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Obituary: Muki Baum was a joyful fundraiser for the treatment centre that carried his name
Muki Baum was the inspiration for the MukiBaum Treatment Centre, a centre for children with complex disabilities. He was a highly visible member of Toronto’s Jewish community, raising more than $750,000 for the centre, soliciting donations outside United Bakers Dairy Restaurant, Holt Renfrew in the downtown shopping corridor and other busy locations around the city.
He was also the 2009 recipient of the Queen Elizabeth II Ontario Medal for Good Citizenship, which recognizes people who, through exceptional long-term efforts, have made outstanding contributions to the well-being of their communities.
“Of course he did all the wonderful work to fundraise,” said Cheryl Perera, president and CEO of Aptus Treatment Centre (which is what the MukiBaum Treatment Centre is now called). “You can contribute to the world. You can enjoy your life. I think that’s the legacy he leaves behind. And I think that’s the same vision that his mom had: for people to live a good life.”
The funeral home’s website is filled with messages from people who encountered Muki in his wheelchair and recalled his warmth and joyful approach to fundraising.
He died in Toronto after a short illness on Dec. 6, 2024.
Baum was born in Israel in 1959 with a severe hearing impairment and cerebral palsy. His mother, Nehama, had a degree in social work, and specialized in working with families whose children had cerebral palsy.
At that time the medical diagnosis was blunt, recommending he be institutionalized. But Nehama persevered with the belief that all children deserve to live as independent a life as possible.
“Some people think that I am different because I have cerebral palsy, and I am deaf. But I want you to know that I am a person, not a disability,” Baum said in the 2013 film, A Day in the Life of Muki. “When I was born, the doctors in Israel told my parents that I was a ‘piece of meat’ that they would carry the rest of their lives.”
By the time Muki was 15, Nehama faced a challenge. In Israel, Muki was either the only deaf child among children who had cerebral palsy or the only child with cerebral palsy among children who were hearing-impaired. She sought a solution that would allow him to thrive.
She had contacts in four North American cities: Toronto, San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York.
“I came to Toronto and I found everything I needed right here. I saw a city that was safe. As an Israeli, I saw a city where people came to the road and pointed their finger, and traffic would stop to allow people to cross the street. I said, ‘That is where I want to live, because that is where Muki can live safely,’” Nehama said in a documentary entitled The Muki Baum Project, about her life’s work. She never went to the three other cities.
She admitted that adapting to Muki’s newfound independence was an adjustment.
“Muki wanted to go out. He wanted to walk. There were buses that he wanted to take. He wanted to take the subway. He wanted to be independent.”
In 1979, Nehama Baum founded the MukiBaum Treatment Centre with a vision of enabling adults, youth and children living with multiple disabilities to thrive in their communities.
Nehama worked with specialists in different fields to ensure that the centre offered innovative approaches to helping their clients. “Nehama Baum saw a Snoezelen Room and was determined to create one,” said Rose Schonblum, producer of The Muki Baum Project. Soon the MukiBaum Treatment Centre offered this multisensory therapy with lights and water that provides a relaxing experience to help reduce agitation and anxiety.
Brenda Lass attended an open studio clay class with Muki at the Jewish Community Centre’s Koffler Centre in Toronto, where participants were free to create whatever they wanted.
“It was so much fun. He had such a personality. I went into studio, and it was really me and Muki. And I got to know him there. He was making an Israeli flag on a board. The flag was probably 15 inches by 18 inches, and I used to ask him how it was going to fly!
“Then one week he decided he wanted to go on the potters’ wheel. You have to be a contortionist to fit on it—I could hardly do it. You get into the thing, and you lean over and you have to balance the clay. And to see the two of us trying to get him onto it…. We just laughed and laughed!
“And then I would see him at Lawrence Plaza some years later. Right away, he recognized me. He was creative. He would sell cards that he’d made. There’s no question that he loved doing it.”
“When you have a kid like Muki, there are a lot of things you can complain about,” his father, Moshe, said in The Muki Baum Project. “But when you look at the whole picture, if Muki wasn’t sent to us as he is, the MukiBaum Treatment Centre wouldn’t exist, and hundreds of thousands of people are being helped because of him.”
Nehama said, “There is a very beautiful story called, ‘I Wanted to Get to Rome, but I Went to Amsterdam.’ Someone went on the plane and they thought they were going to Rome, but they found themselves in Amsterdam. Now, Amsterdam is not as beautiful as Rome, but it has its own beauty. And this is the metaphor for having a child. You’re pregnant, you think and dream about how the child will be and what at life will be like with your baby and then your child. And then you have Amsterdam and not Rome.”
Muki Baum is survived by his father, Moshe. He is predeceased by his mother, Nehama, who died in 2022.
The post Obituary: Muki Baum was a joyful fundraiser for the treatment centre that carried his name appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.
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‘With or Without Russia’s Help’: Iran Pledges to Block South Caucasus Route Opened Up By Peace Deal
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., July 8, 2025. Photo: Kevin Lamarque via Reuters Connect.
i24 News – Iran will block the establishment of a US-backed transit corridor in the South Caucasus region with or without Moscow’s help, a senior adviser to Iran’s supreme leader was quoted as saying on Saturday by the Iran International website, one day after the historic peace agreement between Azerbaijan and Armenia.
“Mr. Trump thinks the Caucasus is a piece of real estate he can lease for 99 years,” Ali Akbar Velayati said of the so-called Zangezur corridor, the establishment of which is stipulated in the peace deal unveiled on Friday by US President Donald Trump. The White House said the transit route would facilitate greater exports of energy and other resources.
“This passage will not become a gateway for Trump’s mercenaries — it will become their graveyard,” the Khamenei advisor added.
Baku and Yerevan have been at loggerheads since the late 1980s when Nagorno-Karabakh, a mountainous Azerbaijani region mostly populated by ethnic Armenians, broke away from Azerbaijan with support from Armenia. Azerbaijan took back full control of the region in 2023, prompting or forcing almost all of the territory’s 100,000 ethnic Armenians to flee to Armenia.
Yet that painful history was put to the side on Friday at the White House, as Trump oversaw a signing ceremony, flanked by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan.
The peace deal with Azerbaijan—a pro-Western ally of Israel—is expected to pull Armenia out of the Russian and Iranian sphere of influence and could transform the South Caucasus, an energy-producing region neighboring Russia, Europe, Turkey and Iran.
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UK Police Arrest 150 at Protest for Banned Palestine Action Group
People holding signs sit during a rally organised by Defend Our Juries, challenging the British government’s proscription of “Palestine Action” under anti-terrorism laws, in Parliament Square, in London, Britain, August 9, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Jaimi Joy
London’s Metropolitan Police said on Saturday it had arrested 150 people at a protest against Britain’s decision to ban the group Palestine Action, adding it was making further arrests.
Officers made arrests after crowds, waving placards expressing support for the group, gathered in Parliament Square, the force said on X.
Protesters, some wearing black and white Palestinian scarves, chanted “shame on you” and “hands off Gaza,” and held signs such as “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action,” video taken by Reuters at the scene showed.
In July, British lawmakers banned Palestine Action under anti-terrorism legislation after some of its members broke into a Royal Air Force base and damaged planes in protest against Britain’s support for Israel.
The ban makes it a crime to be a member of the group, carrying a maximum sentence of 14 years in prison.
The co-founder of Palestine Action, Huda Ammori, last week won a bid to bring a legal challenge against the ban.
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‘No Leniency’: Iran Announces Arrest of 20 ‘Zionist Agents’
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi addresses a special session of the Human Rights Council at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, June 20, 2025. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse
i24 News – Iranian authorities have in recent months arrested 20 people charged with being “Israeli Mossad operatives,” the judiciary said, adding that the Islamic regime will mete out the harshest punishments.
“The judiciary will show no leniency toward spies and agents of the Zionist regime, and with firm rulings, will make an example of them all,” spokesperson Asghar Jahangiri told Iranian media. However, it is understood that an unspecified number of detainees were released, apparently after the charges against them could not be substantiated.
The Islamic Republic was left reeling by a devastating 12-day war with Israel earlier in the summer that left a significant proportion of its military arsenal in ruins and dealt a serious setback to its uranium enrichment program. The fallout included an uptick in executions of Iranians convicted of spying for Israel, with at least eight death sentences carried out in recent months. Hit with international sanctions, the country is in dire economic straights, with frequent energy outages and skyrocketing unemployment.
In recent weeks Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi affirmed that Tehran cannot give up on its nuclear enrichment program even as it was severely damaged during the war.
“It is stopped because, yes, damages are serious and severe. But obviously we cannot give up of enrichment because it is an achievement of our own scientists. And now, more than that, it is a question of national pride,” the official told Fox News.