Culturally Jewish

Daniel Pelton hadn't felt much of a musical connection to his Jewish heritage before Oct. 7. But after reality changed for Jews around the world—including his hometown of Calgary—Pelton decided to learn more about both the Holocaust and its artistic representations. He read The Tattooist of Auschwitz, which inspired him to adapt the tattoo numbers used in the book—34902-32407—into musical notes, using their 12-tone counterparts.

The result evolved into a 11-minute epic, which Pelton supplemented with two other tracks to create a new trio of songs, released on Jan. 27 for the 80th anniversary of the libe...

When Adam Wolfond was in his primary school years, the public education system wasn't giving him the support he needed as a nonverbal autistic student. So his mother, Estée Klar, along with other educators and allies, created their own kind of classroom, where neurodivergent kids could feel more free to learn in their own ways, pacing around the room or sitting in bean bag chairs. For Wolfond, using a text-to-speech device, he was finally able to respond in full sentences at his own pace—and discover his own poetic voice.

This month, he is debuting an art...

Erez Zobary spent a long time downplaying her Jewish identity in her music career. Her earlier work—a blend of R&B, pop, soul and jazz—dealt with issues relevant to her audience of largely twentysomethings: love lives, quarter-life crises, feeling stuck and aimless. It may not be surprising, then, that a woman whose songs so often looked inward would eventually turn to her heritage. As she tells Culturally Jewish, The CJN's arts and culture podcast, her songs began feeling increasingly disconnected from who she really was, and she wanted to try something drastically different.

The result is E...

After Wendy Litner's mother passed away, Litner was surprised that she still heard her voice—felt her presence, even, looking over her shoulder... often judging her. The feeling inspired Litner to write a new web series called My Dead Mom, released on Crave earlier this month.

The show gives a modern, distinctly feminist twist to the stereotype of a Jewish mother ceaselessly nagging her daughter. And, as Litner explains on the latest episode of Culturally Jewish, it's less about saying goodbye than accepting the evolution of a relationship with those who've passed on.

Also in th...

This podcast is a proud media partner of Jewish Futures, a day-long arts and culture salon for Jewish arts workers, hosted by the UJA Federation of Greater Toronto on Nov. 24. The 2024 program emphasizes networking, communal learning and the exploration of Jewish artistic identity, providing a foundation for building resilience and leadership for Toronto’s Jewish cultural community. Learn more and get your tickets here.

Joseph Landau didn't grow up speaking Yiddish—but something about the language compelled him. Whenever he spent time with his grandfather, Landau would ask him to translate certain words, slowly building a vocabulary. He j...

Last month, The CJN Podcast Network debuted its first original fiction podcast, Justice: A Holocaust Zombie Story. The seven-part audio drama is a work of subversive Holocaust education designed for the digital age, with many of its gruesome facts grounded in truth. Any shock value from merging zombies with Holocaust education was a deliberate attempt at turning heads, particularly among younger, non-Jewish audiences.

That's according to the show's creator, Michael Fraiman—who also produces _Culturally Jewish—_and sits in the guest chair for the first time. He and Ilana Zackon were invited by the Toronto Holocaust Museum to r...

Jacob Samuel has a couple references to his Judaism in his stand-up routine. In the past, whenever he brought it up, it usually created a moment of tension before a laugh. But in the year since Oct. 7, especially in his hometown of Vancouver, he's noticed a shift. It's harder to talk about his Jewish identity onstage. He brings it up later, or takes out a couple jokes if the laugh isn't big enough.

Yet Samuel, who won a Juno award for his debut comedy album in 2021, is determined to keep telling audiences he's Jewish. As he tells...

Arnie Lipsey has spent decades working in animation. But on the side, years ago, he began painting on canvas, using archival family photos for inspiration. He began colourizing and adapting them, eventually reinterpreting them entirely through a modern lens. That often resulted in jarring, traumatic scenes quietly unfolding behind his smiling family members: spiralling tornados, fiery trains, even the barbed-wire fences of a concentration camp.

The result is an unsettling, engrossing new series of 30 paintings in a new series on display at the Museum of Jewish Montreal until December 2024. The Past Is Before You blends fond memories...

When Tuesdays with Morrie was first published in 1997, it elevated Jewish author Mitch Albom to a level of literary stardom that reverberated beyond the book world. The story—which detailed Albom's frequent visits with his former professor, Morrie Schwartz, who was dying of ALS—has since been adapted into a TV movie and an off-Broadway production in 2002 before a New York City revival earlier this year.

And now, a new staging is bringing this two-hander play to the Winnipeg Jewish Theatre—starring The CJN's own arts podcaster, David Sklar. David took a few moments out of rehearsal to sit...

You may have heard Talia Schlanger's voice on CBC Radio or NPR, where she has spent years hosting music programs and interviewing artists. Somewhere, in the back of her mind, she was taking notes, planning for her own eventual leap into the music industry—a leap she finally took this past February, with the release of her debut album, Grace for the Going.

But while she credits her years as a broadcaster as helping with her creative process, as she admits on The CJN's arts podcast, Culturally Jewish, she was surprised at how unprepared she would be wh...