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Ellin speaks at “Ignite: Chanuka Adult Jewish Learning Night at the Prosserman JCC in Toronto

Ignite: Chanukah Adult Learning Night. Light Up Your Mind! 
Join us for a special adult learning event on the 4th night of Chanukah!
When? Saturday, December 16, 6:30 – 10:00 Where? Prosserman JCC


Registration opens at 6:30

7:00 Candle Lighting

Special Candle lighting ceremony with Song Shul's Cantor Simon Spiro and the Toronto Festival Singers! Chanukah refreshments provided. 
Choose two from the featured sessions:

7:30 – 8:30 Session 1
Rabbi Howard Morrison “Not the famous story from Hebrew School – The real story of Chanukah and its lessons for today”

Ruthie Ladovsky “United Bakers: the story behind Toronto's beloved oldest Jewish restaurant"

Ellin Bessner “Fighting Amalek: the 17,000 Canadian Jews who fought Hitler in WWll”*sponsored by OJA*

Batik workshop: discover the art of fabric dye using wax and special dyes

Ceramics workshop: make your own Chanukah Judaica! 


Ellin speaks to Rose Reisman’s monthly lecture series ‘Rosebuds’ in Toronto, on Monday Nov. 18, 2019

Contact organizer for address Toronto, Canada

Although the Second World War was a man’s war, and 17,000 Canadian Jewish men served, a tiny but important group of 270 Canadian Jewish women dared to overcome their family and community’s disapproval, the lower pay, and sexual harassment, and joined the Canadian forces after 1941. That is when the government allowed women to enlist. They served in many jobs at home, and behind the front lines, overseas.

Ellin speaks at the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum Saturday May 9, 2020 about V-E Day in WWII

Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum 9280 Airport Rd,, Mount Hope, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada

As the world commemorates the 75th anniversary of the end of World War Two, author and journalist Ellin Bessner brings her new book "Double Threat" to the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum in Hamilton. As Hamilton and indeed, the world marked the end of the fighting, hundreds of Canadian airmen and soldiers were still hard at work overseas with a new humanitarian mission: rescuing the survivors of the Holocaust,  including in Germany at the site of the notorious Nazi death camp Bergen-Belsen.

Ellin speaks at the Beach Hebrew Institute in Toronto Sunday Nov. 8, 2020 on the eve of Remembrance Day

Beaches Hebrew Institute 109 Kenilworth Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

As the world commemorates the 75th anniversary of the end of WWII, and Remembrance Day under COVID-19, Toronto author and journalist Ellin Bessner speaks (by Zoom) at the Beaches Hebrew Institute about Canada's Jewish community and their contribution to winning the war. Bessner's book "Double Threat: Canadian Jews, the Military and WWII" tells the little known story of the 17,000 Canadians of Jewish faith who put on a uniform, defeated Hitler and rescued the survivors of the Holocaust. Her research uncovered many important stories about the Fascist supporters in the Beaches area of Toronto at the time, including from the various beach clubs in the 1930s and 1940s, as well as interviews with young Jewish men from the neighbourhood who would go on to enlist.

Copyright © Ellin Bessner