In this installment of the official UJPO Podcast, we interview celebrated journalist, filmmaker, professor, activist and Federal NDP candidate, Avi Lewis. We discuss his remarkable family legacy; how his Jewish upbringing has informed his politics and work; and how the horrors of the ongoing genocide in Gaza have created the potential for international solidarity and moral clarity.

In this installment of the official UJPO Podcast, we interview celebrated Jewish, lesbian poet, academic, activist and author Irena Klepfisz, delving into her life-long journeys through language; the legacies of the Holocaust and the Labour Bund; and histories of queer and anti-Zionist activism. Along the way we learn about the challenges (and privileges) of coming out in the early 1970s in New York City; what it means to be an “authentic” Jew; and how children were taught Swedish in the 1940s.

Irena’s latest, award-winning book of poetry, Her Birth and Later Years; Poems new and collected, is now available in paperback, through Wesleyan University Press.

In this installment of the official UJPO Podcast, we interview members of the Jews Say No to Genocide Coalition, a loose group of like-minded, Pro-Palestinian, anti-oppression organizations, formed in Toronto in the wake of the Hamas attack on Southern Israel on October 7 and the Israeli invasion of Gaza that followed. We discuss the coalition’s formation, its activities and the emotional toll taken on activists working to prevent genocide and fighting for a just future.