The Canadian Race Relations Foundation partners with The Canadian Jewish News to highlight diverse Jewish stories
The CRRF will help The CJN expand their quarterly magazine of Jewish ideas and empower the world’s only podcast celebrating Jews of colour.
Toronto, ON — May 18, 2023 — The Canadian Race Relations Foundation (CRRF) is teaming up with The Canadian Jewish News (The CJN) to empower important voices within the Jewish community across Canada and showcase a more diverse, equitable and prominent landscape of thought and ideas.
Who: The CJN & CRRF
What: Live taping of The CJN podcast, Rivkush
When: Sunday, May 28, 2023, from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. EDT
Where: Holy Blossom Temple (Mishkan Room), 1950 Bathurst St., Toronto, ON (Holy Blossom Temple is a wheelchair accessible space)
The CJN is a not-for-profit, award-winning media organization that has, since its establishment in 1960, remained Canada’s only reputable, independent, objective voice for Jewish Canadians. After ending its run as a weekly newspaper in April 2020, The CJN was reborn eight months later as a digital news hub that has met with significantly greater grassroots, philanthropic and organizational support.
Among their current multimedia offerings is a quarterly print magazine that will undergo a significant expansion and redesign thanks to the CRRF, along with digital distribution of its content. The CRRF will also directly support Rivkush, the world’s only podcast exclusively dedicated to spotlighting and celebrating Jews of colour, which has been produced by The CJN Podcast Network since July 2021.
“When The CJN folded in 2020, community members told me how they had lost their sense of connectivity, because the paper showed them every week where their people were,” said Mohammed Hashim, the CRRF’s Executive Director. “We are proud to support this vital outlet and help ensure they continue to build that rich community, telling diverse Jewish stories for generations to come.”
The CRRF will become an official sponsor of Rivkush, hosted by Rivka “Rivkush” Campbell, an outspoken Jew of Jamaican descent and the founder of the advocacy organization Jews of Colour Canada. In her hour-long audio program, she has interviewed Canadian personalities such as Devyani Saltzman, one of Canada’s most prominent arts curators and programmers, and actor Tamara Podemski, who channelled her Anishinaabe, Leni Lenape and Métis heritage in her recent debut on the FX series Reservation Dogs.
“There is a common misconception that Jewish people are white—but, in reality, Jews are diverse and multiethnic, with vibrant local communities around the world and a growing number of multifaith and multiracial families here in Canada,” Campbell said. “We are directly challenging those outdated mainstream narratives, and I’m honoured and grateful to have the full support of the CRRF as we head into the third year of our important mission.”
This new partnership builds on the already established friendship between the CRRF and The CJN. As part of Jewish Heritage Month 2022, the two organizations co-hosted a live taping of The CJN’s weekly current affairs podcast, Bonjour Chai, which spotlighted Sephardic Jewish culture.
This year, the organizations are excited to co-host a live taping of an episode of Rivkush, featuring an in-depth conversation between acclaimed actor and producer Jennifer Podemski on the subject of Little Bird, her new show, produced by Crave and APTN. Little Bird follows a young woman who was taken from her reserve in Saskatchewan at the age of five and raised in a Jewish home in Montreal during the infamous Sixties Scoop.
Join us in Toronto for this milestone event.
This new partnership will continue emphasizing community engagement and dialogue, including more live podcast tapings in the future.
The CJN media contact:
Michael Fraiman