Your daily spiel for Wednesday, Feb. 1

'Inside Amy Schumer' SCREENSHOT
Amy Schumer

Your Daily Spiel is The CJN’s daily roundup of trending stories in the Jewish world.

February’s a fun month, right? Here’s some Jewish news:

Canada Israel Experience has launched its first ever LGBTQ Birthright trip. It will depart this June.

CJN contributor Sara Horowitz writes about her reasons for trekking seven kilometres each way to Queen’s Park on a Shabbat to take part in the Women’s March.

Mordechai Ben-Dat takes Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to task for calling Israel the “birthplace of Christianity” in his meeting with the Pope, given Abbas’s denial of Jewish history in Jerusalem.

Around 17 Jewish community centres across the United States were again targeted by bomb threats yesterday – the third wave in a month or so.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s newly announced nomination of Neil Gorsuch as a Supreme Court federal judge is splitting the American Jewish community. The Reform movement is expressing concern and an Orthodox Union official described the nomination of Gorsuch, who’s known for favouring religious protections, as “encouraging.”

Comedian and member of the Tribe Amy Schumer took to Instagram yesterday to defend her cousin, New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, who the U.S. president accused of crying “fake tears” in a statement he gave against Trump’s immigration ban. “I know Chuck Schumer and HE CANNOT act trust me. He can barely smile on cue,” she wrote.

Following news yesterday that an Israeli student was denied entry to a British Columbia school because he was Israeli, both the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs and B’nai Brith Canada are taking credit for the school changing its stance and admitting the student.