Fania Fainer’s friends risked their lives to celebrate her 20th birthday in a forced labour factory in Auschwitz, fashioning a tiny ersatz cake along with a folded paper greeting card shaped like a heart. Decades later, she was living in Toronto when she decided to donate it to the Montreal Holocaust Museum to further the cause of Holocaust education. Her origami heart was also featured in the recent Auschwitz exhibition at Toronto’s Royal Ontario Museum.
Fainer is one of the prominent members of Canada’s Jewish community who passed away recently. Just ahead of Holocaust Education Week, The CJN’s _North Star _podcast is paying tribute to her and to other community leaders as part of our recurring series, “Honourable Menschen”.
On today’s episode, host Ellin Bessner is joined by The CJN’s obituary columnist, Heather Ringel, to share the stories of Fainer and: Cantor Ben Maissner, who served at Holy Blossom Temple in Toronto for 40 years; Carole Grafstein, who helped found the Canadian Women Against Antisemitism group after Oct. 7 and raised millions for many charities as a member of the Toronto Glitter Girls; Montreal’s Sid Stevens, who co-founded the Sun Youth organization; and Ben Schlesinger, a child Holocaust survivor who transformed his trauma into a career in social work.

Related links

• Read more about the life of the late Fania Fainer in The Canadian Jewish News.


• Read the obituary of the late Cantor Ben Maissner from Holy Blossom Temple, in The CJN.


• Find out more about the life of the late Carole Grafstein, who raised millions for charity, in The CJN.


• Read how the late Sid Stevens co-founded Montreal’s Sun Youth organization, started first food banks, and Crime Stoppers, in The CJN.


• Learn how the late Ben Schlesinger survived Kristallnacht as a child to become a renowned Canadian social worker at the U of T, in The CJN.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)


• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)


• Music: Bret Higgins

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