When Richard Wood recently took over Omnitsky's Kosher, a staple of Vancouver's Jewish community for three decades, he made a few changes. He found a new building, opened a small market section, and hired the restaurant's first-ever head chef. When accepting applications, one name stood out to him: a Palestinian Muslim man named Mustafa Ghanim.

Richard wound up hiring Mustafa, who left his hometown of Nablus for Tel Aviv years ago, and has spent nearly a decade working in kosher Israeli kitchens. Now, in Vancouver, their little-known story is a testament to the possibility of everyday peaceful coexistence between Canadian Jews and Muslims—and it became the backdrop for the second live episode of In Good Faith, The CJN's interfaith podcast series.

So podcast hosts Avi Finegold and Yafa Sakkejha flew to Vancouver to speak with Richard and Mustafa and share stories about their respective food cultures. And while they were there, they invited 50 people from both the Muslim and Jewish communities to pack the restaurant and enjoy a decadent meal prepared by the Palestinian kosher chef himself.

Credits

• Hosts:

Yafa Sakkejha and Avi Finegold

• **Producers: ** Michael Fraiman and Zachary Judah Kauffman

• Editor:

Zachary Judah Kauffman

This podcast is sponsored by the Canadian Race Relations Foundation, with support from the Ronald S. Roadburg Foundation.

There’s a teaching that appears almost word-for-word in both Jewish and Islamic scriptures: whoever kills a soul, it's as if he killed the entire world; anyone who saves one soul, it is as if he had saved mankind entirely. Judaism and Islam diverge on many points—but on this one, they’re in unanimous agreement.

Yet over the last two years, both Jews and Muslims in Canada and around the world have felt like they’re in a constant state of mourning over the violence and death in Israel and Gaza. And it’s not just the weight of the loss itself—there is also rage when it feels like someone else’s grief is being prioritized above your own, or when the reality of your grief is questioned.

At the same time, grieving is fundamentally not about death. Grief can heal us and bring communities together—as it has for both guests on today’s episode of In Good Faith.

First, you’ll hear from Layla Alsheikh, a Palestinian mother whose six-month-old son died after inhaling tear gas that Israeli soldiers shot into her West Bank village in 2002. After her story, Yonatan Zeigen discusses life after the murder of his mother, the Israeli peace activist Vivian Silver, at the hands of Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7. What connects these two bereaved voices? After suffering a brutal loss, both wound up turning toward peace-building as a way to honour the legacy of their late family members.

Credits

• Hosts: Yafa Sakkejha and Avi Finegold

• Producers: Michael Fraiman and Zachary Judah Kauffman

• Editor: Zachary Judah Kauffman

This podcast is sponsored by the Canadian Race Relations Foundation, with support from the Ronald S. Roadburg Foundation.

Look at how university campuses are represented in today's media landscape, and you'll often see the word radical. Since Oct. 7, this concept of campus radicalization—and censorship—is often pegged to Israel and Palestine, and the fear that students are being fed slanted narratives from their freshman year.

But that fear misunderstands what’s actually happening on many campuses. What makes university life so formative is more than just exposure to new ideas; it’s learning how to sit with disagreement. Students are meeting peers from different histories, faiths, and political realities—and when they engage with one another, they're sharpening their minds and clarifying their beliefs.

That’s the premise behind Bridging the Gap, a student-led effort bringing Jewish and Muslim students into sustained, face-to-face conversation. In this episode of In Good Faith, we hear from two of the organization's student leaders, Rasoul Kailani and Ellie Shram, about what they’re learning by debating instead of cancelling, and why the next generation may be developing stronger convictions—precisely because they’re being challenged.

Credits

• Hosts: Yafa Sakkejha and Avi Finegold

• Producers: Michael Fraiman and Zachary Judah Kauffman

• Editor: Zachary Judah Kauffman

This podcast is sponsored by the Canadian Race Relations Foundation, with support from the Ronald S. Roadburg Foundation.

Mainstream Jews, who support Israel and consider themselves Zionists, feel like they are under attack. When they see people wearing keffiyehs and storefronts stamped with Palestinian flags, they hear an implicit attack: "You are not welcome here."

But for Palestinians, watermelons and keffiyehs aren't anti-Jewish icons at all: they're symbols of national pride.

How can everyday Canadian Jews and Muslims even start a conversation when words and symbols have such different meanings to different people? Telling people they're overreacting isn't an effective tool, nor is public shame, arguing over historical facts or posting online memes.

What might work: navigating difficult conversations. On today's episode of In Good Faith, The CJN's interfaith podcast miniseries, we speak with two people who are working toward exactly that.

Niki Landau and Bashar Alshawwa both came to conflict resolution through trauma. Landau lost a close friend, Marnie Kimmelman, to a terrorist pipe bomb on a Tel Aviv beach at age 17; Alshawwa was shot by an Israeli army sniper during a protest in 2014. Now they're touring Canada, bringing Jews and Muslims together for lengthy closed-door dialogue sessions, with a singular goal: create a toolkit to guide Canadians through conversations they desperately don't want to have.

Credits

• Hosts: Yafa Sakkejha and Avi Finegold

• **Producers: ** Michael Fraiman and Zachary Judah Kauffman

• Editor: Zachary Judah Kauffman

This podcast is sponsored by the Canadian Race Relations Foundation, with support from the Ronald S. Roadburg Foundation.

In The Devil’s Arithmetic, a historical fiction novel of a young Jewish woman during the Second World War, Jewish author Jane Yolen famously wrote, “If we do not laugh, we will cry.” The quote ends: “What you laugh at and make familiar can no longer frighten you.”

Everyone knows that war, death and destruction are no laughing matter. But humour can help in fundamental ways. It can bring people together, helping them bypass the barriers that prevent them from understanding different perspectives. For Jews and Muslims over the past two years, humour has done even more: it has become an essential buffer against despair and a way of reclaiming agency in a world tragically beyond our control.

In that spirit, In Good Faith, The CJN’s interfaith podcast miniseries, brought two Jewish comics—Dan Rosen and Adrienne Fish—together with Arab stand-ups Nour Hadidi and AJ Bate for a night of live comedy at Youngplace in downtown Toronto on Oct. 22, 2025. After their stand-up sets, each joined hosts Avi Finegold and Yafa Sakkejha for a panel discussion about what it’s like spotlighting their identities onstage and why they feel comedy is important during difficult times.

Timestamps

• 00:00 - Introductions

• 03:47 - Dan Rosen

• 09:20 - AJ Bate

• 18:34 - Adrienne Fish

• 27:06 - Nour Hadidi

• 32:52 - Panel Discussion

Credits

• Hosts: Yafa Sakkejha and Avi Finegold
• Producers: Michael Fraiman and Zachary Judah Kauffman
• Editor: Zachary Judah Kauffman

This podcast is sponsored by the Canadian Race Relations Foundation, with support from the Ronald S. Roadburg Foundation.

Ever since Oct. 7, if you're a Jewish Canadian, odds are you've had a personal falling out. If you haven't personally, you likely know someone who has. Across the world, Jews have seen and heard shocking posts and comments by friends, acquaintances and colleagues.

This isn't a left-right issue. As we explore on today's episode of In Good Faith, The CJN's interfaith podcast miniseries, even within left-wing activist circles, friends have been torn apart in the aftermath of the Hamas attack on Israel.

On today's episode, you'll hear from two longtime friends: Ronit Yarosky and Ehab Lotayef. They've been friends for 20 years. She's Jewish; he's Muslim. She's lived in Israel, and served in the Israeli army before founding the Canadian branch of the Women in Black anti-war group; he's Egyptian and married a Palestinian woman, sitting on numerous Arab and Muslim Canadian councils. But despite having marched side-by-side in progressive protests for decades, a single comment on Oct. 8, 2023, caused what seemed like an irreparable rift in their lives for a year.

Hear how they fell apart—and came back together—on In Good Faith.

NOTE: This podcast has been developed in partnership between Jewish, Muslim, Arab and Palestinian community members to foster dialogue between our communities. Some listeners may find parts of this program offensive. All opinions belong to the participants, and do not reflect the views of The CJN staff, its board members or its donors.

Credits

• Hosts: Yafa Sakkejha and Avi Finegold
• Producers: Michael Fraiman and Zachary Judah Kauffman
• Editor: Zachary Judah Kauffman

This podcast is sponsored by the Canadian Race Relations Foundation, with support from the Ronald S. Roadburg Foundation.

Ever since Oct. 7, 2023, Muslim and Jewish communities in Canada have been torn apart. Dialogue groups disbanded. Friendships bottomed out. Campuses became battlegrounds. And what happens when two groups stop speaking to one another, both reeling from a raging war halfway around the world?

Dehumanization. Anxiety. Trauma. Hatred.

It is against this backdrop, as a fragile ceasefire slowly cools the Israel-Gaza conflict, that The CJN is launching In Good Faith. In this podcast, you'll hear difficult, honest, challenging conversations with Jews and Muslims, Israelis and Palestinians, from across the country.

But first, we start with our hosts: Avi Finegold, a rabbi and a writer with The CJN, and Yafa Sakkejha, a Canadian-Palestinian entrepreneur and volunteer with the Friends of Standing Together.

In the first episode, they meet face-to-face for the first time and just... talk.

Credits

• Hosts: Yafa Sakkejha and Avi Finegold
• Producers: Michael Fraiman and Zachary Judah Kauffman
• Editor: Zachary Judah Kauffman

This podcast is sponsored by the Canadian Race Relations Foundation, with support from the Ronald S. Roadburg Foundation.

This podcast features strong expletives and language that some audiences may find offensive.

In a post-Oct. 7 world, news feeds are filled with videos, podcasts and reports of Jews and Muslims talking at each other, or about each other, but rarely with each other. We're doing something different. This limited series brings together Jews, Muslims, Israelis and Palestinians, from across Canada and the political divide, to sit down and have honest, heartfelt, difficult conversations—in good faith.

Sponsored by the Canadian Race Relations Foundation, with support from the Ronald S. Roadburg Foundation.

Credits

• Hosts: Yafa Sakkejha and Avi Finegold
• Production team: Michael Fraiman and Zachary Judah Kauffman
• Music: Yurii Suprunenko