Canada Day and the Fourth of July are coming up, which means flags are popping up across North America like summer flowers. But Jewish Canadians — and Jewish Americans — have fair reason to be skeptical of nationalism. Jewish parents would be forgiven for feeling uneasy seeing their children pledge allegiance to a national flag — and that's even before getting into the extreme evolution of modern nationalism movements that, in North America and Europe, tend to skew anti-Jewish. So on this week's episode, we're looking at flags. Specifically, flags in synagogues. Whether the flag is Canadian, American or Israeli, not everyone will feel comfortable with broad national symbols on the bimah. Some view them as "idol worship". Others insist they're a unifying force for the majority of congregants. No one is right, so how do community leaders bridge the divide? Credits Hosts: Avi Finegold, Yedida Eisenstat, Matthew Leibl Production team: Zachary Judah Kauffman (editor), Michael Fraiman (executive producer), Alicia Richler (editorial director) Music: Socalled Support The CJN Subscribe to The CJN newsletter Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt) Subscribe to Not in Heaven (Not sure how? Click here )

Too often, when people talk about Jewish life in Canada, they are really talking about Jewish life in Toronto and Montreal. But the truth is more than a quarter of Jewish Canadians live outside those cities. Yes, many still live in large cities, but Jews live in mid-sized and smaller communities, from the coasts of Nanaimo, B.C., to Sydney, N.S. These communities have a different texture, richness, set of challenges, and needs than those in the largest Jewish population centres. Today on Not in Heaven, our resident rabbis talk about some of the work happening to support Jewish life and leadership in smaller communities. We'll discuss the Jewish Federation of British Columbia’s Community Connector program, which partners with local Jewish leaders across the province to facilitate whatever Jewish culture looks like in their grassroots community, and the Shalom Hartman Institute’s Courageous Leadership Canada Initiative, which brought together lay and professional leaders from small and mid-sized communities to study, collaborate, and reflect on common challenges. Credits Hosts: Avi Finegold, Yedida Eisenstat, Matthew Leibl Production team: Zachary Judah Kauffman (editor), Michael Fraiman (executive producer), Alicia Richler (editorial director) Music: Socalled Support The CJN Subscribe to The CJN newsletter Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt) Subscribe to Not in Heaven (Not sure how? Click here )

Two weekends, two parades, two attendance-taking exercises. On each of the past two Sundays, the United States and Canada each held their largest annual gatherings and celebration Jewish pride in their respective countries, in the form of a walk, parade or march for Israel. In New York, there was enormous community outcry over the refusal of Mayor Zohran Mamdani and some other political officials to attend to appear at the ostensibly non-partisan event. That outcry was quickly drowned out by the sound of backpedalling from local Jewish leaders and political figures as they condemned the parade for hosting three of Israel’s most extreme right-wing ministers at the head of the Israel delegation. In Toronto, there was similarly strenuous consternation about which politicians attended and which did not, why, and what that means about their views towards Jews. Some columnists have begun asking why our countries’ largest celebrations of Jewish pride should focus on a single aspect of identity—and perhaps the most contentious. On this week's episode of Not in Heaven, our rabbinic podcasters weigh in on the growing debate. Credits Hosts: Avi Finegold, Yedida Eisenstat, Matthew Leibl Production team: Zachary Judah Kauffman (editor), Michael Fraiman (executive producer), Alicia Richler (editorial director) Music: Socalled Support The CJN Subscribe to The CJN newsletter Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt) Subscribe to Not in Heaven (Not sure how? Click here )

Adina Sash, known online to over 100,000 followers as Flatbush Girl, is an American Jewish social media influencer and activist based out of Brooklyn. Originally, her content focused on the comedic aspects of Orthodox female life, but in recent years, her activism has shifted to advocating for agunot, women who cannot get halachically divorced from their husbands for various reasons. For all intents and purposes, they are trapped in their marriages under Jewish law. Sash's most recent focus is a couple originally from Montreal, Raphi Stein and Adeena Kohn. For five years, Stein has refused to grant Kohn a gett, a Jewish divorce. Sash has taken up the cause and waged a social media campaign urgently calling on Montreal's Orthodox Jewish community to increase pressure on Stein. As part of that campaign, Sash launched an online initiative called “Gett Naked”, where Orthodox women have sent unusually revealing photos of themselves with the hashtag #freeadeena. In the pictures, they show parts of their bodies that are usually covered: hair, elbows, shoulders, knees. Others go further, snapping shots of cleavage and bikinis. In some ways, it's a successor to Sash's successful 2024 campaign, in which she organized a sex strike in support of Malky Berkowitz, a 29-year-old agunah. Hasidic women in Brooklyn withheld sex from their husbands on Friday nights, and after they went to the mikvah, to recruit men and women alike to the cause. After six months of the campaign, Berkowitz received a gett. Will Sash's efforts work for Adeena Kohn? And what are the broader effects of these massive digital campaigns in Orthodox circles? Our rabbinic podcasts discuss on this week's episode of Not in Heaven. Credits Hosts: Avi Finegold, Yedida Eisenstat, Matthew Leibl Production team: Zachary Judah Kauffman (editor), Michael Fraiman (executive producer), Alicia Richler (editorial director) Music: Socalled Support The CJN Subscribe to The CJN newsletter Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt) Subscribe to Not in Heaven (Not sure how? Click here )

On Monday, Pope Leo XIV (an unusual place for us to start, but bear with us) released “Magnifica Humanitas,” or “Magnificent Humanity,” a letter to the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics on how to preserve human dignity in the age of artificial intelligence. Genesis’ story of the Tower of Babel is a touchstone throughout the document, outlining the Church’s desire to protect human dignity and agency as the tech industry races to build an all-powerful superintellegence: “I ask everyone to abandon the construction of yet another Tower of Babel and to join forces in building up the common good, so that humanity will never lose its beauty, and the world once again will come to recognize the human heart as the place where God desires to dwell.” And the Pope is not alone. Around the world, a surge of religious groups have begun organizing working groups and conferences, public and private, as communities come to fully understand that whatever script they’ve used in the past to address technological change simply won’t cut it in the age of AI. Some Jews, like Rabbi Zohar Atkins, argue that AI bots will lead to a renaissance in Jewish learning and the democratization of Jewish wisdom. Others are less sanguine. R. Eliezer Simcha Weiss, the representative of the Chief Rabbinate of Israel to the Vatican said that, in high-level discussions on AI ethics with the Holy See, he urged the Church to think of AI less like the Tower of Babel and more like the Golem of Prague. This week on Not In Heaven, our rabbinic podcasters argue whether religious communities should be getting out ahead of AI or taking a more deliberative, wait-and-see approach to the technology. Credits Hosts: Avi Finegold, Yedida Eisenstat, Matthew Leibl Production team: Zachary Judah Kauffman (editor), Michael Fraiman (executive producer), Alicia Richler (editorial director) Music: Socalled Support The CJN Subscribe to The CJN newsletter Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt) Subscribe to Not in Heaven (Not sure how? Click here )

Ask most Jews what their favourite holiday is and you’ll hear Hannukah, Passover, Purim, Sukkot—maybe even Yom Kippur for some diehards. But despite being one of the big three holidays in the Hebrew Bible, the upcoming festival of Shavuot doesn’t usually make the cut. Which is a shame, because some of its themes feel more relevant than ever. Today, Shavuot is about nationhood, covenant and belonging. It’s a time to commemorate the biblical revelation at Sinai, when the Israelites were forged into a national collective through an eternal covenant with God. It’s also the festival when Jews read the Book of Ruth, which tells the story of what it means to be part of the Jewish people in a very different way. Today on Not in Heaven, we discuss a new white paper from the Shalom Hartman Institute called “Building Communities of Belonging: Jewish Identity, Conversion, Intermarriage, and Adjacency.” Its goal is to help empower Jewish communities to speak openly about, and set policies around, Jewish status and affiliation in a way that feels aligned with a community’s norms and values. According to the Pew Research Center, among Jews who married between 2010 and 2020, 61 percent are intermarried; when Orthodox Jews are omitted, that rate jumps to 72 percent. Contrary to historic assumptions, many families of mixed heritage remain committed, active participants in Jewish community life. One implication, the paper proposes, is the emergence of a whole new population of individuals we might call "Jewish adjacent"—including the networks of spouses, grandparents, family members, and others who are deeply involved in the Jewish community, but who neither identify as Jewish nor have Jewish status conferred upon them by the community. Nonetheless, they may be raising Jewish children, serving on synagogue boards or teaching in Jewish institutions, attending seders and shiva, and regularly dedicating their personal resources, time and labour to Jewish communal activities and causes. How can Jewish communities have open and honest conversations about competing notions of identity, status, membership, and belonging in the Jewish community? Credits Hosts: Avi Finegold, Yedida Eisenstat, Matthew Leibl Production team: Zachary Judah Kauffman (editor), Michael Fraiman (executive producer), Alicia Richler (editorial director) Music: Socalled Support The CJN Subscribe to The CJN newsletter Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt) Subscribe to Not in Heaven (Not sure how? Click here )

Most parents share concerns about rising rates of depression, anxiety, and social disconnection among younger generations, especially how those issues intersect with increased time spent on smartphones and social media platforms. But what's the solution? Countries around the world, including Canada, are attempting various models of school cell phone bans. But evidence of their effectiveness has been mixed. Just last week, the U.S. National Bureau of Economic Research released the largest study ever of school cell phone bans, looking at data from about 4,600 schools across the country. While teachers did report fewer distractions in class, researchers found only a small impact on academic achievement among students, and no measurable impact whatsoever on rates of online bullying, school attendance or student attention spans. Here in Canada, at the provincial level, Premier Wab Kinew recently announced that Manitoba will soon be the first province to ban youth from using social media and AI chatbots, with ministers in Ontario and British Columbia pledging to follow suit. On the level of individuals, some young people are finding success through imposing their own restraints—timers to lock out apps or limit access to websites—or embracing "digital minimalism", buying flip phones, MP3 players and analog cameras to limit their digital engagement. Another model may be trying to enforce restraints through social and community pressure, as in the Haredi community, where community norms around "Kosher phones" and appropriate internet access have limited many members of community’s engagement with the online world, for good and for ill. On this week’s Not in Heaven, we ask what role rabbis and Jewish community institutions have in this conversation, and what would a Jewish ethic look like that seeks to maintain the health and wellbeing of our young people—and all members—from the harms of digital life. Credits Hosts: Avi Finegold, Yedida Eisenstat, Matthew Leibl Production team: Zachary Judah Kauffman (editor), Michael Fraiman (executive producer), Alicia Richler (editorial director) Music: Socalled Support The CJN Subscribe to The CJN newsletter Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt) Subscribe to Not in Heaven (Not sure how? Click here )

Sitting on a bus surrounded by Jews carrying rifles was once an exotic quirk of visiting Israel. But that may be changing. Last month, the American National Rifle Association announced it was teaming up with Lox & Loaded, a national Jewish gun club, to help in the fight against antisemitism. It’s one of several Jewish gun groups serving a growing cohort of newly gun curious American Jews since Oct. 7, 2023. Chicago’s Gayle Pearlstein, who launched Lox & Loaded in March 2025, says the group already has more than 1,000 members and 49 local chapters across the country. And that was before the partnership with the gun lobbying behemoth. Bullets & Bagels membership, based in California, has skyrocketed by about 20%, to 1,000 members, and numerous interviews with gun range operators and firearms instructors across the U.S. revealed similar upticks in interest from Jewish community members. Not everyone is as sanguine on the new turn of events. As the number of Jews arriving at synagogues with a firearm on their hip or in a tallit bag increases, rabbis are reckoning with the place of firearms in their most intimate communal spaces, and trying to balance congregants’ - sometimes diametrically opposed - conceptions of safety. In September, the Secure Community Network - the organization that coordinates security for Jewish institutions across the US and Canada - urged synagogues to only allow congregants to carry weapons if they are part of an “organized, vetted, and well-regulated safety and security team.” Others who are wary of the intensifying situation cite well replicated data showing personal guns in the US are far more likely to be used in suicides, domestic violence, or accidents than in fending off an attacker, both for an owner and their family. In Canada, Jewish schools and synagogues have been shot at in at least 8 separate incidents in the past three years. These incidents have sparked calls from some Jews in Canada to allow private security guards to carry firearms, something that is largely illegal under the federal government’s strict gun laws. On Sunday, Not in Heaven sent our very own Avi Finegold to join his local Lox & Loaded chapter’s shmooze and shoot in Chicago to get a better understanding of this new phenomenon in North American Jewish life. We hear about what he learned and what this shifting relationship to guns means for our communities. Credits Hosts: Avi Finegold, Yedida Eisenstat, Matthew Leibl Production team: Zachary Judah Kauffman (editor), Michael Fraiman (executive producer), Alicia Richler (editorial director) Music: Socalled Support The CJN Subscribe to The CJN newsletter Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt) Subscribe to Not in Heaven (Not sure how? Click here )

This month, the province of Quebec passed Bill 9, a law that bans employees at publicly subsidized daycares from wearing religious symbols—including kippot, tzitzit, hijabs, turbans, and Stars of David—while also phasing out subsidies for religious private schools; banning prayer rooms in public institutions such as hospitals and universities; and compelling institutions like the Jewish General Hospital, which serves patients only kosher-certified food, to also offer equivalent non-kosher food. It is the most recent salvo in Quebec’s ongoing campaign to suppress and push out Judaism, among all religions, from the public square. And while Montreal’s Jewish community has expressed some concern over the measures, the response has been somewhat muted. Many understand the true target of these laws to be the province’s Muslim population—which can be construed as being in the interest of the Jewish community. One Montreal rabbi told The CJN that the Jewish community must balance its principles with its interests, saying, “Right now, we have to focus on where our interests lie. It’s in our interest to see radical extremism tamped down. This is not targeting us. This is a reaction to extremism within the Muslim community.” This week on Not in Heaven, rabbi podcasters Avi Finegold and Matthew Leibl discuss what this means for the future of Jewish life in Quebec. They also compare the situation to the ongoing one in the southern half in of our southern neighbour, where a series of American states have recently mandated the display of the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms. Credits Hosts: Avi Finegold, Yedida Eisenstat, Matthew Leibl Production team: Zachary Judah Kauffman (editor), Michael Fraiman (executive producer), Alicia Richler (editorial director) Music: Socalled Support The CJN Subscribe to The CJN newsletter Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt) Subscribe to Not in Heaven (Not sure how? Click here )

Yom ha-Atzmaut is in the air: circle dancing, falafels, inexplicable inflatable squeaky plastic hammers and, of course, Israeli flags galore. But this year’s Israeli Independence Day may be the final time the old kachol v’lavan is hoisted up the flagpole in front of Toronto’s City Hall. Ceremonial flag raising began as a way for public institutions to spotlight local communities’ heritages and celebrate the bonds of friendship between nations. But, like all good things, it didn’t last. For years, the questions of which local politicians did or did not show up to which particular flag raising grew into a perpetual fuel for outrage, purity tests and catalyst for demonstrations. Then, last November, Jewish organizations and activists across Canada strenuously campaigned and mounted legal challenges against municipalities raising the Palestinian flag in the wake of recognition of the state by the federal government. Now, municipalities are throwing up their hands. Calgary and Toronto have both passed legislation ending all ceremonial flag raising; no Palestine, no Israel, no Brazil, no one. This week on Not in Heaven, our rabbi podcasters ask: Should this be seen as a win? Was it worth it? What do we get when public institutions celebrate our particular nationalities, and is it worth the trouble? Credits Hosts: Avi Finegold, Yedida Eisenstat, Matthew Leibl Production team: Zachary Judah Kauffman (editor), Michael Fraiman (executive producer), Alicia Richler (editorial director) Music: Socalled Support The CJN Subscribe to The CJN newsletter Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt) Subscribe to Not in Heaven (Not sure how? Click here )