Toronto entrepreneurs Daniel Carson and Daniel Schreiber have been revelling in the spotlight ever since the Artemis ll astronauts blasted off into space on April 1. That’s because the best friends’ Goldy’s Superseed Strawberry Lavender breakfast cereal was along for the ride as part of the historic mission’s menu.

Their product is made in a KSA-certified kosher plant in Etobicoke. It was personally selected by Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen to be among his home-grown pantry during the crew’s 400,000 kilometre journey around the moon. It is the farthest distance any human, or cereal, has ever traveled from Earth.

And while that floating jar of Nutella in the capsule garnered global attention, which was also made in Canada and is kosher, the two Daniels’ all-natural, nut-free breakfast choice comes with a secret ingredient: Jewish pride.

Carson has been deeply rooted in the Jewish community, working for Camp Robin Hood and also the Magen Boys, while his childhood pal Schneider, who he met growing up in Thornhill, has Israeli roots.

On today’s The CJN “North Star” podcast, they speak with host Ellin Bessner about how it all started and about their next-level ambitions to bring kosher cereal to infinity—and beyond.

Related links

• Learn more about the two Daniels behind Goldy’s kosher KSA-certified oatmeal and cereals.
• Read more about the Israeli astronaut Ilan Ramon, killed when the Space Shuttle Columbia exploded on re-entry in 2003, in The CJN.
• Interview with Gregory Chamitoff, a Jewish astronaut who grew up in Chomedey, Que. and went to space on board Discovery, in The CJN from 2013.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner ( @ebessner )
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer), Alicia Richler (editorial director)
• Music: Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to North Star (Not sure how? Click here )
• Watch our podcasts on YouTube.
• Help others find this podcast by leaving us a review for “North Star” on Apple Podcasts via your iPhone or iPad device, or with your Android. (Spotify allows only starred ratings but you can do that, too!)

As Yom HaShoah begins, award-winning Canadian children's author Kathy Kacer explains how 100,000 small brass plaques across Europe—known as stolpersteine—help pass Holocaust memory to the next generation.

That’s why after publishing over 30 kids books with Holocaust themes, her newest effort Last Known Address, dropped just before Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Kacer uses “stolpersteine”s or “stumbling stones” to connect her young readers with the lives lost or disrupted during the Holocaust.

Kacer showcases the last homes where Anne Frank and 12 lesser-known victims of Nazi persecution lived. Most of the book focuses on Jews, but she also broadens her storytelling to include others targeted by Hitler’s regime: a Roma couple, a gay German man and a mentally disabled brother.

Several of her subjects survived, including the late Vera Katz Schiff of Toronto and Salman Schocken of Israel.

On today’s episode of The CJN’s North Star podcast, Kathy Kacer joins host Ellin Bessner to describe her voyage of discovery tracing the stumbling stones, and why she keeps speaking about the Holocaust to thousands of students at hundreds of schools.

Related Links

• Learn more and buy Kathy Kacer ’s latest book “Last Known Address ” through Second Storey Press.
• Read more about Ellin’s personal encounter with Stolpersteine in the small German Rhine River town of Bacharach in 2017, in The CJN.
• Search more about the Stolpersteine on artist Gunter Demnig’s project site .

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner ( @ebessner )
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer), Alicia Richler (editorial director)
• Music: Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to North Star (Not sure how? Click here )
• Watch our podcasts on YouTube.
• Help others find this podcast by leaving us a review for “North Star” on Apple Podcasts via your iPhone or iPad device, or with your Android. (Spotify allows only starred ratings but you can do that, too!)

For Marci Stepak, Toronto Public Library branches were never just about books—they were where she spent time with her mother. Eunice Stepak died of breast cancer on April 7, 2025, one day before what would have been her 88th birthday.

This week, marking one year since her mother's death, Stepak set out on a 10-day, 300-kilometre walk to all 100 TPL branches. She’s calling it Every Library TO and is raising funds for library outreach programs that supported her mother in her final months.

In this episode of The CJN’s "North Star" podcast, host Ellin Bessner speaks with Stepak about grief, memory and finding a way forward.

Related links

• Follow Marci Stepak ’s memorial walk for her late mother to all of Toronto’s 100 public libraries.
• Learn how to donate to her TPL fundraiser.
• Read more about Marcie Stepak’s background in The CJN from 2010, about the show “Being Erica.”

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner ( @ebessner )
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer), Alicia Richler (editorial director)
• Music: Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to North Star (Not sure how? Click here )
• Watch our podcasts on YouTube.
• Help others find this podcast by leaving us a review for “North Star” on Apple Podcasts via your iPhone or iPad device, or with your Android. (Spotify allows only starred ratings but you can do that, too!)