At the onset of the Holocaust, after Maxwell Smart's family began being targeted and killed in Nazi-occupied Europe, he became separated from his mother, who made one final request of her young son: "Please run away." He did as he was told. He ended up spending one and a half years living in the cold, desolate woods of Eastern Europe, meeting and m…

Gavin Armitage-Ackerman and host Kalden Dhatsenpa discuss the state of housing as well as the city of Montréal’s plan to build an ambitious 207,000 units of housing by 2050. Are they being over ambitious? Is it a fantasy? Watch the full episode to hear the discussion.Plus: CUTV journalist Savanna Craig's segment on recent developments in Montreal’s…

Danila Botha wants you to know something about her writing: it's not autobiographical. She pulls ideas and themes from real life, from the media and history, from current affairs and what she sees in the world. She is not personally a glitter-strewn closeted lesbian Orthodox woman, nor is she a drug addict who once met Anne Frank in a dream. But th…

When Jaclyn Grossman was an 18-year-old opera student, her teacher heard her soprano voice and informed her she'd sing the music of Richard Wagner. Grossman didn't know much about the German composer, but quickly fell in love with his music. She was not particularly phased by the fact that Wagner was infamously antisemitic, included offensive Jewis…

During the pandemic, David Sklar—an actor, playwright and co-host of The CJN's arts podcast Culturally Jewish—wrote a theatre script called Vial. The plot focuses on a college professor who feels conflicted when one of her far-left-wing Jewish students writes an extreme essay about Israel; the professor, who starts off adamantly pro–free speech, be…

On December 1, 2023, Charles Officer passed away at age 48. The award-winning filmmaker was revered in the national arts community, having directed documentaries such as Invisible Essence, about the cultural impact of The Little Prince, and The Skin We're In, a film adaptation of author Desmond Cole's popular essay on racism in Canada. His movies w…

Irena Gut Opdyke was a Polish nurse who, during the Second World War, was forced to become a housekeeper for a high-ranking German officer. At some point, she was offered the chance to save a dozen Jewish lives. She agreed, hiding them in a space nobody would think to look—in the German officer's basement. Later honoured as a Righteous Among the Na…

It's with a heavy heart for us to announce that this will be the last episode of Metropolis. In our concluding episode, we bring on Lital Khaikin, a freelance journalist and author based in Montréal, to discuss social and health services in the neighbourhood which are rapidly disintegrating due to gentrification. And on Hello Good Bylines we have S…

On today's very special episode of Metropolis, we are bringing you a candid conversation with Dru Oja Jay and our host Kalden Dhatsenpa about a flurry of Montreal news. Join us to hear about the recent airbus strike, Valérie Plante's concerns with the lack of public transit budget, and why real estate developers in Montreal are getting a break?Make…

elcome back to Metropolis! This week we've got Dru Oja Jay back on to talk about car thefts in Montreal and Denis Coderre's intention to hold onto Bill 21 and maintain secularism in Quebec. Next, Kalden and Dru get into a discussion about Quebec's other Denis — filmmaker Denis Villeneuve, delving into Dune's inspiration and influences and the state…

Welcome back fellow listeners to today's episode of Metropolis where we are joined by Carl Bystram, a community researcher, organizer, and support worker to chat about the distressing state of trans health across Canada and some recent legislatures that are born out of misinformation and fear. The discussion also dives into the recent $23.7 million…

When a member of the Jewish community in London, Ont., recently decided to go through with medical assistance in dying (MAiD), it sent shockwaves through the tight-knit community. Some were angry and confused, others were sympathetic and supportive—and others felt mixed emotions, including the father of Jordi Mand, a playwright and screenwriter. Ma…

On March 5, the biggest comedy festival in the world, Just for Laughs, announced it was cancelling this year's events in its hometown of Montreal and filing for bankruptcy protection. The news shocked international comics and local Montrealers—but Andy Nulman, who co-founded the festival in 1985 and spearheaded its expansion through the 1990s, wasn…

Eric and Erin Warner's grandfather lived to the admirable age of 103. And in that time, the Jewish immigrant to Canada saw Toronto change in innumerable ways, from the migration of Jews out of the Ward and Kensington Market to mass communication shifting from the radio to the internet. It's a life's story that Eric, who's worked in music promotion …

Welcome back to Metropolis! On today's episode, we have a return guest, our very own, Dru Oja Jay, publisher at the Breach and CUTV executive director. Kalden and Dru talk about the new salary for Quebec teachers, Pierre Poilievre's need for more housing units, and the distressing state of the province's health care system.On Hello Good Bylines, we…

Welcome back to Metropolis and Happy Valentine's Day! We are here with our beloved journalist Savanna Craig who chats with Metropolis Host Kalden Dhatsenpa about her coverage of the Uyghur diaspora in Montreal, their activism in the city, and some backlash regarding Uyghur issues. Savanna discusses how some people have called this issue a "hoax" wh…

Seth Zosky is a massive fan of Kanye West. He owns the shoes, has heard all his songs, and—as a drummer—dove deep into Kanye's innovative use of the retro 808 drum machine. So when Kanye started coming out as an unhinged antisemite in 2023, making ridiculous comments on podcasts and social media about Hitler, spouting conspirary theories and tweeti…

On today's episode of Metropolis we have a return guest, Niall Clapham Riccardo, a member of Independent Jewish Voices and a trade union activist based in Mooniyang/Tiohtià:ke/Montreal. Niall and Kalden talk about homelessness in Montreal, Legault blaming immigrants for the housing crisis, and the city's new casino hotel. On Hello Good Bylines, we …

On today's episode of Metropolis, we are joined by Felix Fuchs, a part-time professor at Dawson, Concordia and McGill and a member of the Confédération des Syndicats Nationaux (CSN). Kalden and Felix chat about the history of the common front, the current situation with labour strikes across the province, and how to better mobilize people around th…

Ari Gross has never written a comic book before. But when he decided to try making one, he found his background came in handy. A machine learning engineer by day with a background in data science, Gross completed his PhD on the history and philosophy of science and technology—a perfect fit for writing a comic that brings 20th-century Toronto and Ka…

Happy New Year and welcome back to a new year of Metropolis! On today's show we are joined by Gavin Armitage-Ackerman, an urban planning researcher and housing policy analyst to talk about the housing crisis in Montreal and a few new social and affordable housing projects in the city. For our second segment, Hello Good Bylines, CUTV journalist Sava…

On Jan. 9, a group of Jewish Hollywood entertainers—among them David Schwimmer, Amy Schumer, Debra Messing, Jason Alexander and Michael Rapaport—published an open letter, signed by hundreds of Jewish media industry professionals, that slams the Motion Picture Academy for ignoring Jews in its "Representation and Inclusion Standards", unveiled in 202…

On January 2, the Belfry Theatre in Victoria, B.C., announced it is cancelling a forthcoming production of The Runner, a one-man play—created by a non-Jewish theatre artist—that tells the story of an Orthodox Jewish volunteer who decides to help a young Palestinian woman instead of an Israeli soldier. The decision to cancel the production came afte…

Metropolis Episode 08 Today on Metropolis we are chatting with Ted Rutland, a professor at Concordia University about Montreal’s $7 Billion public budget. Rutland’s research and activism focus on the racial politics of urban planning and policing in Canadian cities. He is the author of Out to Defend Ourselves: A History of Montreal’s First Haitian …

If you've heard of Gila Münster, who bills herself as "Toronto's cross stitching, cross-dressing Jewish American Princess," it's probably because of her drag queen storytelling events. After the height of the pandemic, she began partnering with public libraries across Southern Ontario, hosting story hours for children to supplement nighttime perfor…

Metropolis Episode 07Welcome to Metropolis, the weekly show where host Kalden Dhatsenpa brings you top-level news from the bottom up in Québec’s “metropole”, Montréal. We start with Hello, Good Byline with Local514 journalist Savanna Craig. Savanna updates us on the evolving pro-Palestinian movements in and around Montréal.Dru Oja Jay, comes onto t…

Ruth Rakoff had only written one book before, a memoir based on her cancer diagnosis. That was in 2010. Two years later, her brother David Rakoff—an acclaimed writer and storyteller—died of Hodgkin's lymphoma. That traumatic period, in part, inspired her to spend nearly a full decade writing her second book, Untethered, a novel published in Sept. 2…

Metropolis Episode 06 This week on Metropolis host Kalden Dhatsenpa chats with Breach publisher Dru Oja Jay about #BuildTheLoop, the 2024 Montreal Budget, le Front Commun, Québec Solidaire’s new co-spokesperson, and Trudeau’s “war on Christmas”.https://linktr.ee/metropolis_mtl -Make sure to follow Local 514 & CUTV on social media to stay up to date…

The story of Chiune Sugihara has become relatively well known among the Jewish community. The Japanese diplomat, known as "Japan's Schindler", wrote transit visas for thousands of European Jews, helping them flee Nazi persecution and the concentration camps. Among the many families saved by Sugihara visas was the Bluman family, which wound up in Va…

Metropolis Episode 05Metropolis host Kalden Dhatsenpa sits down with Niall Clapham Riccardo and Sarah Boivin from Independent Jewish Voices to discuss the rise of anti-semitism as well as the history of anti-zionist organizing in Montréal.Keep up with Niall and Sarah and their work with Inpedendant Jewish Voices:https://www.ijvcanada.org/https://ww…

Metropolis Episode 04Metropolis host Kalden Dhatsenpa sits down with Sarah Shamy from the Montreal Palestinian Youth Movement to chat about the pro-Palestian movements in the city, the recent sit-ins at local MPs' offices and her hopes for the organization.Follow Montreal Palestinian Youth Movement to stay in touch with their work:Website: https://…

When Niv Shimshon woke up to the horror of what happened in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, he immediately contacted his friends and family back in his home country. The Israeli-born photographer—who moved to Canada 10 years ago, now living in Hamilton with his wife and two young children—could only donate a bit of money to his family's kibbutz and offer w…

Metropolis — Episode 03 Welcome to Metropolis, the biweekly show that delves into the dynamic world of Montreal’s politics. For this episode we give space to hear from fellow journalists Aude and Savanna on our segment Hello Good Byline, where we see what our reporters have been covering and farther thoughts on pressing issues that did not make it …

Metropolis Episode 01Welcome to Metropolis, the biweekly show that delves into the dynamic world of Montreal’s politics. Your host Kalden Dhatsenpa, is joined again by none other than Dru Oja Jay, executive director of CUTV and publisher at the Breach. Throughout his career, Dru has witnessed pivotal moments in Canadian politics, from the anti-glob…

Metropolis Episode 00Welcome to the inaugural episode of Metropolis, the biweekly show that delves into the dynamic world of Montreal’s politics. Your host Kalden Dhatsenpa, is joined by none other than Dru Oja Jay, executive director of CUTV and publisher at the Breach. Throughout his career, Dru has witnessed pivotal moments in Canadian politics,…

It's no secret that the arts industry—theatre, film, music, visual arts, dance; pick your favourite—is mostly filled with left-leaning individuals. Unfortunately for Jewish artists, that means the arts community is also largely anti-Zionist (or pro-Palestinian), and given how big a role networking and affiliations play in booking gigs and landing s…

In Matthew Jocelyn's ideal world, audiences would look at upcoming programming from the Koffler Centre of the Arts in Toronto and ask, "Really? The Koffler is doing that?" Ruffling feathers isn't new for the artistic leader, who spent 28 years in France, where he worked in some of the nation's top opera houses and was awarded as a Knight of the Ord…

Sarah Segal-Lazar's momma never actually wanted her to be a doctor—nor did becoming an artist really shock her. But the Canadian musician and actor nonetheless drew inspiration from that common trope, where the offspring shunts the professional expectations of their parents, to write the hilarious theme song to The CJN's arts and culture podcast, C…

Most Canadians have never heard of Fanny "Bobbie" Rosenfeld, a woman who left early 20th century Russia and wound up in Barrie, Ont., where she cultivated her love of sports into Olympic glory—including a gold medal. In some ways, hers is a standard turn-of-the-century Jewish immigrant story, portraying a woman who succeeded by sheer force of will …

There's a certain type of Jew, usually Ashkenazi, sometimes Israeli, with a mop of curly hair, an acousitc guitar and an affinity for marijuana, who will inevitably love bands like The Grateful Dead and Phish. Those groups are collectively known as "jam bands", which play lengthy, musically complex songs, often in concert, always with a hefty relia…

When Bobbi Goddard travelled to Mexico in February 2020, she planned on staying just a couple months. But when the pandemic began, locking down borders and economies, she was happy to stay longer, practice Spanish and catch an opportunity to kickstart her dream career as a country music singer. It wasn't the first time she'd chased a dream—and acco…

Jacob Balshin didn't take a conventional route to stand-up comedy. The Thornhill native majored in philosophy before working a string of random jobs—at Pizza Pizza, a pet store, Costco, Bulk Barn—all while honing his craft. Now he's releasing his debut comedy album, 30 And Breathing Funny, which he recorded in downtown Toronto on his 30th birthday,…

One day, after Shaina Silver-Baird graduated from theatre school, the rabbi from her bat mitzvah called her up to ask her if she'd be a cantor for an upcoming wedding. Silver-Baird was not religious; she didn't go to synagogue, speak Hebrew or understand exactly what she was getting into. But she agreed. Years later, from that experience, a web ser…

When Jeff Rothpan moved to the United States decades ago to pursue comedy as a career, he couldn't imagine he'd one day be working with some of his idols, including Steve Martin and John Cleese. But that's where life took him, and since then, he's written for internationally recognized ventriloquist Jeff Dunham, Canadian model Pamela Anderson and t…

Among the first major massacres of the Holocaust infamously took place in Babyn Yar, Ukraine, where Nazis murdered more than 33,000 Jews in 1941. Today, the harrowing site—when not under fire by invading Russian forces—is a rising tourist attraction, not just for its historical significance, but also a mesmerizing new synagogue and memorial that wa…

When Lisa Rubin, artistic and executive director of the Segal Centre for Performing Arts in Montreal, caught Prayer for the French Republic in New York City last year, she walked out of the theatre certain of one thing: she had to put this show on. She knew it wouldn’t get a long run on Broadway, overshadowed by Tom Stoppard’s Leopoldstadt next doo…

In March 2023, Alison Darcy and Joseph Shragge, the co-artistic directors of Scapegoat Carnivale, a theatre company in Montreal, debuted their latest work, Vertip. The show is about a puppeteer who uses stereotypical puppets, based on old Eastern European traditions, including a money-grubbing Jewish loan shark named Zyhd. One day, Zyhd comes to li…

Join actors David Sklar and Ilana Zackon as they schmooze with creative Jews of all disciplines, taking you behind the scenes of what matters most to Canada's Jewish arts community—and why our cultural representation matters.

Get ready from some ooh aah weirdness! I did all the crate digging so that all you have to do is dig these sounds from the comfort of your own happy place. Podcast No. 41 has lots of 1960s covers from Québec that I just had to share with you along with some French freak beat. Playlist Les deux et demi – Voulez voulez Nanette Workman – Quand-je revi…

Radio Oh La La podcasts are finally back with some fuzz and garage sounds from new artists and the real deal from back in the 1960s. Check out and tune into Podcast No. 40 and kick start your day with some 60s vibes that I have been promising you for way too long! Yes, there still is some background noise, but it’s that or nothing at this point…! P…