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In PBS series ‘Little Bird,’ a Jewish woman uncovers her traumatic Indigenous past
(JTA) — When Jennifer Podemski’s Indigenous mother gave birth at 17, social workers removed Podemski from a Toronto hospital and put her into the foster care system. It was only through the efforts of one social worker, who was retiring, that she was reunited with her mother at three months old.
The social worker had saved Podemski from the infamous “Sixties Scoop,” a policy in Canada between the 1960s and 1980s that tore thousands of Indigenous children from their families and put them into the child welfare system.
Growing up in a Jewish area of Toronto, Podemski learned more about her Israeli father’s side of the family because of the Jewish stories she was surrounded by — including some imparted from her paternal grandfather, a Holocaust survivor.
Now a filmmaker, Podemski has drawn heavily on her experience in co-creating “Little Bird,” a six-part series about the Sixties Scoop that debuted in Canada earlier this year and came to the United States on Oct. 12. Weekly episodes air on PBS through Nov. 16 and are available to stream on all PBS platforms, including PBS Masterpiece Prime Video.
“I wanted to humanize these experiences,” said Podemski, who is Indigenous to Saskatchewan on her mother’s side. “They haven’t yet been humanized because they haven’t been told.”
The show starts with Esther Rosenblum (played by Darla Contois) at her engagement party in 1985, enjoying almost-clichéd Jewish success — law school, a doctor fiancé named David and a large home shared with her tough-love adoptive mother. The mother, Polish-born Golda Rosenblum (Lisa Edelstein), survived the Holocaust and came to Canada as a teenager, having lost her entire family in Auschwitz.
Although Esther’s life looks pleasant, she tiptoes around a constant simmer of discrimination. She is shattered to overhear David’s mother fretting about him marrying “one of them,” referring to an Indigenous person adopted into a Jewish family. The future mother-in-law questions how their family is supposed to believe that Esther is a “regular Jew” who can become “a mother of her own — and that’s just going to go fine?” Another guest points out that David got “one of the good ones,” adding: “I have a cousin who adopted one of them and he’s into the drugs and all that stuff.”
A parallel storyline unfolds in 1968, when Esther was five years old and her name was Bezhig Little Bird. Bezhig was abducted along with her brother and sister by child welfare agents and police, who handcuffed their hysterical mother and beat their father, when he protested, to the brink of death. The series follows Esther/Bezhig on the journey to find her birth family and understand the roots she was torn from.
Like Esther, Podemski was raised in a Jewish community with a tenuous connection to her Indigenous ancestry. Her maternal grandparents were victims of the residential school system in Canada, which forcibly separated children from their families for long periods of time between the 1880s and the 1990s. The schools stripped children of their culture and native language, with the nominal objective of giving them a Euro-Canadian Christian education. The schools became notorious for physical, sexual and psychological abuse and high death rates.
Podemski had to seek out information on Indigenous history as a teenager, when she began studying the atrocities committed against her people. She chafed at discriminatory remarks within her childhood Jewish community, even when they were unintentional, and struggled to feel at home.
“I grew up in a Jewish reality, one that I didn’t really fit into, the way I look,” Podemski told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “I never felt really like I belonged in either [Jewish or Indigenous] places.”
Podemski’s 30-year career has spanned both acting and producing, with a break-out role in Bruce McDonald’s 1994 film “Dance Me Outside” and award-winning credits for the 2003-2006 series “Moccasin Flats” and the 2013 film “Empire of Dirt.” Frustrated with the representation of Indigenous people in film and TV, she founded Big Soul Productions and Redcloud Studios Inc. to amplify Indigenous perspectives. Between 2021 and 2023, she appeared opposite her sisters Tamara and Sarah Podemski in the acclaimed FX series “Reservation Dogs.”
Jennifer Podemski, left, with her sister Sarah at the 2023 Canadian Screen Awards at Meridian Hall in Toronto, April 14, 2023. (Jeremy Chan/Getty Images)
“Little Bird” places a premium on representation, with Indigenous Canadian actors playing the Little Bird family and Edelstein, who starred in the popular medical drama “House,” as Esther’s Jewish mother. The creators consulted advisors from Raven Sinclair, a Sixties Scoop survivor and University of Regina professor, to rabbis who approved scenes of Jewish ceremonies.
Edelstein told JTA that she reached into her own family memories to play Golda Rosenblum, conjuring images of her Jewish grandparents who immigrated from Eastern Europe.
“I was really excited to get to play a Jewish woman and to represent that story with dignity,” said Edelstein. “She reminded me a lot of my grandparents, so I definitely was remembering the gestures and feelings that I got from them.”
At the time of Esther’s fictional adoption, middle-class parents were typically advised to erase the past of their adopted Indigenous children, who were presented as mistreated or abandoned. Golda is at first defensive of her decision to help obscure Esther’s origins, but her love for her daughter eventually makes her a hero of the story.
“When I first met you, you were all dressed up in a nice dress but you didn’t smile,” she tells Esther in the series. “I thought, she has lost everyone, I have lost everyone, this is a good match. But it wasn’t true — you had a family.”
Co-creator Hannah Moskovitch said she felt a heavy sense of responsibility, as a Jew, approaching a story about the near annihilation of a culture. Although the histories are entirely different, some elements of state-executed plans to destroy the Indigenous people in North America and the Jews in Europe looked similar to her — from the meticulous bureaucracy and dutifully law-abiding foot soldiers to the dehumanizing language of “solutions” to Indigenous “problems.”
Yet despite those parallels, Moskovitch had never heard of the Sixties Scoop before starting work on the series.
“It’s shameful that I didn’t know,” she told JTA. “I grew up with the injunction from my community, ‘Never forget.’ And then there was a genocide that had happened in my country that I didn’t know about.”
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The post In PBS series ‘Little Bird,’ a Jewish woman uncovers her traumatic Indigenous past appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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As Gaza War Continues, Hamas Calls for Global Protests While Israel Marks Breakthroughs in Medical Innovation
A pro-Hamas march in London, United Kingdom, Feb. 17, 2024. Photo: Chrissa Giannakoudi via Reuters Connect
As the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas calls for global protests amid stalled Gaza ceasefire talks, Israel has broken new ground despite the ongoing conflict, achieving a major medical breakthrough in synthetic human kidney development.
The contrast illustrates a stark contrast between the priorities of Hamas, an international designated terrorist group that has ruled Gaza for nearly two decades, and Israel, the lone democracy in the Middle East that has long been a leader in tech and medical innovation.
On Wednesday, Hamas urged worldwide protests in support of Palestinians, calling on the international community “to denounce Israel’s genocidal war and starvation policy in Gaza.”
“We call for continuing and escalating the popular pressure in all cities and squares on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday … through rallies, demonstrations and sit-ins outside the embassies of the Israeli regime and its allies, particularly in the US,” the statement read.
The Palestinian terrorist group also called to expose what it described as “the terrorism of the Zio-Nazi occupation against defenseless civilians.”
Hamas’s latest move against Israel comes amid stalled indirect negotiations over a proposed 60-day ceasefire and hostage release deal, which collapsed last month after the group vowed it would not disarm unless an independent Palestinian state is established — rejecting a key Israeli demand to end the war in Gaza.
In its statement, Hamas demanded the opening of all border crossings to allow immediate aid into the war-torn enclave and urged a global condemnation of “the international community’s inaction on the Israeli crimes.”
Amid mounting international pressure to address the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, Israel announced new measures to facilitate the delivery of aid, including temporary pauses in fighting in certain areas and the creation of protected routes for aid convoys.
Israeli officials have previously accused Hamas of diverting aid for terrorist activities and selling supplies at inflated prices to civilians, while also blaming the United Nations and other foreign organizations for enabling this diversion.
Hamas’s statement also emphasized that the “global resistance movement must continue until Israeli aggression on Gaza ends and the siege on the coastal strip is lifted.”
Meanwhile, as Israel faces escalating hostilities and the heavy toll of war, the Jewish state continues to push the boundaries of innovation and resilience, achieving new medical breakthroughs while confronting ongoing challenges.
In a major medical breakthrough, scientists at Sheba Medical Center and Tel Aviv University have successfully grown a synthetic 3D miniature human kidney in a lab using specialized stem cells derived from kidney tissue — one of the most promising advances in regenerative medicine.
Dr. Dror Harats, chairman of Sheba’s Research Authority, described this achievement as a reflection of Israel’s leading role in global medical innovation.
“Despite growing efforts to isolate Israel from international science, breakthroughs like this prove our impact is both lasting and essential,” he said.
In a landmark study, a team from Sheba’s Safra Children’s Hospital and Tel Aviv University’s Sagol Center for Regenerative Medicine created synthetic kidney organs that matured and remained stable for 34 weeks — the longest-lasting and most refined kidney organoids developed to date.
Nearly a decade ago, the research team became the first to successfully isolate human kidney tissue stem cells — the cells responsible for the organ’s development and growth.
Previous attempts to grow kidneys in a lab using general-purpose stem cells were short-lived, typically lasting only a few weeks and often producing unwanted cell types that compromised research accuracy.
However, this Israeli research team used stem cells taken directly from kidney tissue — cells that naturally develop into kidney parts — allowing them to create a much purer and more stable model with key features found in real kidneys.
This medical breakthrough could have far-reaching implications, redefining the current understanding of kidney diseases and advancing the development of innovative treatments.
Researchers believe the model could help assess how medications impact fetal kidneys during pregnancy and move science closer to repairing or replacing damaged kidney tissue with lab-grown cells.
The discovery came days after researchers from Hebrew University of Jerusalem and international partners discovered a way to boost the immune system’s cancer-fighting ability by reprogramming how T cells, which are white blood cells critical to the immune system, produce energy.
The researchers explained in a study published in the peer-reviewed Nature Communications that disabling a protein known as Ant2 in T cells greatly enhances their effectiveness against tumors.
“By disabling Ant2, we triggered a complete shift in how T cells produce and use energy,” Prof. Michael Berger of Hebrew University’s Faculty of Medicine, who co-led the study with doctorate student Omri Yosef, told the Tazpit Press Service. “This reprogramming made them significantly better at recognizing and killing cancer cells.”
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Netherlands to Push EU to Suspend Israel Trade Deal but Won’t Recognize Palestinian State ‘At This Time’
Netherlands Foreign Affairs Minister Caspar Veldkamp addresses a press conference, in New Delhi on April 1, 2025. Photo: ANI Photo/Sanjay Sharma via Reuters Connect
The Netherlands is spearheading efforts to suspend the European Union-Israel trade agreement amid rising EU criticism of Israel’s actions in Gaza, while simultaneously refusing to recognize a Palestinian state, contrasting with other member states as international pressure mounts.
On Thursday, Dutch Foreign Minister Caspar Veldkamp announced that the Netherlands will push the EU to suspend the trade component of the EU-Israel Association Agreement — a pact governing the EU’s political and economic ties with the Jewish state.
This latest anti-Israel initiative follows a recent EU-commissioned report accusing Israel of committing “indiscriminate attacks … starvation … torture … [and] apartheid” against Palestinians in Gaza during its military campaign against Hamas, an internationally designated terrorist group.
Following calls from a majority of EU member states for a formal investigation, this report built on Belgium’s recent decision to review Israel’s compliance with the trade agreement, a process initiated by the Netherlands and led by EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Kaja Kallas.
According to the report, “there are indications that Israel would be in breach of its human rights obligations” under the 25-year-old EU-Israel Association Agreement.
While the document acknowledges the reality of violence by Hamas, it states that this issue lies outside its scope — failing to address the Palestinian terrorist group’s role in sparking the current war with its bloody rampage across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Israeli officials have slammed the report as factually incorrect and morally flawed, noting that Hamas embeds its military infrastructure within civilian targets and Israel’s army takes extensive precautions to try and avoid civilian casualties.
In a Dutch parliamentary debate on Gaza on Thursday, Veldkamp also announced that the government would not recognize a Palestinian state for now — a position that stands in sharp contrast to the recent moves by several other EU member states to extend recognition.
“The Netherlands is not planning to recognize a Palestinian state at this time,” the Dutch diplomat said.
“This war has ceased to be a just war and is now leading to the erosion of Israel’s own security and identity,” he continued.
This latest decision goes against the position of several EU member states, including France, which has committed to recognizing Palestinian statehood in September.
The United Kingdom has likewise indicated it will do so unless Israel acts to ease the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and agrees to a ceasefire.
For its part, Germany said it was not planning to recognize a Palestinian state in the short term, and Italy argued that recognition must occur simultaneously with the recognition of Israel by the new entity.
Spain, Norway, Ireland, and Slovenia all recognized a Palestinian state last year.
Israel has been facing growing pressure from several EU member states seeking to undermine its defensive campaign against the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas in Gaza.
On Thursday, European Commission Vice President Teresa Ribera strongly condemned Israel’s actions in the war-torn enclave, describing the situation as a “grave violation of human dignity.”
“What we are seeing is a concrete population being targeted, killed and condemned to starve to death,” Ribera told Politico. “If it is not genocide, it looks very much like the definition used to express its meaning.”
Until now, the European Commission has refrained from accusing Israel of genocide, but Ribera’s comments mark one of the strongest European condemnations since the outbreak of the war in Gaza.
She also called on the EU to take decisive action by considering the suspension of its trade agreement with Israel and the implementation of sanctions, while emphasizing that such measures would require unanimous approval from all member states.
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Graduate Student Unions Promoting Antisemitism, Reform Group Says
Students listen to a speech at a protest encampment at Stanford University in Stanford, California US, on April 26, 2024. Photo: Carlos Barria via Reuters Connect.
Higher-education-based unions controlled by United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers of America (UE) are rife with antisemitism and anti-Zionist discrimination, according to a new letter imploring the US Congress’s House Committee on Education and the Workforce to address the matter.
“Tracing its roots to communism in the 1930s, the UE is a radical, pro-Hamas labor union that has a long history of antisemitism,” the National Right to Work Foundation (NRTW), one of the US’s leading labor reform groups, wrote on July 30 in a message obtained by The Algemeiner. “The UE openly supports the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement, which is designed to cripple and destroy Israel economically. Today, the UE furthers its antisemitic agenda by unionizing graduate students on college campuses and using its exclusive representation powers to create a hostile environment for Jewish students. The hostile environment includes demanding compulsory dues to fund the UE’s abhorrent activities.”
NRTW went on to describe a litany of alleged injustices to which UE members subject Jewish student-employees in the US’s most prestigious institutions of higher education, from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to Cornell University. At MIT, the letter said, “union officers” aided a riotous group which illegally occupied a section of campus with a “Gaza Solidarity Encampment,” participating in the demonstration and even denying access to campus buildings. UE members at Stanford University, meanwhile, allegedly denied religious accommodations to Jewish students who requested exemption from union dues over that branch’s supporting the BDS movement. And Cornell University UE was accused of denying religious exemptions in several cases as well and followed up the rejection with an intrusive “questionnaire” which probed Jewish students for “legally-irrelevant information.”
The situation requires federal oversight and intervention, NRTW said, including Congress’s possibly clarifying that student-employees are not traditional employees and are therefore afforded protections under sections of the Civil Rights Act which apply to the campus.
“These continuing patterns of antisemitism are illegal, immoral, and must be stopped,” the letter continued. “We encourage you to do all that is in your power to investigate and help bring an end to the UE and its affiliates’ nonstop harassment and intimidation of Jewish students … The Trump administration can also use tools available to it under Title VI and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act against colleges who work with unions to create a hostile environment for Jewish students.”
July’s letter is not the first time NRTW has publicized alleged antisemitic abuse in unions representing higher education employees.
In 2024, it represented a group of six City University of New York (CUNY) professors, five of whom are Jewish, who sued to be “freed” from CUNY’s Professional Staff Congress (PSC-CUNY) over its passing a resolution during Israel’s May 2021 war with Hamas which declared solidarity with Palestinians and accused the Jewish state of ethnic cleansing, apartheid, and crimes against humanity. The group contested New York State’s “Taylor Law,” which it said chained the professors to the union’s “bargaining unit” and denied their right to freedom of speech and association by forcing them to be represented in negotiations by an organization they claim holds antisemitic views.
That same year, NRTW prevailed in a discrimination suit filed to exempt another cohort of Jewish MIT students from paying dues to the Graduate Student Union (GSU). The students had attempted to resist financially supporting GSU’s anti-Zionism, but the union bosses attempted to coerce their compliance, telling them that “no principles, teachings, or tenets of Judaism prohibit membership in or the payment of dues or fees” to the union.
“All Americans should have a right to protect their money from going to union bosses they don’t support, whether those objections are based on religion, politics, or any other reason,” NRTW said at the time.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.