The e-mail came with a photo of an elderly man in a butcher’s coat next to the faded, black-and-white image of a tot. “At age 87, my father is re-launching his meat business — which for fifty years was a staple of the Jewish community in Canada,” Miriam Perl wrote to the Forward. “Suggested headline:…
As New York City health authorities and ultra-Orthodox groups clash over metzitzah b’peh, officials in other cities are making no effort to regulate the risky oral suction technique sometimes used during ritual circumcision. In fact, unlike in New York City, health authorities elsewhere often have no mandate to monitor the incidence of the herpes strain…
A 71-year-old rabbi in Toronto has been charged with indecent assault for allegedly sexually assaulting a student 40 years ago. Heshi Nussbaum appeared in court on Wednesday to face the charge, the Toronto Sun reported. Nussbaum allegedly sexually assaulted a 12-year-old boy at a “private religious school” that he taught at and during a summer…
“Since you contacted me, I’ve been thinking a lot more about Bialik,” David Rakoff told me when I interviewed him two years ago for a piece I was writing for The Jerusalem Report. He was referring to Bialik Hebrew Day School, the Labor Zionist day school in Toronto we both attended as children. It was…
Food plays an important role in Judaism and in the First Narayever community. Food brings people together, connects us, and is an important part of holiday traditions and life cycles. In 2006 the First Narayever Congregation launched the first Jewish Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program in Toronto in partnership with Everdale Organic Farm and Environmental…
Unless you live in Toronto, it’s difficult to grasp the cultural, commercial, and Jewish significance of Honest Ed’s. Opened in 1948 by Ed Mirvish — the American-born son of Lithuanian immigrants — the 160,000-square-foot discount emporium has become a kind of landmark for its casino-like exterior, mind-numbing array of goods, and retail showmanship epitomized by…
The Dalai Lama. Nelson Mandela. Celine Dion. George Cohon? He may not have their starpower, but the Jewish founder of McDonald’s Canada now shares an honorary key to the city of Toronto with a lengthy list of luminaries. At a City Hall ceremony yesterday, a beaming Mayor Rob Ford presented the 75-year-old Cohon — “a…
The photo leaning on Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish’s office window almost blocks the view of the Toronto skyline. It shows his three daughters, Mayar, Aya and Bessan Abuelaish, sitting on the beach in Gaza, writing their names in the sand. Closer to his desk, pinned to the wall, is the recent fourth-grade math test of Abuelaish’s…
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