Naomi: Telling Jewish Stories

Meet Naomi.

A granddaughter of Holocaust survivors. A woman committed to ensure that Never Again means Never Again. A powerhouse whose entire professional life led her to be uniquely prepared to tackle the storm that washed over the Toronto Jewish community in the days after October 7.

Her grandparents’ story of strength and resilience has guided her on how to overcome the challenges that lay ahead, both personally and professionally as the world changed forever. 

“My grandparents lived a very hard but long life. I lost them both in 2022, a few months apart, at 104 and 97 years old. They’d been married for 75 years. They were in the same labor camp in Siberia, but they didn’t know. After the war, they first returned to Poland and then went to Israel. They came to Canada in 1951, first to Montreal and then Toronto.  They went on to create 4 generations of family which they called “their riches”.’

Naomi’s professional career was her teenage dream fulfilled. She worked as a reporter for 20 years. She spent her summers working in New York City before and after September 11^th at CBS and at NY1. When she was 21 years old she worked on a nightly show about 9/11. “From the beginning of my career I’ve done hard stories, hard interviews.”  She went to Costa Rica for a school project in her final year at Ryerson University, now TMU, and fell in love with documentary work.

Upon graduation she became a reporter, then news anchor at CHEX television in Peterborough, Ontario. She then went to CTV2 (then A Channel in Barrie), and finally on to CTV Toronto for almost 10 years. She was a general assignment reporter, then the city hall reporter, and finally, the education reporter. 

While at A channel (CTV2) she went on The March of the Living and covered it for the news. “I covered it because there was a delegation of people from Vaughan and York Region doing the March.  We did a five-part documentary series which ended up winning a number of awards. And so, after the March of the Living, I volunteered on the Holocaust Education Week Committee for many years.”

She left news in 2017 and went to work at UJA Federation of Greater Toronto. “It just made sense to go to the Jewish community. I did digital content for them. I did their videos and storytelling, and I loved it.”

“The industry was changing, which is very clear now. We were doing so much and I wasn’t able to do the hard breaking news, the investigative reporting that I really wanted to. I also never saw my kids, and it was really hard as a mother in that profession. I wanted to see my kids more. I struggled with leaving because it was my dream job, but I made the decision for my family and I’m so glad I did.”

Naomi quickly learned that she wasn’t meant to work in an office environment so she started a communications company with two people, and UJA became one of her clients. She went out on her own shortly after October 7^th, and started a new company, The Narrative Agency.

“I found out very quickly after October 7th things I had never known about people in my life and their viewpoints. I’ve lost friends, very close friends. It’s been very hard, but out of the bad things that have happened, a lot of good has come into my life, including the people that I worked with after October 7.”

Like it was for most of us, October 7^th was the day that divided Naomi’s life into before and after. 

When the attacks started in Israel, Naomi was still awake. “I go to bed really late. I’m a night owl.

Because I went to bed so late, I had started to get breaking news alerts and people messaging me letting me know that the Red Alert was going off. I was upset when I started to fall asleep; I was worried because we have family there. I’ve gone to Israel several times for UJA and have become close with a lot of people in Israel, so I was messaging everyone I knew. When I woke up, I couldn’t believe what I saw. It was such a horrible day. It was unbelievable”

“At first, I was concerned about the people I love and my family and my friends. And then I was concerned for the Jewish community. As the grandchild of Holocaust survivors, I couldn’t believe what happened.”

Naomi had learned in the months that followed from doing interviews and from photos the degree of brutality that occurred that day. “The brutality, the degree to mutilate, the disrespect, the complete need to murder Jews. I didn’t think I would see that in my lifetime. I’ve done so much work in the field of Holocaust Education, I spoke to my grandparents about their experiences so many times, I’ve filmed so many testimonies of survivors over the years and have become close with them. And when you hear the stories of October 7^th, you’re seeing direct parallels. Holocaust survivors have told me that they have felt physically ill after seeing the footage; the feelings and the PTSD that they are reliving is making them sick. It was the first time in my life that I was happy that my grandparents weren’t alive to see this because I can’t imagine them living through this.”

The UJA mobilized very quickly to organize a community vigil, and Naomi and her team were there to help support the community with media and filming in whatever way was needed. 

The time that bookended October 7^th was surreal. Two days before, on October 5^th, Naomi was a moderator at an Israel Bonds event with Swell Ariel Or, the star of The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem. “We had the most amazing night; we were talking about Israel and the Diaspora and lessons of the past. The show touches on so many history lessons from Israel. It was so normal and beautiful and then the world changed forever.”

The Toronto rally was held on Oct 9^th. “Immediately we started connecting people with media because they wanted to do interviews.” Naomi also does video storytelling. So between media and filming she was involved with a supplies drive through UJA that sent a cargo plane off to Israel filled with donations from the community. There were shabbat table installations, Threads of Hope, events with hostage families and victims of October 7^th, and rallies.

On October 16^th, 9 days after October 7^th there was the ‘Face it, Fight it’ conference, an antisemitism conference held in Ottawa, which was scheduled months in advance. “The timing was surreal, because it was the first time we had all gathered, Jewish communities from across the country coming together. We needed to be together. But we couldn’t understand the magnitude of what was about to come.”

It was at that conference that Naomi agreed to join a Strategic Response Team created by UJA. “The team was designed to help the community, to bring together professionals who didn’t work at UJA, who could help with various things when it came to the war. They brought my company in to help with media and communications. At the beginning of the war, we had meetings every single day.  We strategized on what we were going to do in terms of media, government relations, what’s happening on campuses, what’s happening in the schools. There was someone for everything.”

“Being the grandchild of holocaust survivors, then being a reporter, then working in the Jewish community, then going out and starting my own company – all of this led me to be able to use all my skills to help the community at a time it’s needed the most. As hard and as exhausting as it’s been, it’s my calling.” 

“It’s a pivotal moment in the history of the Jewish people, so we need to be doing whatever we can right now. I’m not sleeping, but in Israel they’re fighting a war. They’ve been through horrible things.”

As a veteran of the media, as a former journalist, Naomi has been very disappointed in the way the conflict has been covered by the media. However she is not surprised. “I think journalism has changed since I was in it. It was around the time of the Me Too Movement and Black Lives Matter that journalists switched from being journalists and instead became activists. When I was there, there was a real responsibility to be unbiased, that is the moral ethics of journalism.”

“I’ve been very upset about the media coverage and the slant. Maybe I assumed that people had certain views about the Jewish community, but I never actually thought that they had those views until I’ve heard them say things in the last few months. I can't believe the level of hate. The first time that I felt a sense of hope was when I went to Israel to film stories.”

As is the case with the majority of people who visited Israel during the months following the attacks of October 7^th, Naomi felt safer in a war zone than in Canada. “I cried before I left because I didn’t want to leave the safety of the bubble. One of the first things I had to do when I returned were the protests outside of the BAYT (one of Toronto’s largest congregations) and I couldn't believe the true hatred that these people have. I was at the front, managing the media. I’ve been to the protests, I’ve heard what they’ve said, I can't believe that this is happening in our city. It really shocks me.”

Naomi is the mother of two teenage boys. Being a mother during this time, watching university campuses descend into antisemitic chaos just as her sons are being prepared to be sent off into the world is difficult. “I just hope I raise strong Jewish men who are proud. They see what I’ve been doing, and I haven’t been around a lot, but I think they have an understanding of how important it is to be proud of being Jewish.”

Despite everything, Naomi refuses to hide her Judaism. “I will not take my Walk With Israel sign off the lawn, I will not take down my mezuzah. But I am worried for my sons’ futures. I want them to be able to develop the tools they need to be able to fight back verbally, and the knowledge to know what they need to say. I hope I’ve made them aware of the fact that there is so much misinformation and they can't believe anything they read on social media. I want them to know that they have a role in ensuring a safe future for Jews, and the Jewish community of the city.”

Despite how isolating the time since October 7^th has been, the Jewish community has never been abandoned. “There are a lot of allies, and that has been the most amazing thing.” They came to UJA’s Walk With Israel which saw over 50,000 people march in support of Israel for two years in a row – the largest gathering in support of Israel outside of Israel, there have been interfaith events with hundreds of attendees showing their allyship and support.

At the same time, there are a lot of people who haven’t reached out; people who have stayed silent. “Those who have spoken out, they are the new generation of The Righteous Among the Nations. They are the people we will tell our grandchildren about. It’s so beautiful to know that it was here somewhere, that despite all of the bad, there is still a lot of good.”

On top of everything else that she has been committed to, Naomi has been focusing a lot of her energy on reaching out to her friends and past colleagues to educate them on the truth of the situation. “A lot of my non-Jewish friends have been incredible. Some have not. I’ve had to do a lot of education with the media because that is my role. I’ve spoken with many journalists about things they’ve written that are incorrect. I’ve had to call a lot of people out. If something’s wrong, they’ll fix it and they will speak to their editors. If it’s a viewpoint or opinion, we have a discussion about it. I’ve talked to a lot of people about their coverage. I’ve become part of a press group – an incredible group of women from Israel, the US, the UK and here in Canada. Together we’re working on a strategy to deal with media and to try and inform media to talk about the coverage.”

Through her work and her life, Naomi has been reminded that the Jewish community has been through a lot over the course of thousands of years, and we will get through this, too. “People have this idea that we have been living in some sort of Golden Age. After the Holocaust there was a period of time where it wasn’t politically correct to hate Jews or say certain things because of the Holocaust. Whatever has happened over the last few years has emboldened people to openly express their antisemitism, and October 7^th opened the gates fully. We predicted that it would get bad. It has gotten worse than we could have imagined. Nobody thought that terror recruitment on campuses would be tolerated.”

The world has sort of lost its collective mind; its moral compass. 

Naomi is fully always engulfed in this world. “There is no life other than this for me now. My social life is surrounded by the events I go to in relation to October 7. For so many people in the Jewish community, this is our world. It’s weird to see other people who have a whole life outside of this. However, the whole power and beauty of the Jewish people is that we celebrate life. We can hold both things at the same time – human sadness and pain, alongside celebration and life.”

She continues to attend events, to host prominent figures – survivors, released or rescued hostages, families of hostages that have not come home alive. She has done media and PR for the Nova Exhibit while it was in Toronto, as well as the film October 8.

An unexpected outcome after October 7^th was the way the community has come together and united. “I don’t think I could have gotten through this time without the Jewish community, without the power of friendship. My colleagues have become family, and we very much relied on each other to get through such a tough time. The people I work with are like my sisters.”

Through it all, Naomi tries to channel her grandparents. “Despite everything they went through, they had this love of life, and a positivity, and I want to take that with me, even if it’s hard to feel positive and to feel hope.”

Her grandfather used to always say that life is not a bowl of cherries. And, ‘when you’re smiling the whole world smiles with you.’ He would often sing his favourite song When You Walk Through a Storm. “When you walk through a storm/Hold your Head up High/ and you’ll never walk alone / Because you have Hope.” Her grandmother taught her the importance of tolerance for others and for understanding other people’s perspectives; the power of love and the dangers of hate. They taught of positivity, of hope, of love. 

“Everything I do is because of my grandparents. Before they died I pledged that I would carry on their legacy, and now more than ever it is my duty and life mission to carry on their legacy because we’re seeing the horrors of the Holocaust.” 

She has not stopped, even to the point of being burned out. She has lost friendships, but doesn’t care. “I feel so much more committed to being proud of being Jewish and doing meaningful work to help the community.”

Seeing the community come together has been very powerful. Therapeutic, even. We need each other. “The way the community has responded, the amount of money that they raised for Israel, the way they rallied. The way that I can go to events and I’m seeing friends. Family. It’s been comforting.”

A word that is frequently used when describing the Jewish community, globally, and in Israel, in the time since October 7^th is ‘resilience’. “I am completely inspired by the resilience of Israelis, but also the Jewish people. I’ve become a lot stronger as a result of all this, mostly because of the stories I am hearing and retelling in my video work. I’ve never seen such resilience. People are so hurt, but also so amazing. I’ve seen strength from myself that I had never seen in my life before. It’s been hard. I’m proud of the role I’ve played. I always believe that I can do more, and when I see people doing more, I want to do more. I see myself as doing what’s necessary to help the community using my skills.”