman (editor)
• Music: Socalled

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Shortly after Anne Michaels won the Giller Prize, Canada's foremost literary fiction award, on Nov. 18, she posted a lengthy letter on social media. "I write in solidarity with the moral purpose of every writer bearing witness," she wrote. "I write because the dead can read. Every reader throughout the decades who has written and spoken to me, whose gaze has met mine on the page, has given me courage. And with every word I've spoken tonight, I want to give that same courage."

To which one peorson on Twitter replied: "My gawd, that's a pretentious way of saying nothing."

The implicit accusation is that Anne Michaels should have boycotted the Gillers, which awarded her a $100,000 prize, courtesy of the gala's main sponsor, Scotiabank. Scotiabank has come under heavy fire by the pro-Palestinian movement for its investments in Israel—as have the Gillers, by association—and now, too, has Anne Michaels.

After recently discussing the messy politics of the Giller controversy, we wanted to zoom out and take a broader look at the politicization of the Canadian arts landscape. How did our art and artistic institutions become so deeply political? When did we start demanding artists weigh in on geopolitics? And why don't we have more right-wing art to balance this out? Culture critic Lydia Perović, who writes the newsletter Long Play, joins Bonjour Chai to discuss.

Credits

• Hosts: Avi Finegold and Phoebe Maltz Bovy (@BovyMaltz)
• Production team: Michael Fraiman (producer), Zachary Kauffman (editor)
• Music: Socalled

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Recently, a Canadian women's magazine, Chatelaine, removed an article from the digital version of its website for including a photo of the author sporting a red triangle—which is only a subtle gesture if you didn't know that the red triangle is a symbol of Hamas. The author, a pro-Palestinian chef and activist in Nova Scotia, describes baking challah to connect with her Jewish heritage. But the ensuing political fallout across social media (and some traditional media, including this one) caused more headaches than the editorial staff at Chatelaine were likely anticipating.

The debacle exemplifies an ongoing shift in the culture-wars landscape: women shifting to progressive spaces, men shifting to conservative ones. (See: the re-election of Donald Trump.) But the cost of this broadstrokes realignment has ramifications on how political cultural spaces become, ranging from women's magazines to television, film and cuisine.

Here to discuss these issues is Shayna Weiss, associate director of the Schusterman Center for Israel Studies at Brandeis University. She joins Phoebe Maltz Bovy and Avi Finegold to discuss representation of women in Israeli culture and society, the evolution of cuisine as a cultural signifier, and the role of media in shaping perceptions of identity.

Credits

• Hosts: Avi Finegold and Phoebe Maltz Bovy (@BovyMaltz)
• Production team: Michael Fraiman (producer), Zachary Kauffman (editor)
• Music: Socalled

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This week, president-elect Donald Trump has confirmed several planned appointments for next year. Aside from numerous cabinet members was the incoming ambassador to Israel: Mike Huckabee, a Baptist minister and former governor of Arkansas. While there's no rule that American ambassadors have to be Jewish, it's unusual for a president to nominate one so evangelical in their Christian beliefs. Trump has promised Huckabee will bring "peace to the Middle East."

But if you ask the hosts of Bonjour Chai, they're skeptical. Huckabee exemplifies the Christian Zionist viewpoint of being intensely pro-Israel—not for the sake of Jews, but for the sake of bringing about the return of Jesus and, in turn, the death of Jews and Muslims alike while believers in Jesus ascend to heaven. With that in mind, should Jews be celebrating or worrying about Huckabee's appointment?

And before that, Avi and Phoebe break down the recent violence in Amsterdam that erupted in the wake of a soccer match between visiting Maccabi Tel Aviv and AFC Ajax.

Credits

• Hosts: Avi Finegold and Phoebe Maltz Bovy (@BovyMaltz)
• Production team: Michael Fraiman (producer), Zachary Kauffman (editor)
• Music: Socalled

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In the aftermath of Oct. 7, Canada's broadly left-wing literary community took aim at the Giller Prize, Canada's foremost award for fiction, for its title sponsorship coming from Scotiabank. The financial institution, they have argued, has millions of dollars invested in an Israeli arms dealer—leading to backlash from pro-Palestinian writers who began boycotting the Giller for taking $100,000 as prize money, withdrawing as entrants and judges.

The controversy has taken a lengthy, convoluted road since then, involving past winners speaking out critically of the Giller Prize; Elana Rabinovitch—the executive director of the prize and daughter of its founder—taking to traditional and social media to defend her organization's actions; and various half-measures by Scotiabank and Giller that have decreased (but not eliminated) their association with the Middle East conflict. Meanwhile, the competition is still going on, with a winner set to be announced on Nov. 18.

With Avi Finegold in Canada this week, he joins his Bonjour Chai co-host, Phoebe Maltz Bovy, in her living room to unpack this mess and discuss whether the criticism is legitimate or yet another example of antisemitism, framing big-money Jews as string-pulling villains.

They're joined by Michael Inzlicht, a professor of psychology at the University of Toronto and writer of the newsletter Speak Now Regret Later, who also happens to live in Phoebe's neighbourhood of Roncesvalles. Their community has seen a surge of pro-Palestinian signs in storefront windows over the past year, prompting the question: What do you do when controversial geopolitics come to your local coffee shop?

Credits

• Hosts: Avi Finegold and Phoebe Maltz Bovy (@BovyMaltz)
• Production team: Michael Fraiman (producer), Zachary Kauffman (editor)
• Music: Socalled

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With the U.S. election less than a week away, the hosts of Bonjour Chai are turning their attention south with a comprehensive pre-election primer. Pollsters tend to lump Jewish voters together in a bloc, but there are different priorities for Jewish communities across the United States—and Jewish residents of certain swing states, namely Pennsylvania, are seeing the brightest spotlight this year.

Besides, there are issues on the ballot beyond antisemitism and relations with Israel. Affordability, the economy and religious issues such as abortion rights all figure into Jewish voting patterns. Does Vice-President Kamala Harris's Jewish husband tip the scales? Do former president Donald Trump's Jewish daughter and son-in-law? How did Oct. 7 change things? Or does none of that matter in a presidential election that could be won more on vibes than facts?

To answer some of these questions, we're joined by William D. Adler, an associate professor at Northeastern Illinois University who specializes in American political development and the presidency.

Credits

• Hosts: Avi Finegold and Phoebe Maltz Bovy (@BovyMaltz)
• Production team: Michael Fraiman (producer), Zachary Kauffman (editor)
• Music: Socalled

Support The CJN

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