November's Main Presentation

November 15, 2022

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ELLIN BESSNER

 

"Remembrance Day and the Holocaust: The Story of Canada's

17,000 Jewish Soldiers who Fought Hitler"

"As the world prepares to commemorate the 77th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, and the 77th anniversary of the end of WWII, Canadian author and journalist Ellin Bessner says it is important to remember the victims, but also the liberators: the Canadian soldiers, airmen and sailors who volunteered to put on a uniform, went to fight Hitler and also rescued the Jews of Europe from the Holocaust."

 

About 17,000 Canadians of Jewish faith were among those who helped their comrades win WWII, as Ellin writes in her book “Double Threat: Canadian Jews, the Military & WWII.” Yet these brave Jewish Canadian fighters also had to overcome widespread antisemitism both at home and on the battlefield, plus grave personal danger, should they fall into enemy hands and their Jewish religion be discovered.

 

Please feel free to bring your family’s war memorabilia with you to share with the audience at the meeting.

 

Copies of Ellin’s book, “Double Threat” will be available for signing and sale at the event with a special PROBUS member price of $25. Cash or cheque will be accepted for payment. 

 

 About our Speaker:

 

"Ellin Bessner is a Canadian journalist based in Toronto. She was born in Montreal and graduated with a degree in journalism and political science from Carleton University. Her career as a journalist took her around Canada and around the world, working for CTV News and CBC News, and also stringing for the Globe and Mail, the Canadian Press and other organizations. She was a foreign correspondent based in Rome during the 1990s, and covered several brutal civil wars in Africa.

 

She was a business anchor for many years at Report on Business Television, now BNN and has taught hundreds of budding young journalists, in her capacity as a professor at Centennial College Journalism School, Seneca College and Ryerson University. Ellin now hosts the podcast The CJN Daily which offers a bite-sized look at news about Canada’s Jewish community, for the Canadian Jewish News."