This year, as the political turmoil in Israel intensified, Canadian Jewish organizations had to straddle a thin line. Many expressed concern about the legislative overhauls planned by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, while others preferred to keep mum on the topic; almost all reinforced their fundamental support for the country.

Regardless of which path they chose, their need to speak out—or not speak out—opened them up to criticism from the Canadian Jewish public. And that begs a deeper question: do these organizations actually represent the views of the broader community?

To take a pulse on the issue, Dan Brotman and Yaron Deckel, hosts and sponsors of Five Questions About Israel, assembled a panel of three dedicated Jewish Canadians with a record of volunteering for such organizations. They are Deborah Livneh, the executive director of the Windsor Essex Capital Angel Network and board member for the Windsor Jewish Community Endowment Fund and the American Technion Society; Evan Pilz, a political fundraiser and longtime lay leader for various Jewish organizations, including the UJA Federation of Greater Toronto and the Centre for Israel Jewish Affairs; and Max Lissoos, who hails from South Africa, where he was the president of the country's first conservative congregation.

Diaspora Jews are often expected to support Israel—emotionally, financially, spiritually. For some, making aliyah is an admirable right of passage. Reverence and defence are key themes in Diaspora attitudes towards the world's only Jewish state.

In the last episode of this podcast, we asked a significant question about how Canadian Jewish organizations, in particular, should balance their domestic philanthropic needs with those of Israel—which is, by all metrics, as wealthy and successful a nation as Canada, if not more so.

But what about the other way around? Of course Diaspora Jews support Israel—but how does Israel support the Diaspora? If Israel is a homeland to all Jews, how is it ensuring a vibrant global Jewish community that remains strong enough to defend Israel in the broader world?

To help navigate this discussion, we turn to three members of the Canadian Jewish community. Jonathan Gendler is an Israeli-born Canadian and manager his family's fine-art business; Yakov Rabkin is a writer and professor emeritus of history at the University of Montreal; and Tiphaera Ziner Cohen is a law clerk at the federal court of appeal in Ottawa.

It's a well-known fact that Israel is one of the world's wealthiest countries. Far from being the struggling Jewish state of the 1950s and 1960s, when it needed allies from developed nations to build a safe haven for Jews around the world, Israel now generally ranks among the top countries in GDP per capita by any metric—often scoring in the top 20, often above Canada.

It forces the question: Why are Canadian Jewish organizations still sending money to Israel? Especially with smaller communities struggling to offer social services and meet the needs of their residents, what percentage of funds raised—if any—makes sense to send abroad?

This is the third question asked by Dan Brotman and Yaron Deckel, hosts and sponsors of The CJN Studios podcast Five Questions About Israel. For answers and opinions, they turn to Mathew Frieberg, a real estate developer and co-chair of UJA Toronto's annual campaign in 2021-22; Joanna Mirski Wexler, a Halifax-based accountant and Hebrew teacher who represents Atlantic Canada on the national CIJA board; and Miriam Goldstein, a theatre worker and board member of the Windsor Jewish Federation.