As spring gives way, green and golden, to hot summer, it is our deep privilege and happy obligation to congratulate our children and grandchildren for having completed another year at school. Each year, at this time, we say to the…

The events unfolding in Israel and in Iran since last Friday are “biblical” in nature and in import. That is how scholar and teacher, Mijal Bitton, describes them in her Dvar Torah on this week’s Torah portion, Shelach. She does…

In response to the question, “how are you?”, a Jew today, in Toronto or Tulsa or Turin, will likely offer a variation of the following response: “Good. And not so good.” If the person who asked the question is also…

Readers of this weekly update know that GAJE is suing the Government of Ontario to compel it to treat each of Ontario’s children equally in relation to the funding of their education. Last week, a young Middle School student filed…

The festival of Shavuot begins on Sunday night. Like all our holidays, it has its own ethno/culinary flare. But it is, truly, about more than cheesecake and blintzes. It is and has always been about Jewish education. It is only…

According to an article that appeared in The CJN last week, Jewish students comprise three and a half percent of the population at the Toronto District School Board (TDSB), with 8,359 Jewish students enrolled out of a student population of…

Many readers of this weekly update are familiar with Dan Senor, the American scholar, author and host of the podcast, Call Me Back. It originated after “October 7” and has developed into what, arguably, is one of the most important…

Last week in this space, we reported that renowned Israeli scholar and author, Yossi Klein Halevi, counseled a large gathering in Toronto that however vulnerable we feel as a result of the events and the aftermath of “October 7”, Jews…

Earlier this week in Toronto, renowned Israeli scholar, teacher, thinker, author, Yossi Klein Halevi, was in Toronto at the invitation of the Toronto Holocaust Museum to share his thoughts on the difficult subject of “how to navigate the post-Holocaust era.”…

It makes sense that the festival of Pesach falls in the month of Nisan, the first month of the Jewish calendar. Which month could be more substantively appropriate, other than the first, to celebrate liberation from slavery leading to the…