Month: June 2012

Let’s cut the Jewish indignation in Parliament

What’s next? A discussion of the weekly Torah portion? Or maybe a daily page of Talmud study? Perhaps morning and evening prayers? It seems that debate in Canada’s House of Commons has had a decidedly Jewish tone to it lately. There are an estimated 315,000 Jews in...

LeBron deserves to win a title

God help me, but I feel like I’m rooting for the devil himself. I’m hoping that LeBron James and his Miami Heat prevail in this year’s NBA Finals. The reason? I want LeBron to win a championship. He’s the best player in the game, bar none –...

Free advice for the federal Liberal party

Well, well, well: it appears that Bob Rae has decided not to run for the federal Liberal leadership after all, despite rampant speculation over the past year that he would if the party let him. This has to be a relief for people who’d like to...

What can we learn from the Eaton Centre shooting?

It’s a bit of a mug’s game to try to find meaning in the kind of shooting crime that occurred June 2 in a food court at Toronto’s Eaton Centre, in which one man was killed and two other people – including a 13-year-old boy eating dinner...

The Jewish community should fund its own schools

The fallout from the recent controversy over the creation of gay-straight alliance clubs (GSAs) in Ontario’s publicly funded Catholic school system should give pause to those seeking funding – in the name of fairness – for their own faith-based schools. It should, but it probably won’t....

Being a pulpit rabbi can be a cutthroat business

When Toronto Jews awoke last Saturday morning and collected their Globe and Mail newspapers from their doorsteps (those who still subscribe, that is), they discovered a front-page story detailing how Holy Blossom Temple, the city’s oldest synagogue – and the country’s largest Reform congregation, with some...