Taglit-Birthright Israel was founded just over 25 years ago, with the aim of strengthening Jewish identity among young adults through a 10-day, free of charge trip to Israel. The program has brought over 900,000 young adults from 70 countries to Israel.

The ambitious program began as a grand solution to solve a crisis of Jewish continuity and unity as the world entered the new millennium, spearheaded by Canadian Jewish philanthropist Charles Bronfman and American Michael Steinhardt, but required the mustering of global Jewish communal resources.

Last week, Bronfman, along with Jeffrey R. Solomon, the past CEO of the Andrea and Charles Bronfman Philanthropies, wrote an op-ed for the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, titled "We backed Birthright. Now it’s time for more big ideas for a post-Oct. 7 world” where they called for the next big idea to address the next big Jewish challenges.

On today’s episode of Not in Heaven, our rabbi podcasters, offer their perspectives of the Birthright Israel program and suggest what should come next.

Credits

• Hosts: Avi Finegold, Yedida Eisenstat, Matthew Leibl
• Production team: Zachary Judah Kauffman (editor), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music: Socalled

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This cold week in February has been dominated by two major sporting events: the 2026 Winter Olympics and the Super Bowl. Jews played roles in both; the Olympics regularly see a handful of Jewish athletes competing on the world stage, including nine Israeli delegates and a smattering of Americans in mainstream sports like curling and hockey. While no Jewish football players played in the Super Bowl, Robert Kraft's anti-antisemitism organization did run a pricey anti-hate commercial.

With sports on the brain, our three rabbi podcasters wanted to look at their own community values. There's no doubt that Jews can excel in sports—so why isn't it more common? Jewish parents often put their kids in active extracurriculars—but when it comes to post-secondary education, academics trump athletics. Case in point: note how many pro sports teams are owned by Jews, versus how many have Jewish players on their rosters.

Rabbis Avi Finegold, Yedida Eisenstat and Matthew Leibl dig into all this and more on this week's episode of Not in Heaven.

Credits

• Hosts: Avi Finegold, Yedida Eisenstat, Matthew Leibl
• Production team: Zachary Judah Kauffman (editor), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music: Socalled

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With the return of Ran Gvili’s body, many Jewish leaders are publicly inviting community members to stand up from their proverbial shivas and re-engage with normal life. Federations across North America are welcoming—even memorializing—the return of ceremonial dog tags and yellow pins. But it's been two and a half years of incorporating these thoughts into Jewish ritual life, adding prayers for the hostages at High Holidays and the Shabbat table. What happens now? Can we ever truly go "back to normal"? Our three rabbinic podcasters discuss on this week's episode of Not in Heaven.

Later in the episode, they look at the Jewish response to the ICE raids in the United States. Some Jews are offering to hide their Haitian caregivers as President Donald Trump's administration cracks down on deportations; some rabbis are mobilizing in Minnesota after immigration officers murdered a number of civilian protesters. Where is the Jewish community standing during this fraught time in American political life?

Credits

• Hosts: Avi Finegold, Yedida Eisenstat, Matthew Leibl
• Production team: Zachary Judah Kauffman (editor), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music: Socalled

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OneTable is a non-profit organization with two goals: make Shabbat a regular part of young people's Jewish lives, and combat the epidemic of loneliness among that same demographic. Hosts can receive a small stipend for every guest who attends their Friday night dinner, and the broader Jewish community benefits from higher levels of Shabbat engagement. But despite hundreds of thousands of young Jews being interested, OneTable laid off a quarter of its staff in December 2025, struggling to find financial support while realizing their repeat users were often accepting money for hosting dinners with friends that they would have hosted regardless. And on an even deeper level: is there even a viable business model for a one-note non-profit like this? Our rabbinic podcasters discuss.

After that, they look at how the Art Gallery of Ontario came under fire when they decided not to acquire work by acclaimed photographer Nan Goldin because of alleged antisemitic comments, and finish off with some Textual Healing.

Credits

• Hosts:

Avi Finegold, Yedida Eisenstat, Matthew Leibl

• Production team:

Zachary Judah Kauffman (editor), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)

• Music:

Socalled

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(+ get a charitable tax receipt)

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With the release of Wicked: For Good, Jewish audiences have been asking online: Are the munchkins supposed to be Jews? What about Elphaba—the vilified, bookish, green-skinned witch? Is she Jewish-coded?

It's a question asked by some Jewish culture critics seemingly every time a movie with goblins, elves or hook-nosed monsters comes out. Are J.R.R. Tolkien's dwarves Jewish? Is Nosferatu Jewish? Are Star Trek's Ferengi species Jewish? And then, if the answer strikes you in the affirmative, the logical follow-up is: "Is this vaguely antisemitic?"

But as our three rabbinic podcasters discuss on this week's episode of Not in Heaven, the question may reveal more about the person asking it than the onscreen goblins themselves. The real question may not be, "What were the filmmakers' intentions when creating these characters," and instead, "What does this negative interpretation say about us as a community?"

But before that, Yedida takes a detour down a different cinematic road: a Jewish analysis of the heavily Christian animated film David, which is something of an origin story of the biblical king.

Credits

• Hosts:

Avi Finegold, Yedida Eisenstat, Matthew Leibl

• Production team:

Zachary Judah Kauffman (editor), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)

• Music:

Socalled

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(+ get a charitable tax receipt)

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Antisemitic acts don’t all mean the same thing, even if they provoke the same fear. A swastika sprayed on a synagogue door in Winnipeg is not the same as a fire set at a synagogue in Mississippi. And while community members understand this, when violence and intimidation come to their own neighbourhood, it's easy to fall into a maximalist trap that treats all threats as equal.

On this week's episode of Not in Heaven, our rabbinic hosts hone in on Rabbi Matthew Leibl's hometown of Winnipeg, where local police swiftly tracked down the vandal who went on a hateful graffiti spree, laying down charges of mischief and breaking and entering. They dig into the communal response and ask if anything needed to be handled differently. And before that, the hosts look at a new initiative that aims to repurpose religious real estate to help combat homelessness.

Credits

• Hosts: Avi Finegold, Yedida Eisenstat, Matthew Leibl

• Production team: Zachary Judah Kauffman (editor), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)

• Music: Socalled

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The winter holiday season is upon us, which means binging TV shows and comfort movies is one of the only ways to pass the time while temperatures plummet outside. With this annual tradition, in the Jewish media world, come annual think pieces about Jewish onscreen representation. And while our rabbinic podcasters have delved into this subject already with the ever-popular sitcom Nobody Wants This, there is a better—and much more deeply Jewish—TV show available to stream on Netflix: Long Story Short.

The time-travelling show depicts a single family over multiple generations, bouncing between the 1950s and 2020s, showing how generational trauma manifests in parenting styles, psychological effects, and emotional manipulation—all with a uniquely Jewish flair.

On today's episode, with Matthew Leibl away, The CJN's director of podcasts, Michael Fraiman, sits in to discuss the show's impact and themes, and where it fits into the long cannon of hyper-Jewish television that sprang up in the 2010s.

Before that, Avi Finegold and Yedida Eisenstat dissect the latest controversy swirling up around misinterpreted comments by Sara Hurwitz, and the gang recaps their American Thanksgivings through a Canadian lens.

Credits

• Hosts: Avi Finegold, Yedida Eisenstat, Matthew Leibl

• Production team: Zachary Judah Kauffman (editor), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)

• Music: Socalled

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A recent, landmark study of current and future rabbis was met simultaneously with celebration, skepticism, and concern by groups across the Jewish community.

The survey by Atra – Center for Rabbinic Innovation, indicated significant upward trends in rabbis choosing community positions rather than leading congregations from the pulpit, rabbinical students who identify as LGBTQ+ (51 percent), and the number of students receiving rabbinic ordination from nondenominational schools.

The statistics have garnered their share of skepticism and criticism, namely that they under represent Modern Orthodox rabbinical students and that they do not include traditional Orthodox and Haredi populations. But even with those caveats, some community leaders worry that these trends indicate a non-Orthodox rabbinate whose demographics are significantly different than the lay populations they hope to serve, and who may have more difficulty than their predecessors in building relationships with mainstream Jewish community organizations.

Our hosts - 3 rabbis and not a pulpit between them - discuss how the study matches up with their own observations and what it means for the future of the Jewish community.

They also chat about the recent brouhaha within the Jewish community about an upcoming exhibit at Winnipeg’s Canadian Museum for Human Rights, and a spate of Jewish Canadian organisations recently losing their charitable status. And of course, some Textual Healing to ease our listeners into Shabbat Parshat Vayetzei.

Credits

• Hosts: Avi Finegold, Yedida Eisenstat, Matthew Leibl

• Production team: Zachary Judah Kauffman (editor), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)

• Music: Socalled

Support The CJN

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• Subscribe to Not in Heaven (Not sure how? Click here )