Beit Rayim Synagogue Lunch and Learn

How Canada’s Jewish servicemen and women kept their faith (or didn’t) as they fought Nazism and the Axis during World War ll. On the 72nd anniversary of the end of the Second World War, author and journalist Ellin Bessner’s new book “Double Threat: Canadian Jews, the Military, and World War ll” tells the stories of the 17,000 Canadian Jews who put on a uniform. Their service was considered a sacred duty, to not only save their brethren from Hitler’s Final Solution, but to do so as practising Jews. Ellin will speak at the Beit Rayim BR’hood Lunch and Learn, about how they navigated the issues of keeping the dietary laws of Kashruth, dating, observing religious holidays and customs, and how they went to extraordinary lengths to bury their dead according to Jewish rites, as best as battlefield conditions permitted. Learn about the rabbis who helped restore Yiddishkeit to Europe’s Jewish survivors, and the Canadian Jewish servicemen and women who helped them do this.