Renee Ghert-Zand is a reporter and feature writer for The Times of Israel.
There have been three Jewish mayors in Toronto’s history, and now it seems there will be a fourth—at least according to halacha, or Jewish law.
Archival records obtained by The Times of Israel indicate that Mayor-elect John Tory has a maternal Jewish grandmother. According to the Jewish law of matrilineal descent, this makes Tory himself Jewish.
During a pre-election debate hosted last month by the Centre for Jewish and Israel Affairs and the United Jewish Appeal, mayoral candidate Doug Ford caused a stir by rattling off a list of all the Jews in his life (his doctor, his accountant, his lawyer, etc.) as a means of defending his brother, scandal plagued Mayor Rob Ford, against accusations of anti-Semitism. Ford even mentioned for the first time publicly that his evangelical Christian wife is actually Jewish on her mother’s side.