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May 2019
CANCELLED: Ellin speaks about ‘Double Threat’ at the Markham Public Library Thornhill Community Centre branch
NOTE: EVENT HAS BEEN CANCELLED. As the world prepares to commemorate the 75th anniversary of D-Day, author and journalist Ellin Bessner brings her new book "Double Threat" to the Markham Public Library. Her book tells us the untold stories of the 17,000 Canadians of Jewish faith who helped defeat Hitler, and rescued the survivors of the Holocaust during WWII.
Find out more »June 2019
Ellin participates in the Tilly sur Seulles Book Fair in Normandy Sunday June 9, 2019
Ellin joins other military authors at the 11th annual Military Book Salon at the museum in Tilly-sur-Seulles, France, an important landmark during the battles of the Allied invasion of Normandy in 1944. Her new book "Double Threat: Canadian Jews, the Military, and WWII" will be available for sale, and signing at the Salon. Salon du Livre in Tilly 2018(Courtesy Tilly1944.com)
Find out more »September 2019
Ellin brings ‘Double Threat’ to the Probus Club of Bradford-West Gwillimbury
For the tiny wartime Jewish community of Canada, the Second World War was what the prime minister of the day, Mackenzie King, called a “Double Threat”: he said Hitler was not only dangerous to freedom and democracy, but was a threat to the very survival of the Jewish people as a race. And for the 17,000 Canadian Jewish soldiers who went to help fight Hitler, the war posed a great personal danger, should the Nazis capture them. York Region resident,…
Find out more »Ellin speaks at Beth David Synagogue in Toronto’s Adult Education Lunch and Learn Sept. 22, 2019
Fresh from her 2019 summer D-Day 75 anniversary trip to France with Canadian Jewish veterans and military officials, author Ellin Bessner brings tales from the beaches of Normandy to Beth David synagogue's Adult Education members (in a joint event with the Brotherhood). Lunch begins 11:30 a.m. and Ellin's lively, interactive talk begins at 12.
Find out more »Ellin brings ‘Double Threat’ to the Probus Club in Whitby, Sept. 25, 2019
The PROBUS Club of Whitby Brooklin meets from 10:00 AM to noon, on the 4th Wednesday of every month (except December), in the auditorium of Westminster United Church, Rossland and Garrard Rds., Whitby. We have a large membership of intelligent, dynamic seniors who love to learn, and approximately 120-160 people attend our monthly meetings. https://www.whitbybrooklinprobus.com/speakers.html
Find out more »October 2019
Ellin speaks to Yiddish Vinkl on College Street October 3.
My Uncle Al, an American who lived in Pennsylvania, never talked much about his service in the Second World War, except to tell his nephews and nieces about the times when he spoke Yiddish to arrest some Germans and take them prisoner. Toronto's Norman Gulko also used his knowledge of Yiddish on the battlefield: once to try to flush out some Germans from a wooded area, and the second time to scream abuse at a long line of captured German…
Find out more »Ellin speaks about ‘Jewish women in the Canadian military in WWII’ to the P.A.L. Group in Toronto
Esther Thorley (nee Bubis) of Toronto enlisted in the Canadian Army in the Second World War after her brother Meyer was killed at Dieppe. Rose Goodman of New Glasgow, Nova Scotia enlisted in the fall of 1941, as soon as Canada allowed women to put on a uniform and serve their country in the RCAF Women's Division. In all, some 270 Canadian Jewish women served during WWII, and although they earned less than the men, had to wear skirts, no…
Find out more »November 2019
Ellin brings ‘Double Threat’ to the Men’s Probus Club of Lindsay, Ontario for Nov. 12, 2019
Support for the rescue of Europe's Jews came from an unlikely place: the Grand Master of the Oddfellows Grand Lodge of Ontario in Little Britain, Ontario, near Lindsay. It was a big concern for George C. Hall, who wrote to then prime minister Mackenzie King in 1938. (Courtesy Kawartha Lakes Library) The Men’s Probus Club of Lindsay meets at the local Masonic lodge on Kent street East, directly behind the Academy theatre on Lindsay Street.
Find out more »‘A score to settle with Hitler’: Ellin brings the story of Canada’s 17,000 Jewish WWII servicemen to the Royal Canadian Military Institute
When most people think about Jews and the Second World War, they think about the victims of the Holocaust. But now a new book by Canadian journalist Ellin Bessner tells the untold story of how and why more than 17,000 Canadian Jews put on a uniform and served in the war, as the liberators. And how Canada's tiny Jewish community mobilized men, money, and equipment to win the war.
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