My mother and I arrived in Montreal, Canada in September 1941 following a death-defying escape that took us from bombed-out German-occupied Warsaw in the winter of 1940 to surviving a Nazi firing squad, to Lithuania’s Vilno (which in June 1940 was occupied by the Soviets). Then a 12-14-day Trans-Siberian train ride to Vladivostok and the…
Sigal Samuel and I grew up in the same city, attended the same college and ended up in the same office. Before that momentous event, our paths had never crossed. (Full disclosure: since then, we have become attached at the hip — or the byline.) I grew up in a secular, if proudly Sephardic, environment….
The Mystics of Mile End, Forward editor Sigal Samuel’s debut novel about a dysfunctional Jewish family, will be published by HarperCollins on October 13. Told from multiple perspectives, the story takes place in an iconic Montreal neighborhood that is home to hipsters and Hasidic Jews. In this excerpt, we see the family and their neighbors…
Montreal’s main Jewish federation has apologized for posting an article containing Jewish stereotypes on a non-Jewish website. Federation CJA pulled its supposedly tongue-in-cheek article — “10 Realities of Having a Jewish Best Friend in Montreal” — from the MTLBlog, a commercial website for young people, several days after receiving complaints from members of the Jewish…
Despite mounting questions about his credibility and criticism that he may be supporting terrorism, a Canadian businessman says he is more determined than ever to continue his controversial quest to buy the freedom of Yazidi and Christian women and girls enslaved by the brutal terrorist group, Islamic State. In a September 1 interview with the…
Jacques Parizeau, the former separatist Quebec premier who blamed the Jewish and other ethnic communities for the narrow defeat in a bitter provincial referendum on seceding from Canada, has died. Parizeau died Monday. He was 84. Parizeau later acknowledged that in the razor-thin loss on Oct. 30, 1995, for which he blamed “money and the…
14 is an awkward age. Nothing looks right, nothing feels right and that bedazzled crop top you think is the most stylish thing in your closet will make you gasp in horror five years down the line. But somewhere in all that teenage angst, there is hope for humanity. Exhibit A: 21-year-old Jordan Fridman from…
Purist pastry chef Jeffrey Finkelstein of Hof Kelsten with his glorious challah. When Jeffrey Finkelstein was a kid in Montreal, he’d savor the soft, caraway-spiked rye bread at Moishe’s, the legendary downtown steakhouse where he’d ask to celebrate his birthdays. Today, his burgeoning wholesale bakery, Hof Kelsten, is making Moishe’s bread — “our signature loaf,…
100% of profits support our journalism
