What Is Happening Here | Canadaland Investigates

Episode #1: Unsafe or Uncomfortable?

Date: November 17, 2025
Host: Jesse Brown

Episode Overview

In this powerful debut episode, Jesse Brown examines the alarming rise in antisemitic incidents and hate crimes against Jews in Canada following the October 7th, 2023 Hamas attacks on Israel. Framed by the shocking statistic that Jews in Canada are now nine times more likely to be victims of hate crime than their U.S. counterparts, Brown explores whether this represents genuine antisemitism or confusion between anti-Zionism and antisemitism—and what the lived reality for Canadian Jews has become. The episode features firsthand accounts from victims, parents, and community members, as well as critical voices questioning the narrative and meaning of “safety.” The tone is candid, at times confrontational, and deeply human, raising uncomfortable but necessary questions about racism, protest, and belonging in Canadian society.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Setting the Stage: The New Reality for Jews in Canada

• Opening Clip: Contrasts Canada’s “values of openness, compassion, respect” (Rabbi Rosenblatt, [00:03]) with a shocking barrage of recorded hate speech and threats faced by Jews post-Oct. 7th.
• Jesse Brown’s Introduction: Personalizes the crisis:

  “Two years ago, my world began to come apart... It all began after I started to cover the sudden rise in anti Semitic speech and incidents in Canada.” (Jesse Brown, [01:24])

2. Skepticism, Denial, and Division within the Discourse

• Brown includes audio from public figures and colleagues, including critics:
  • Dismissal of Antisemitism Claims:

    "There are a lot of Jewish people who say they feel unsafe. That's absurd." (Chris, [04:01])
    “All Zionist organizations do this.” (Prof. Michael Litwack, [04:34])

  • Critique from within the left: Questioning whether Jews are exaggerating discomfort for political reasons or distracting from Palestinian suffering:

    “The exceptionalism leads to this cartoonish narcissism and supremacy of Jewish suffering over all other suffering.” (Avi Lewis, [05:51])

  • Brown challenges this, vowing to seek the truth:

    "Is the situation actually unsafe or is it just uncomfortable?" (Jesse Brown, [08:06])

3. Direct Testimony: Personal Stories of Harassment and Violence

a. Everyday Experiences of Antisemitism

• Panda:

  • 18-year-old student and McDonald’s worker in Toronto. After revealing she is Jewish, a customer responds with, “I love that you're Chinese, but free Palestine?” ([09:44])
  • Impact:

    “Or I mean, if you want to blame someone, blame the people that are in power... But just some girl in the drive through, I don't have anything to do with it.” (Panda, [10:10])

• Sam Ashkenazi (Thornhill, ON):

  • Publicly harassed with his wife and children at the zoo for wearing yarmulkes:

    “‘Go around these disgusting genociders and Palestine occupiers.’ ...They were attacking us because we are Jews.” (Sam Ashkenazi, [12:01])

b. School Climate: Children Targeted

• Chris (mother, Peel Region):

  • Recalls antisemitic taunts and threats directed at her Grade 6 daughter at a public school protest:

    “About 40... started chanting things at her like, ‘Jews are not worthy of living and all Jews should die.’” ([13:19])

  • Impact: Daughter is surveilled for safety, becomes isolated, eventually withdraws from school:

    “She was feeling like she was in jail... it was becoming more and more like she was being punished for the other kids’ behavior.” ([17:45])

  • Emotional Toll:

    "They walked away with. The Jew left the school and they won. And that I have a hard time with." ([21:05])

  • Despite ordeal, her daughter remains free of hate:

    "She feels like [Muslim neighbors] are family. She doesn't hate anyone. And I wish other kids had that." ([21:19])

• Jen & Joel (Vancouver):

  • Their son Jacob, 12, is physically assaulted (“struck... with a bass clarinet peg stand”), given Nazi salute, told “Hitler should have finished you off.” ([23:48])
  • School Response:
    • Emphasizes “learning opportunities” over discipline; family left feeling rights were neglected.

    "Omar's rights are more important than our child's rights to have a safe educational space..." (Joel, [25:11])

c. Hate Crimes, Vandalism, and Physical Attacks

• Brown details a series of assaults and attacks on Jewish individuals and institutions nationwide:
  • Tilda Rohl (Toronto):
    • Assaulted by a man (subsequently convicted) who spat on her and her husband, yelled antisemitic slurs while she walked home from synagogue in a Jewish neighborhood ([28:39])
  • Jewish schools and synagogues:
    • Shooting at a Jewish private school ([22:45]), firebombings, repeated vandalism, and attempted arson described by Rabbi Rosenblatt (Vancouver) ([34:32]).
    • Cases often unsolved; perpetrators sometimes lightly punished or not caught.

    "Somebody literally walked up with a jug and set fire to a synagogue... we were never able to successfully identify who this individual was." (Rabbi Rosenblatt, [36:12])

d. Statistics and Comparative Risk

• Fact-Check:
  • StatsCan data: Jews are the most targeted minority by police-reported hate crimes in Canada ([27:20]).
  • A Jew in Canada is now “nine times more likely to be a victim of a hate crime than a Jew in the U.S.” ([27:20])
• Brown confronts his own disbelief and that of others—emphasizing that most hate is absorbed by Jews who are visibly Jewish or frequent Jewish spaces ([28:24]).

e. Terrorism Threats

• Multiple foiled plots—11 anti-Jewish terror/threat cases since October 2023 ([41:17]).
• Examples:
  • Planned ISIS-inspired bombing of a synagogue in Ottawa ([40:33]).
  • Canadian man arrested en route to commit mass shooting at Jewish center in New York ([41:17]).

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

“It's about our shared values. Those values of openness, compassion, respect. A country where we say no to racism, to injustice, to hate.”
— Rabbi Andrew Rosenblatt ([00:03])

“You just got a taste of the worst of it. All of the hateful voices that you heard a moment ago, all of that happened here in Canada. After October 7th.”
— Jesse Brown ([01:24])

“There is a difference between feeling unsafe and feeling uncomfortable.”
— Chris ([04:12])

“We are just Canadian Jews. We don't have anything to do with that... They saw that myself and my two sons had a kippah on our head... and they decided that that was enough.”
— Sam Ashkenazi ([11:23])

“She was feeling like she was in jail. When she was in school, she couldn't move around freely, couldn't participate, really, in any of the clubs.”
— Chris (mother, Peel Region) ([17:45])

“I wasn't sure what his end goal was. Was he gonna hit us? ... He was looking to demean us, for sure, dehumanize us.”
— Tilda Rohl ([31:15])

“If this was Asian hatred, if this was Indigenous hatred, it would not be tolerated in the slightest. But because of what's going on in the world right now, this is accepted.”
— Joel (Vancouver) ([25:32])

“As far as I'm able to tell, no country in the world since October 7th has had more of its synagogues threatened, vandalized and firebombed than Canada.”
— Jesse Brown ([38:25])

“I see that I'm more likely to choke to death on a marshmallow than to be killed because I'm a Jew.”
— Jesse Brown ([39:04])

Important Segment Timestamps

• Opening contrasting ideals of Canada / hate audio montage: [00:03]–[01:21]
• Jesse Brown’s personal intro & criticism from peers: [01:24]–[04:12]
• Skepticism about anti-Jewish hate / “unsafe vs. uncomfortable”: [04:12]–[06:16]
• Brown’s guiding questions for the series: [08:06]
• First-hand accounts begin (Panda, Sam Ashkenazi, Chris): [09:08]–[21:39]
• Case summary: school attacks, legal actions, stats: [21:59]–[23:11]
• BC: Jen & Joel’s story: [23:11]–[25:28]
• Brown’s moral clarity returns: [25:51]
• Canadian hate crime statistics, comparison to U.S.: [27:09]–[28:24]
• Stories of physical assaults (Tilda Rohl, summary of other attacks): [28:39]–[34:32]
• Rabbi Rosenblatt: synagogue arson attempt: [34:32]–[36:50]
• String of synagogue attacks, widespread vandalism: [36:50]–[38:25]
• “So what?”—no Canadian Jews murdered, comparison to U.S., terrorism: [39:04]–[41:27]
• Preview of next episode (Zionist identity vs. Jewish identity): [43:13]–[44:21]

Conclusion & Next Episode Preview

• Brown leans into complexity: while the episode has conveyed significant harm to everyday Jews, he promises to explore stories where individuals are targeted for political support of Israel rather than their Jewish identity.
• Coming up: A sit-down with Indigo CEO Heather Reisman, often publicly linked to Israel, to further probe whether anti-Zionism or antisemitism is truly at play.

Tone and Takeaways

• The episode is urgent, raw, and at times confrontational—deliberately blurring the line between reporting and advocacy in order to provoke honest reflection.
• Jesse Brown positions himself both as an investigative journalist questioning dogma and as a member of the affected community who is forced to reconsider what it means to report “objectively” on hate.
• The stories, statistics, and counterarguments paint a portrait of a society wrestling uncomfortably with the boundaries between criticism, activism, and discrimination.

Additional Resources

• Canadian hate crime data and statistics referenced in the episode are linked in the show notes.

[This summary skips fundraising messages and credits, focusing on the core content.]