In Jewish tradition, the month of Tamuz is a time to look at things a little differently, especially the painful things, the frustrating things, and the parts of life that feel unfinished or broken. I’ve always liked that idea. Sometimes what feels missing is exactly what we need to pay attention to.
That thought has stayed with me lately, not only in my personal life, but in a place you might not expect: CBC Radio.
CBC has been part of my everyday life
Whether I’m in Montreal or Jerusalem, CBC is usually on somewhere in the background. It’s part of my daily routine. I listen while making breakfast, tidying up, driving, and sometimes even when I’m trying to fall asleep. My friends laugh at me for how much I listen, and honestly, they’re right.
I’ve always loved radio. I love good conversations, smart interviews, thoughtful questions, and the way one interesting topic can lead to another. CBC has often given me that. During the pandemic, when the days felt long and lonely, it was more than background noise. It felt like company.
That’s probably why this has been bothering me as much as it has.
I started noticing an absence
Because I’m such a regular listener, I began to notice something I couldn’t quite shake.
As a psychotherapist, I was trained to listen carefully, not only to what people say, but also to what they leave out. Over time, I started hearing a kind of silence on CBC. Jewish voices, Jewish perspectives, and Jewish cultural references seemed to be fading more and more into the background.
I don’t mean they disappeared overnight. And I don’t mean that no Jewish person is ever mentioned. I mean something more subtle than that. There was a time when Jewish voices felt like a natural part of the wider Canadian conversation. Not dominant, not highlighted for special attention, just there. Woven in. Part of the mix.
Now, at least to my ears, that feels much less true.
I want to be careful here
This is not about resenting the inclusion of other communities. I’m glad CBC has opened more space for Indigenous, Black, Asian, and Muslim voices. That matters. It should matter. Public broadcasting should reflect the fullness of the country.
But I don’t think that should come at the cost of quietly losing another voice.
That is what troubles me. Not that others are finally being heard more, but that Jewish perspectives now seem so often to be missing.
And once I noticed it, I couldn’t stop noticing it.
This was on my mind even before October 7
In fact, I had written to CBC leadership about this before October 7, 2023. To their credit, they responded graciously and invited me to pitch ideas.
So I did.
I started thinking seriously about a podcast on Jewish women who have contributed to Canadian culture, beginning with two remarkable Montreal women: Gaby Ohrbach, a longtime dance teacher with Les Grands Ballets Canadiens who is now a jewelry artist, and Gina Roitman, an acclaimed writer and documentary producer whose film My Mother, the Nazi Midwife and Me aired on CBC.
Both women have rich and meaningful stories. Both reflect something beautiful and important about Jewish life in Canada.
And yet stories like theirs rarely seem to find a place on CBC these days.
I’m not the only one who has felt this absence. Writer Debbi Weiss expressed it in her essay The Cancellation of Jewish Voices:
“Jewish culture has apparently been cancelled and, worse, we’re supposed to believe we somehow earned this invalidation.”
That line stayed with me because it captured something I had been feeling for a while.
At first, what I felt was not anger. It was sadness.
Why does this matter?
Because when Jewish voices slip out of the public conversation, something real is lost.
Jewish tradition has shaped many of the values people now talk about as if they simply appeared in modern life: human dignity, care for the vulnerable, the importance of truth, the responsibility to remember, and the idea that rest is not a luxury but a right.
These values did not come out of nowhere. They have deep roots, and Jewish thought is part of that story. The Torah begins with Adam and Eve, and the rabbis asked why. Their answer was simple and powerful: so no one can say, “My family is better than yours.” That is a profound statement about human equality. The tradition also returns again and again to the widow, the orphan, and the stranger, reminding us that a society is judged by how it treats the vulnerable. Shabbat gave the world the idea that rest belongs to everyone, not only the privileged, but servants and even animals too. “Do not bear false witness” is not just a religious teaching; it is one of the foundations of justice and public trust. And the old warning, “If you destroy the earth, there is no one after you to repair it,” feels especially relevant now.
So when Jewish perspectives are absent from conversations about justice, ethics, history, identity, or even culture, something important is missing. The conversation feels less grounded and less complete.
This isn’t about asking for special treatment. It’s about asking not to be quietly edited out of the picture.
And then there is Israel
This feeling becomes even harder for me when CBC covers Israel and the Middle East.
I know this is difficult territory, and I know people bring strong feelings to it. So do I. But as someone who listens closely, I often come away feeling that something is off. The coverage can feel narrow. Certain sources are treated as authoritative, while Israeli perspectives, or Jewish perspectives shaped by history and lived experience, seem harder to hear.
That matters. CBC is not just one media outlet among many. It is Canada’s public broadcaster. Its tone and framing shape how people understand events, especially events as emotionally loaded as these.
When Jewish perspectives are missing there, too, it doesn’t broaden understanding. It narrows it.
(I explore this issue in more detail in this blog.)
Maybe what I’m really talking about is erasure
That may sound like a strong word, but it’s the one that keeps coming to mind.
Not erasure in some dramatic, obvious way. Something quieter than that. A gradual fading out. A silence that becomes normal because nobody names it.
But I am naming it.
Because Jewish life in Canada is not marginal. Jewish voices helped shape this country’s intellectual, cultural, and moral life. That is part of the story of Canada, too. So when those voices are barely heard in one of our major public spaces, it leaves a gap.
Why I’m writing this now
I’m writing this because I don’t think staying quiet helps.
Jewish tradition places enormous weight on memory. Not memory for its own sake, but memory as responsibility. We are asked to remember because forgetting has consequences.
I suppose this piece is, in part, my way of refusing that kind of forgetting.
It is also why I’m working on a podcast of my own with my friend and teacher, Rabbi Professor Asher Jacobson. I want to make room for stories and perspectives that I feel are not being heard enough. Not to drown anyone else out. Just to make sure we are still in the conversation.
I still listen
What makes all this complicated is that I still love a lot about CBC. I still listen. I still admire many of the people who work there and much of what it does well.
So this is not a rejection. It’s more like disappointment. The kind you feel when something that has meant a lot to you no longer feels as open or as complete as it once did.
I noticed that.
And I doubt I’m the only one.
As Hemingway titled his famous novel, borrowing from John Donne, The Bell Tolls for Thee. Today, that bell tolls for all of us.
Will CBC listen?
References & Further Reading
- Honest Reporting. Website
- Weiss, D. The Cancellation of Jewish Voices. Substack
- Lockdown University Lectures. Website
- Phillips, M. Commentary and Analysis. Melanie Phillips Substack