Ellin speaks at Congregation Machzekei Hadat (Clanton Park Synagogue)

As Jews around the world prepare to celebrate the holiday of Chanukkah, which commemorates the victory of the Jewish Maccabee fighters over the Greeks, and the miracle of the light in the Holy Temple that burned for eight days, author and journalist Ellin Bessner brings you the untold stories of the 17,000 Canadian Jews who put on a military uniform in the Second World War. Not only were they fighting for King and Country against the Nazis and the Japanese and other members of the Axis, but they were also fighting as Jews, to liberate their European relatives from Hitler’s Final Solution. Hear how they kept their faith (or didn’t) in the barracks and on the battlefield, and how they dealt with antisemitism at home and abroad, as well as living as Jewishly as possible, under the circumstances. Ellin’s new book Double Threat: Canadian Jews, the Military, and WWII, is being published in the fall of 2017 by New Jewish Press, from the University of Toronto’s Anne Tanenbaum Centre for Jewish Studies.  Order her book via Indigo.ca or Amazon.ca.