The leader of the controversial ultra-Orthodox sect Lev Tahor may have used false evidence to gain refugee status in Canada, a Canadian documentary reported. Ottawa’s granting of refugee status to Rabbi Shlomo Helbrans was based in part on testimony paid for by the sect, a boy involved at the hearing told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s…
A pro-Palestinian group in Canada, calling Ehud Barak an “Israel war criminal,” is protesting a visit by the former Israeli prime minister. The Canada-Palestine Association is among pro-Palestinian groups in British Columbia protesting an economic conference to be held in suburban Vancouver at the end of the month that Barak is scheduled to attend. It…
Newly unsealed police search warrants allege physical and psychological abuse, forced ingestion of drugs and girls coerced into marriage among the fringe haredi Orthodox sect, Lev Tahor. The documents are part of applications for search warrants from the Quebec Provincial Police. They were unsealed on Friday at the request of several Canadian media outlets. The…
Irwin Cotler, a member of the Parliament in Canada and a prominent human rights activist, said he will not seek re-election. “I have enjoyed the honor and privilege of serving my riding, Parliament, and the Canadian people as a whole for close to 15 years,” Cotler said in a statement released on Wednesday, with riding…
(JTA) — On his first trip to Israel this week, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper hit all the expected stops for visiting dignitaries. He went to Yad Vashem and the Western Wall, picked up an honorary degree from Tel Aviv University, and laid the cornerstone for a bird sanctuary that will soon bear his name….
Rabbi Joachim Prinz (center) confers with Martin Luther King Jr. at the March on Washington in 1963. / Getty Images As a Canadian Jew, I often feel a twinge of envy on Martin Luther King Day. I’m envious of larger-than-life heroes who succeed in uniting a nation around issues that are so blatantly about justice…
Canada supports Israel “because it is the right thing to do,” Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said in a speech to the Knesset. Harper on Monday became the first Canadian prime minister to address Israeli lawmakers in the parliament as part of his first visit since taking office in 2006. The visitors’ gallery was filled…
Drake hosted “Saturday Night Live” this week — and it was pretty great. In his opening monologue, the Jewish Canadian rapper harkened back to his bar mitzvah from 1999, focusing (successfully) on having a Jewish mother and a black father. SNL cast member Vanessa Bayer (known for her role in the original and recurring Bar…
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