Some great stories you may have missed on Broadview this year. (From left to right: photograph by Gregg Burke, illustration by Cornelia Li; courtesy of Lahaina United Methodist Church; courtesy of Diana Butler Bass)

Topics: Ethical Living | Broadview News

Broadview wraps up 7 great stories you may have missed this year

Family letters from the Holocaust, building relationships during the Israel-Hamas war, nuns helping displaced civilians in Ukraine and more

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We can’t get enough of the stories Broadview’s contributors reported this year. While Broadview’s top stories of 2023 were excellent, the digital team was eager to gather seven insightful stories that shaped the year – in case you missed it! Let us know what you think in the comments below.

7. My grandfather was murdered in the Holocaust. These postcards help me remember him.

“László’s postcards remind me of how important it is to keep retelling the story of my family’s slavery and survival,” Carol Moskot writes. (Illustration by Cornelia Li)

Broadview’s art director Carol Moskot takes readers on an emotional journey, reading handwritten letters from her grandfather, László Braun. In 1943, the Nazis made Braun a slave when they sent him to the copper mines in Bor, Serbia. His postcards tell the story of her late grandfather’s final years. Braun wrote about yearning to meet his newborn daughter (Moskot’s mother) and reassured his wife (Moskot’s grandmother) that things would soon be okay. Unfortunately, Moskot only met her grandfather by the news he wrote home about.

6. How Prairie Mennonites took on a uranium refinery in the 1970s and won

An excerpt from “Unquiet in the Land,” by Jonathan Dyck and Josiah Neufeld.

What started as Nettie Wiebe’s curiosity and gut feeling led to a movement to stop the development of a uranium refinery on rural Saskatchewan land. Winnipeg-based illustrator Jonathan Dyck and writer Josiah Neufeld’s comic strip paints a picture of how community outreach can make a world of difference.

5. Diana Butler Bass’s viral sermon changed the way thousands think about Mary Magdalene

“The only people who looked at [the story of Mary Magdalene] before were largely elite men, mostly from the western Christian tradition, who had particular ideas about the role of women in church and in society,” says author and historian Diana Butler Bass. (Photo courtesy of Diana Butler Bass)
Humbly washing Jesus’s feet with her hair and faithfully reporting that He had risen after the angel stood at the entrance of the empty tomb. Mary Magdalene – a household name in the Bible, but largely overlooked all the same. Kingston-based writer Anne Thériault interviews author and historian Diana Butler Bass about her viral sermon that made people think twice about Jesus’s underestimated disciple.

4. How pro-life bias is limiting reproductive healthcare access in rural Ontario

Many people in southwestern Ontario describe not knowing where to find pregnancy information, negative interactions with medical professionals, and products too expensive to afford. (Illustration by Joey Guidone)

Though abortion is legal in Canada, accessing them – and the contraceptives to prevent pregnancies in the first place – is not always easy. London-based writer Mary Baxter takes readers through the barriers rural-based Canadians have to overcome to receive reproductive healthcare.

3. How nuns are helping displaced Ukrainians amid the Russian invasion

Basilian sister Anna Andrusiv in Lviv, Ukraine. (Photograph by Gregg Brekke)

Funded by the Global Sisters Report, photojournalist Gregge Brekke travels to Ukraine to document the lives of nuns supporting civilians trying to survive. From sheltering displaced citizens to helping pregnant mothers and their newborns, these nuns are determined to challenge the war with love.

2. Lahaina fire burned down historic United Methodist church

Lahaina United Methodist Church after the fire that hit Lahaina. (Photograph courtesy of Lahaina United Methodist Church/Facebook)

When wildfires swept through Lahaina on the island of Maui in August, the Lahaina United Methodist Church congregation lost their century-old building. The congregation members were safe, leaving them with the determination to pray and rebuild their sanctuary when the danger eventually subsided. Vancouver-based journalist Charlotte Alden reports on their community resilience and fundraising plans.

1. A new book by Palestinian and Jewish community leaders encourages meaningful dialogue on Israel-Palestine

cream and purple book cover that reads: What Jews and Palestians don't know about each other. The Wall Between"
Raja G. Khouri is a Palestinian Lebanese Canadian and Jeffrey J. Wilkinson is a Jewish American. (Photograph courtesy of Interlink Books)

Authors Raja G. Khouri and Jeffrey J. Wilkinson did not know their book about Palestinian-Israeli relationships would be published less than a week before the Oct. 7 Hamas attack and subsequent Israeli airstrikes. Marathon-based writer David Giuliano interviewed the Palestinian Lebanese Canadian and Jewish American community leaders about their book, The Wall Between: What Jews and Palestinians Don’t Want to Know about Each Other.

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Sherlyn Assam is Broadview’s assistant digital editor.

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