Leslie is a creative mom in Austin. Candi is a singing drag queen in Honolulu. They both like making things, and they want you to make things, too! Join Candi and Leslie as they talk about momming, queening and all things creativity. Whether it’s dishing about the latest disaster at the Humiliation Station or taking a deep dive into the history of fake eyelashes, Leslie and Candi will take you places you never thought you’d ever go.
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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.
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A new exhibit of dreamlike family portaits recall bygone Jewish life, tinged with trauma
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Arnie Lipsey has spent decades working in animation. But on the side, years ago, he began painting on canvas, using archival family photos for inspiration. He began colourizing and adapting them, eventually reinterpreting them entirely through a modern lens. That often resulted in jarring, traumatic scenes quietly unfolding behind his smiling famil…
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A new Winnipeg staging of 'Tuesdays with Morrie' brings the menschdom
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When Tuesdays with Morrie was first published in 1997, it elevated Jewish author Mitch Albom to a level of literary stardom that reverberated beyond the book world. The story—which detailed Albom's frequent visits with his former professor, Morrie Schwartz, who was dying of ALS—has since been adapted into a TV movie and an off-Broadway production i…
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Talia Schlanger spent years interviewing professional musicians—then became one herself
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You may have heard Talia Schlanger's voice on CBC Radio or NPR, where she has spent years hosting music programs and interviewing artists. Somewhere, in the back of her mind, she was taking notes, planning for her own eventual leap into the music industry—a leap she finally took this past February, with the release of her debut album, Grace for the…
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'I could not stop crying': Holocaust survivor Maxwell Smart on his life story being made into a movie
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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…
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Danila Botha's new book of short fiction wants to break the mold of Jewish Orthodoxy
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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…
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Meet the singer who performs Yiddish opera from Holocaust survivors—and also Wagner
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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…
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How a class of Dawson College theatre students are incidentally workshopping a controversial script about Zionism and campus politics
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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…
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Remembering filmmaker Charles Officer, who 'cut through the ideology' with incisive storytelling
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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…
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She saved 12 Jewish lives during the Holocaust—and Quebecois filmmakers are now telling her story
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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…
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MAiD takes centre stage in a new comedy about the difficulty of preparing to die
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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…
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Just for Laughs co-founder Andy Nulman on the comedy festival's Jewish roots—and recent collapse
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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…
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From Nassau Street to United Bakers, a new family folk album waxes nostalgic about old Jewish Toronto
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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 …
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As Kanye West drops a new album, a new play in Winnipeg shines a harsh light on his antisemitic past
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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…
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A new comic book spotlights Toronto's Ward—with a supernatural twist
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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…
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Does Jewish representation actually matter in film and TV? A Jewish casting director weighs in
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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…
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'A very dangerous precedent': Everything wrong with the Belfry Theatre cancelling 'The Runner'
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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…
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Israeli-Canadian drag queen Gila Münster reflects on a year mired in right-wing protests and left-wing antisemitism
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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…
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In her new book, Ruth Rakoff tackles ultra-Orthodox Judaism, generational trauma and the death of her brother
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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…
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A new Canadian opera spotlights the legacy of Chiune Sugihara, the 'Japanese Schindler'
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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…
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'A more beautiful side of Israel': This Canadian-led photography collective is raising money for kibbutzim attacked by Hamas
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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…
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'It feels pretty hopeless': Jewish artists open up about working in a dominantly anti-Zionist industry
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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…
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'Controversial' Canadian artist Matthew Jocelyn just took over the Koffler Centre. What does that mean for its Jewish future?
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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…
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How Sarah Segal-Lazar went from Jewish Montreal to writing folk songs in rustic P.E.I.
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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…
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Forgotten Canadian sports icon Bobbie Rosenfeld gets an onstage revival in Barrie, Ont.
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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 …
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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…
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Bobbi Goddard wasn't born Jewish, living in Mexico, or a country singer—and is now all three
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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…
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In his debut comedy album, Jacob Balshin tackles mohels, masculinity and magic mushrooms
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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,…
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'Less Than Kosher' is a surprisingly heartfelt story of spiritual discovery
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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…
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Jeff Rothpan on puppets, stereotypes and what it takes to make it as a comic in the States
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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…
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Do Jews have an architectural style? Manuel Herz says yes—with a catch
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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…
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The Segal Centre is putting on an epic 3-hour Jewish family drama—and we visited the set
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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…
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This bold new puppet show is tackling the complex history of antisemitic traditions
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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…
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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.
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It’s the final episode of LATDQ Season 1, so to wrap things up in style, Leslie and Candi are each sharing a sweet, sassy, and smart thing. That is…if Candi remembered to do her homework! What do you want to hear in Season 2? Let us know! Cherry Chocolate Smoothie Recipe Miss World Clip Meet Candi’s Drag Daughter, Miss Tara Way Subscribe to Leslie’…
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It’s that weird time between holidays, so it’s time to wrap up Christmas, get ready for New Year’s, and talk about…body hair? Enjoying the show? Take a minute to rate it and leave a review so new listeners can find it! Follow us on TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube. Get in touch at leslieandthedragqueen@gmail.com . Tags: Holiday, ho…
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Standup Wendy Liebman: Say You Want To
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Stand-up comedian Wendy Liebman talks about getting her start in stand-up, being on America’s Got Talent, and her upcoming shows with Bill Maher. And, as promised, it’s the debut of Leslie and Candi’s Christmastime Song! Enjoying the show? Take a minute to rate it and leave a review so new listeners can find it! Follow us on TikTok, Facebook, Insta…
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The holiday season is in full swing and Candi and Leslie are here for it! The girls share their favorite holiday traditions, as well as gift ideas for everyone on your list…especially your favorite drag queen! Enjoying the show? Take a minute to rate it and leave a review so new listeners can find it! Follow us on TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Twitt…
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It’s Candi and Leslie’s first guest, LaGanja Estranja! The mega-talented Rupaul’s Drag Race contestant talks about her transition journey, how drag helped her find her truth, and what’s next. Enjoying the show? Take a minute to rate it and leave a review so new listeners can find it! Follow us on TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube. G…
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Leslie gives Candi the lowdown on Erma Bombeck, one of America’s greatest modern humorists, Candi can’t resist all the bomb-related puns, and the girls share some of their favorite creative hacks. Enjoying the show? Take a minute to rate it and leave a review so new listeners can find it! Follow us on TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTu…
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Is there more to drag history than Shakespeare and Rupaul? Candi schools Leslie on drag culture, with assistance from Professors Google and Wikipedia. And buckle up, kids- we’re taking our first trip to the Humiliation Station! Enjoying the show? Take a minute to rate it and leave a review so new listeners can find it! Follow us on TikTok, Facebook…
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Candi and Leslie talk about a possible improper relationship between King Triton and Ursula, Miss Piggy’s secret identity, and what they made this week. Little Mermaid trailer reaction videos Enjoying the show? Take a minute to rate it and leave a review so new listeners can find it! Follow us on TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube. G…
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Leslie is a creative mom in Austin. Candi is a singing drag queen in Honolulu. They both like making things, and they want you to make things, too! Join Candi and Leslie as they talk about momming, queening and all things creativity. Whether it’s dishing about the latest disaster at the Humiliation Station or taking a deep dive into the history of …
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continue reading