In Good Faith

Over the course of this miniseries, we've heard stories of broken friendships, murdered love ones and campus protests. But from those same stories, we also heard about how the people involved walked away with hope and optimism. And so we want you, too, to come away with a bit of that at the end of this series.

In the final episode of In Good Faith, hosts Avi Finegold and Yafa Sakkejha reflect on the year they spent making this show: what they've heard, what surprised them, and how they've changed as people. Then, they take some time to discuss what didn't make it into the podcast. What did we leave unsaid? How can we wrestle with geopolitcal topics whose complexities reach well beyond the depths of eight podcast episodes? And what can listeners take away if they want to get involved with building a more peaceful future, here in Canada, for Jews and Muslims alike?

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.

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.