#2 The Purge

Summary

Podcast Summary: "What Is Happening Here | Canadaland Investigates"

Episode #2: The Purge

Host: Jesse Brown
Date: November 17, 2025

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Episode Overview

This episode, "The Purge," examines the recent surge of reported antisemitism in Canada, exploring whether Jewish Canadians are being more frequently targeted because of their identity, or whether legitimate political protest against Israel is being mischaracterized as antisemitism. Host Jesse Brown speaks with Jews across Canada whose daily lives have changed since October 7, 2023, as well as those who have been at the receiving end of the pro-Palestinian movement’s ire. Through testimonies, he probes the blurry line between anti-Zionism and antisemitism, focusing on how the Israel/Gaza conflict has infiltrated Canadian institutions—bookstores, schools, unions, and government—and the profound consequences for Jewish Canadians.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Public Targeting and the Indigo Bookstore Vandalism ([00:06]–[07:02])

• Heather Reisman and Indigo as Focal Point:
  The boycott movement and pro-Palestinian activists have identified Indigo Books and its CEO, Heather Reisman, as central to their campaign, accusing her charity, HESEG, of funding the Israeli military.
  • Quote:
    "Heather Reisman is the CEO of Indigo. She's become a focal point for the pro Palestine movement in Canada." – Jesse Brown [04:32]
• Kristallnacht Parallels:
  The vandalism of Indigo’s Toronto store (plastered with 'funding genocide' posters and red paint) occurred on the anniversary of Kristallnacht, sparking debate about its symbolism and intent.
  • Quote:
    "What none of those people mentioned... is that it took place on the 85th anniversary of Kristallnacht..." – Jesse Brown [07:02]
• Reisman’s Response:
  She denies any direct support to the Israeli army, clarifying that her charity supports educational scholarships for "lone soldiers"—young immigrants who serve mandatory military terms in Israel.
  • Quote:
    "It's absurd to accuse a Canadian chief executive of a book company of committing genocide." – Heather Reisman [11:04]
• Debate over Labeling Activism as Antisemitism:
  Jews and activists divide over whether protests and actions targeting Reisman count as legitimate criticism or cross into dangerous antisemitism, especially given the Kristallnacht timing.

2. Antisemitism in Schools: Lori Allen’s Story ([13:03]–[24:37])

• Personal Loss and Professional Fallout:
  Teacher Lori Allen recounts losing a family friend in Israel on October 7, her fraught interactions with a non-Jewish colleague insensitive to her family's trauma, and subsequent deterioration of her position at a private school.
  • Quote:
    "I can't work with him. ... She knows that both my parents were Holocaust survivors. ... I have zero relatives." – Lori Allen [15:55]
• Is Anti-Zionism Shielding Antisemitism?
  The colleague insists he’s "anti-Zionist, not antisemitic," fueling debate over intent versus impact after a string of unsettling conversations.
  • Quote:
    "He said he wasn't anti Semitic. He said he was just an anti Zionist." – Lori Allen [19:49]
• Job Loss and Institutional Response:
  After these events, Allen learns her contract isn’t renewed. She alleges her Jewish identity and related discussions caused discomfort for her administrators, contributing to her dismissal.
  • Quote:
    "I think I lost my job because having me there made them feel uncomfortable." – Lori Allen [23:43]
• Systemic Issues:
  Allen’s story ends with her pursuing a human rights complaint, highlighting the lack of institutional mechanisms to defend Jews in non-unionized settings.

3. The Union Dilemma: Jewish Public School Teacher’s Experience ([25:14]–[28:04])

• Union Politics and Lack of Support:
  An anonymous Jewish public school teacher describes hostile work environments post-October 7, being disciplined instead of supported, and facing a union leadership that openly espouses anti-Israel positions.
  • Quote:
    "Imagine being a Jewish person in a school board whose union has put forth such a vicious anti Israel, pro Palestinian front." – Anonymous Teacher [26:40]
• Solidarity Shattered:
  The union’s public stance and inadequate action reinforce Jewish staffers' isolation, impacting their job security and mental health.
  • Quote:
    "...the people who I'm supposed to turn to with this specific kind of problem are not going to back me up." – Anonymous Teacher [27:41]

4. Political Consequences: Selina Robinson and the BC NDP ([29:03]–[34:42])

• Ministry and Isolation:
  Selina Robinson, BC’s former Minister for Post Secondary Education and its only openly Jewish cabinet member, details her fall from grace after condemning a college instructor celebrating October 7.
  • Quote:
    "There was a target right after that put on my back where I was targeted at rallies ... So was I targeted because … I'm an out Jew? Well, maybe." – Selina Robinson [29:30]
• Controversial Comments and Fallout:
  Robinson’s comments on Israel's founding and the Holocaust spark a major backlash, including calls from Muslim groups and faculty unions for her resignation—culminating in credible death threats and her removal from cabinet.
  • Quote:
    "It just created a shitstorm." – Selina Robinson [32:01]
• Double Standards and Zionism:
  Robinson refutes the idea that anti-Zionism explains her treatment, citing the overlap between Jewish and Zionist identities and questioning societal norms around diaspora attachment.
  • Quote:
    "It's always been acceptable to the party, except when the Jew steps in a pile of poop." – Selina Robinson [33:37]

5. Academia and Antisemitism Denial: Dr. Ted Rosenberg at UBC ([34:42]–[41:05])

• Omission from Diversity Policies:
  Rosenberg, a longstanding professor, uncovers that UBC’s medical school DEI framework does not recognize Jews or antisemitism as protected categories, making formal complaints impossible.
  • Quote:
    "...when I typed in the word Jew, it didn't exist ... Jews are not different." – Dr. Ted Rosenberg [36:21]
• Institutional Indifference & Resignation:
  Rosenberg finds Jewish concerns minimized ("seen as privileged, white oppressors") and resigns in protest. Only afterward does UBC update its policies to mention antisemitism.
• Where Criticism Becomes Antisemitism:
  Rosenberg distinguishes between legitimate critique of Israel and rhetoric denying Israel’s right to exist—a stance he unequivocally equates with antisemitism due to its implication for world Jewry.
  • Quote:
    "When you say that Israel is illegitimate and does not have the right to exist, then you're crossing into the territory of anti Semitism." – Dr. Ted Rosenberg [39:38]

6. Broader Observations & Lingering Questions ([41:05]–end)

• Jewish Exodus from Institutions:
  Brown notes an unmeasured but palpable move of Jewish professionals (teachers, doctors, journalists) out of public institutions since October 7.
  • Quote:
    "Since October 7, 2023, other Jewish teachers and students have left the public school system. More Jewish doctors have left public universities and hospitals." – Jesse Brown [41:05]
• Data Gaps:
  Jews aren’t tracked as a diversity category, stymieing evidence-based discussion.
• Complexity of Protest Movements:
  Brown challenges the notion that all pro-Palestinian activism is rooted in antisemitism, acknowledging the presence of both Jews and non-Jews in the movement.
  • Quote:
    "I have trouble believing that all of the millions of people...are Jew haters." – Jesse Brown [42:00]
• Next Steps:
  Brown signals a forthcoming shift: the focus will move from analyzing anti-Zionists to directly engaging them in conversation.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the Power of Accusation:
  "It's absurd to accuse a Canadian chief executive of a book company of committing genocide ... history says pernicious lies against Jewish people leads to very bad things."
  – Heather Reisman [11:04]

• Personal Pain in Professional Life:
  "I went into the principal's office and I sat on the floor and I just cried like, I've never cried ... then got myself together and I went back and taught."
  – Lori Allen [20:53]

• Union Betrayal:
  "So this is a person who's supposed to be representing me ... Imagine trying to go to them for support."
  – Anonymous Teacher [27:06]

• Reframing Antisemitism vs. Anti-Zionism:
  "When you say that Israel is illegitimate and does not have the right to exist, then you're crossing into the territory of anti Semitism."
  – Dr. Ted Rosenberg [39:38]

• Complexity Within Jewish and Anti-Zionist Identities:
  "Everything I was taught about Israel as a child was exaggeration, distortion, or just a complete flat out lie. So at this point, does Israel have a right to exist? I don't know."
  – Jesse Brown [43:27]

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [00:06] – Opening, setting up the episode’s questions
• [04:32] – Heather Reisman and Indigo as protest target
• [07:02] – Kristallnacht and historical parallels to Indigo vandalism
• [08:08] – Heather Reisman’s firsthand account of activism targeting her stores
• [15:55] – Lori Allen’s personal trauma and school conflict
• [25:14] – Anonymous public school teacher’s union experience
• [29:03] – Selina Robinson’s account of being politically targeted
• [36:21] – Dr. Ted Rosenberg on the erasure of Jews from DEI/HR frameworks
• [39:38] – Clarifying anti-Zionism and antisemitism in academic speech
• [41:05] – Observations on Jews leaving public institutions following October 7
• [42:00–end] – Brown’s reflection and pivot for the next episode

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Tone Retention

The episode maintains a tone of somber urgency, empathetic but journalistic, as Jesse Brown systematically unpacks difficult, emotionally charged stories without losing sight of complexities or nuance. The conversations are frank—at times raw or indignant—highlighting both the pain of those feeling targeted and the contentious reality of protest, speech, and identity in Canada post-October 7, 2023.

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This summary provides a thorough roadmap of the episode’s themes, arguments, and personal narratives, contextualizing the ongoing debate over antisemitism, anti-Zionism, and the broader toll of political polarization in Canada’s public sphere.

Transcript

[Jesse Brown]

Last time on this series, I tried to find out what's really been happening. Is the much talked about surge of antisemitism in Canada real? Or is a wave of political protest getting misclassified? Is anti Zionism being conflated with antisemitism? What I found was story after story of Canadians being singled out, screamed at, spat on, threatened, even violently assaulted, not for being Zionists, but for being Jews. However, I found other stories as well. Stories about people who are Jewish, yes, but who would not likely have found themselves in the negative situations that they told me about just because they're Jewish. These are stories that probably would not have happened if not for these people's opinions, beliefs and their actions. I'm Jesse Brown. This is a podcast called what is Happening Here? And today you'll hear stories that show just how deeply into society this conflict has seeped. These stories don't take place at synagogues. They happened at bookstores, in schools, and within unions and inside government. These are not simple stories of people just minding their own business and getting targeted for discrimination. The people you're about to meet are not uncomplicated victims, and different people will have different thoughts about what they have to say. But what I want you to listen for is what happens next once they feel targeted or harmed. Our first story begins with a video. The first thing we see in the video is an old man with white hair and glasses, wearing a rumpled brown suit and a cardigan, stepping out of a taxi cab onto a Toronto street at night. Immediately he looks surprised to see that he has found himself in the middle of a sizable pro Palestine protest. He looks a bit lost and curious. One of the protesters notices him, a younger man with a keffiyeh wrapped around his shoulders. He approaches the old man. Shame on you, he says to the old man. You're a genocide supporter.

[Lori Allen]

Genocide?

[Jesse Brown]

The old man looks perplexed and crosses the street away from the protesters and towards the bookstore. As he does, he realizes that the entire encounter has been filmed. He approaches and the cameraman greets him respectfully. Have a good night, sir.

[Lori Allen]

What are you doing here?

[Jesse Brown]

I'm recording. The protesters screen scream at you.

[Dr. Ted Rosenberg]

What kind of protest is it?

[Jesse Brown]

There's the CEO of Indigo Books. She is here speaking tonight and they believe that Indigo is funneling money to the Israel Army. I'm a German tourist. I come only to listen to.

[Dr. Ted Rosenberg]

Louis Penny.

[Jesse Brown]

The German tourist who came only to listen to mystery novelist Louise Penny has no idea that the woman who will be interviewing his beloved author is not just the owner of a chain of bookstores, but is also the individual who has been associated more than any other Canadian with the genocide of Palestinians.

[Selina Robinson]

Heather. Heather, you can't hide.

[Lori Allen]

Heather. Heather, you can hide.

[Selina Robinson]

You're supporting genocide. You're supporting genocide. Boycott Indigo.

[Lori Allen]

Shame. Shame. I used to love going to Indigo.

[Selina Robinson]

And it was a Heather's Hicks sticker.

[Jesse Brown]

That introduced me to my first book of poetry.

[Lori Allen]

And I'm so ashamed. We see you, Indigo. We know what you are and we know what you do. And we will not allow you to continue supporting terror and violence and the killing of children. And we will not be stopped and we will not be silenced. Free Palestine.

[Jesse Brown]

Heather Reisman is the CEO of Indigo. She's become a focal point for the pro Palestine movement in Canada. As far as I can tell, she's been singled out more frequently in chants and at demonstrations than any other Canadian public figure or even politician. The reason why Heather Reisman and her husband, Jerry Schwartz, are accused by activists of funding the Israeli army through their charity heseg.

[Selina Robinson]

The money that you spend at EGG goes directly to the Israeli army that go babies and young children into pieces. They burn them in their tents.

[Lori Allen]

Indigo, through its CEO Heather, is directly.

[Selina Robinson]

Funding violence and destructions to my homeland, Palestine.

[Lori Allen]

Blood on your hands. Blood on your hands.

[Selina Robinson]

Shame.

[Lori Allen]

Shame.

[Jesse Brown]

For years, Indigo has been a target of the Boycott, Divestment and sanctions movement. Shortly after October 7, 2023, the Campaign Against Indigo made national news. On a November evening, in the middle of the night, 11 activists, including two academics, vandalized the flagship Indigo bookstore in downtown Toronto. They plastered the windows with dozens of posters of Reisman's face. They splattered blood red paint over the windows and the posters. The text on each picture of Reisman's face said funding genocide. The incident was investigated as a hate crime and denounced by Jewish groups as anti Semitic. That accusation was quickly dismissed by pro Palestine activists and and journalists.

[Lori Allen]

This notion that what these activists had done was anti Semitic, racist, a hate.

[Jesse Brown]

Crime, which is of course an absurd allegation. One of the activists charged is Jewish herself.

[Lori Allen]

God forbid should he put up a poster at a bookstore like, heavens, words, how dare there be words at a bookstore.

[Selina Robinson]

They are completely undermining the idea of.

[Lori Allen]

Antisemitism by saying that putting posters on a window calling out a CEO's investments.

[Selina Robinson]

In in funding soldiers is an act of anti Semitism.

[Jesse Brown]

She's not some kind of racial target.

[Lori Allen]

She's a legitimate political target.

[Jesse Brown]

What none of those people mentioned in their description of the vandalism of the Indigo Bookstore is that it took place on the 85th anniversary of Kristallnacht, the night of Broken Glass, when thousands of Jewish businesses in Germany and Austria were similarly vandalized, their windows broken, and Jewish blood ran on the sidewalks of Europe. Kristallnacht is widely regarded as the beginning of the Holocaust. At least 91 Jews were murdered on Kristallnacht, and immediately afterwards, around 30,000 Jewish men were arrested and sent to concentration camps. An angry and divisive debate broke out over the so called Indigo 11. They were denounced as racist vandals by some and celebrated as heroes by others. Throughout all of that, Heather Eastman did not comment, but some months later she did. Sit down and speak with me. Can you describe to me what has happened to your stores since October 7th?

[Heather Reisman]

So there have been 30 or 40 meaningful events in our stores. Things which happen run the gamut. In our Eaton center store, a couple of people came in and they lit a fire. We've had groups of people come in, seemingly as customers, and then lie down on the floor, wrap themselves in white sheets with blood and accused me of being responsible for genocide. We have had people shouting obscenities outside our store toward me, toward Indigo.

[Jesse Brown]

A Jewish person might say, well, this is obviously anti Semitic. The people who support this movement roll their eyes. This is obviously an attempt to distract from Gaza. This is obviously an attempt to weaponize anti Semitism.

[Heather Reisman]

I'd like to delaminate the discussion from the labels just for a moment. So let's put the anti Semitism aside just for a second. I think what's happening to Indigo is wrong. I am being accused of doing something that I am not doing for the purpose of an argument that some people want to make. It's wrong to perpetrate a lie because it causes damage unfairly. We do not fund the military. We do not have any say over the military.

[Lori Allen]

That's the fact.

[Heather Reisman]

The particular charity that is being questioned is our charity that provides scholarships to people who have completed their military service and have been accepted to university. If you live in Israel and you are of a certain age, military service is mandatory. One could agree with it or not. That's the law of the land. It is mandatory. There are some number of people who have no family in Israel. It might be because at a younger age they emigrated alone, or it might be, as in many cases, that they have lost family. The military deems them lone soldiers. So what we are doing is we are contributing education, scholarships. That's what we do.

[Jesse Brown]

Okay? My job is to try to understand where very divergent people are coming from and to try to get to the root of the facts of things. To the extent that people think that Hesseg funds the IDF, it does not.

[Heather Reisman]

It does not.

[Jesse Brown]

I don't think that there is any individual in this country who has been targeted, whose face and name has been associated with genocide and baby killing more than you.

[Heather Reisman]

I think that's true.

[Jesse Brown]

You have been seized upon.

[Heather Reisman]

We have stores in every area of every province. My face is in all those stores. I think I am a convenient target. Look, it's absurd to accuse a Canadian chief executive of a book company of committing genocide. I think it's worth fighting for, not allowing lies, pernicious lies, to permeate our society. And that matters to me. And I do think that history says pernicious lies against Jewish people leads to very bad things.

[Jesse Brown]

Heather Reisman's Hesseg foundation is a separate entity from Indigo Books. Nevertheless, the campaign against Hesseg is called Indigo Kills Kids. It's petitioning the Canadian government to revoke Hesseg's charitable status on the basis that it is illegal for a Canadian charity to fund foreign militaries. Activists argue that HESEG does this indirectly by providing financial incentives for people to join the Israeli army. The criminal charges against the so called Indigo 11 have all been dropped. Two of the people who vandalized the bookstore were elementary school teachers. As mentioned last episode, elementary schools have been the site of hundreds of antisemitic incidents in Canada since October 7, 2023. According to a federal report and a human rights complaint, these acts of anti Jew discrimination came from students and also from teachers and principals.

[Lori Allen]

My name is Lori Allen, and right now I do nothing. I'm a unemployed teacher. October 7th was the Canadian Thanksgiving weekend. On that Saturday, we were watching the news on CNN and seeing what was happening. I was with my son Jeremy, and he was texting friends in Israel at the same time as we were watching the news. And one of the friends he was texting was a boy who had been in the IDF. He was older now than his mid-20s and was in the reserves. And he was texting him and others like, are you guys okay? And this particular one said, I'm being called up. I can't remember if it was either later that day on Saturday or on the Sunday Jeremy got word that he had been killed. I was sitting right beside him and they were texting and talking. And then it's just surreal to realize, like, that person is dead now. So my son was obviously devastated about that and just Seeing what was unfolding on the news. I was a middle school teacher, so I was teaching grades seven and eight at a school called vsie, which is the Victoria School for Ideal Education. It's private, like you have to pay to go there. It's non unionized. And my assistant, we'll call him Chad. Chad was a educational assistant. He was there in a supportive role just to help with classroom behaviors. What an EA does, you know, if you're having kids having trouble with their work, they could take them aside and help them like an extra set of hands. When I went back to work on the Tuesday, Chad came up to me and said, oh, how was your turkey? And was just very jovial and happy and so he obviously had a very different experience. And I said, well, actually, did you see what happened on the news? And he said, oh, yeah, yeah I did. And I said, yeah. So it was pretty awful. And Jeremy's found out one of his friends has been killed. And it's just been pretty horrific what's happening. And at that point it didn't occur to me that anybody would have any other thought than, wow, what a horrible thing, whether or not you're Jewish. It just seemed like a horrible thing. And he immediately just went into this whole thing about, oh, I don't support Israel. I don't like a country that has a forced military and Israel's a colonial. Is it colon? What's the word? Colonizer. You know, throwing them all in apartheid. I was just really shocked. I said, you know, Chad, nobody really wants to be in the military. And you're really lucky that you live in a country where you don't have to be in the military. It's certainly nobody's dream to do it. And he just kept going on and it was getting ugly and I could just feel like my eyes tearing up. And I thought, I can't be here. So I just went for a walk. I said, I gotta go. Went into the washroom, sat down on the floor, had a little cry and went back into my classroom. And I saw there was a note on my desk. And he said, oh, I wrote you something, can you read it? So I read it and it was just an apology saying that he was sorry for being insensitive, which I thought was very nice. And then he verbally said to me, I'm really sorry. My timing is the worst. I'm a big dum dum. I just kind of follow what all my other friends say and, and I'm sorry, I was really insensitive. We hugged it Out. And I said, I appreciate that, and I hope this is the end of this and, you know, we can move along. So I was hoping, you know, that was sort of the end of it. Sometime later, he came in 10 minutes early, and we talked a little bit about what the day was going to look like. And I'm honestly not sure who brought it up, but the war came up at that point, and he was talking about going to these protests. And I said, oh, when you go to those protests, do you do that chant they do, like, from the river to the Sea? And he got all excited and said, yeah, yeah, yeah, we do that. We do that one. And I said, do you know what that means? And he was like, what do you mean? And I said, well, do you know, like, what river and what sea you're talking about? And he said, well, no, I don't know. So I told him it's the Jordan river and the Mediterranean Sea. And this is the chant of Hamas, which is saying, from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free, meaning free of Jews. It's talking about killing all the Jews. And he said, no, that's not what it means. And I said, well, okay. And he told me that the protests were really peaceful and they're fun, and there's lots of Jewish people there, too, and I should probably go and see what it's all about. And I said, no, I don't think I want to do that. And the kids were just about to come in, and our principal, Natalie Miller, was out in front of the school. And I just said, I can't work with him. I said, you know. You know my history. She knows that both my parents were Holocaust survivors. My mom was in Auschwitz. My dad was in Dachau. I have zero relatives. And I said, I can't. And so she said, okay, don't worry about it. Like, you can go home, like, for the day. And I said, I'm not going home. I already did the hard part. I'm here, but I don't want him in the classroom. So he was put in another classroom. Then we had a meeting. Principal Natalie Miller was there, and our vice principal and myself and Chad. And then he said he wasn't anti Semitic. He said he was just an anti Zionist. He kept going on about Israel's committing a genocide, and all the footage from October 7th was AI generated, and that the military admitted that they were just killing each other, that it was all fake news, that there were no tunnels. And then I said, what about, like, where are the hostages? And he Said, like what hostages? Like, you just have to stop watching social media. Like, you need to get off social media, Lori, because you just. You're just full of fake news, and it's all fake. And so at that point, I just said, I can't be around this. And I said to the principal and the vice principal, why. Why do you have somebody working here who's so uneducated and so stupid? Like, I. I can't. And I laughed, and I went into the principal's office and I sat on the floor and I just cried like, I've never cried for, like, I don't know, an hour. And then got myself together and I went back and taught. So after that, Chad was still in the school, and it's a really small school. I would see him all the time. One time the principal asked me, are you okay with having him in the school? And I said, I understand. He's gonna be here. I'm gonna put my big girl pants on. And that's fine. The way that I found out that I was not going to be teaching grade 7 and 8 middle school next year was one of my students who was in grade seven came up to me and she was really upset, and she said, how come you're not teaching us next year? And I said, I what? Yeah, I'll be your teacher next year for grade eight. And she said, no. She'd heard from one of the other teachers. He had said to her, how would you feel about me being your teacher next year? This was all news to me. So I went to the principal and I said, what are your plans for me next year? And she said, oh, yeah, do you want to talk now? And it wasn't really, like, the perfect time to have a meeting. I would have liked to be prepared for it and sit down and take notes, but I said, okay. So we sat down in front of the school on a bench, very casual, and she said, yeah, I'm not sure where to put you next year. I was thinking of grade one, but I know you don't really like the little kids that much. You know, if I had a magic wand and dippity do or something, I could give you whatever you wanted. What would you teach? And I said, well, this is all news to me that I'm not teaching middle school. So I don't know. You know, I love art. I don't know. Like, I haven't really given it a lot of thought. And then she said, you know, you just haven't seemed very happy this year. And first of all, that wasn't true. I had a really good class and I really enjoyed working. But I said I wasn't happy. I'll of the fact that what happened with Chad and how nobody's ever really asked me how I'm doing or, you know, that was a little bit of a kick in the teeth. It almost makes me feel like you're all a little bit mad at me. She said, well, it's just that I don't like to see children being killed. I said, well, neither do I. And just that comment was like, you don't like to see children being killed? So what do you think? Because I'm Jewish, I have this? I just said, no. Like, who does? So that was kind of the end of that meeting. All I really learned from it was that I'm not teaching middle school and that she doesn't like to see children being killed. And somehow she thinks maybe I do. She had told me once, like, I don't know. I just live on my little island. I don't really know anything that's going on in this world. And I thought, well, how nice for you. Some of us have a heavier past and do know what's going on in the world and do have a stake in it and know the repercussions of where hate can take you. I remember specifically it was a Friday, heard my phone beep, looked at it, and I got an email from Natalie Miller. And it just said, sorry that I have to do this via email, telling me that my contract was not being renewed for staffing reasons and that she hoped I would pursue my love of art. So that was two weeks before the end of school. And she kind of avoided me for those two weeks, and I never spoke to her about it. I think I lost my job because having me there made them feel uncomfortable. There was never, ever any issues with my teaching.

[Jesse Brown]

If you were not Jewish, do you think any of this would have happened?

[Lori Allen]

No, it would never have happened because I never would have had that discussion with Chad. And my connection to what's happening in Israel would have not been the same.

[Jesse Brown]

Lori Allen has filed a human rights complaint against the Victoria School for Ideal Education. She alleges sustained anti Semitic discrimination by colleagues and administrators. I asked the school and its principal, Natalie Miller, for their side of the story. None of them got back to me. Now, because that private school is not unionized, Laurie is advocating for herself with the help of a lawyer. Most teachers in Canada work in the public school system and have large unions to stand up for them when they feel they have experienced discrimination. However, many of those unions have themselves taken public anti Zionist positions.

[Anonymous Jewish Public School Teacher]

They took a side and they took a side in a way that they had never displayed for any other world conflict before, ever. They had an opinion and we were all going to know about it.

[Jesse Brown]

This is a Jewish public school teacher from Toronto. She could lose her job for talking with me, so I've agreed to withhold her name. Her Troubles began after October 7, 2023, when she began experiencing what she considered to be threatening anti Semitic incidents at work from fellow teachers and from students. She reported these incidents to her principal and to her superintendent, but they took no action. Until one day they did. They took the action of disciplining her. She had reached out to a parent for help and for doing that, the school board accused her of breaking their privacy rules. She lost her job at the school where she had been teaching for almost two decades and she was transferred elsewhere. If ever she needed her union, this was the time. But the union representative who she was supposed to go to for help was a teacher who had been posting politically charged messages about the Middle east conflict online, including one expressing support for a U.S. air Force serviceman who had set himself on fire in support of Palestine.

[Anonymous Jewish Public School Teacher]

So imagine being a Jewish person in a school board whose union has put forth such a vicious anti Israel, pro Palestinian front. Imagine trying to go to one of them who has just tweeted that the end game of Zionism is genocide and lauding the self immolation of Aaron Bushnell and the states lauding it as an act of heroism. They are so deeply enmeshed in this ideology that they can't even see it as wrong as a teacher to applaud someone for killing themselves. So this is a person who's supposed to be representing me, who has a legal obligation to represent me. And these are former teachers, mind you, who are working in the executive. Imagine trying to go to them for support. The Toronto contingent of the union of the teachers union, on a daily basis, sometimes several times a day, are putting out anti Israel rhetoric, they're reposting memes, and frankly, some of the most racist anti Semitic shit I have ever seen. And they're not getting called on it, they're not being stopped. So like there's that that's weighing heavenly oni that the people who are representing me and the people who I'm supposed to turn to with this specific kind of problem are not going to back me up.

[Jesse Brown]

This teacher's fight to get her old job back is ongoing. Over 700 parents and children at her old school have signed a petition calling for her to be reinstated. Meanwhile, anonymous pro Palestine activists discovered the name of the school that she's been transferred to. They identified her publicly as a Zionist and called for her to be removed from her new school as well. Her union has taken no action in her defense in response to that campaign. Outside of their unions, Canadian workers are supposed to have representation through the ndp, the New Democratic Party. Which of the mainstream political parties in Canada is the furthest to the left and the most pro labor? They are also the governing party in the province of British Columbia, as they were on October 7, 2023. They too have faced allegations of antisemitism. The most noteworthy of which are came from their own minister, Selena Robinson.

[Selina Robinson]

I am the former MLA for Coquitlam Millardville and a former cabinet minister for both John Horgan and David Eby.

[Jesse Brown]

Selina Robinson was the NDP's minister of post secondary education, including universities. She was also the party's liaison with the local Jewish community and she was the only outwardly Jewish member of that government. All of that soon changed.

[Selina Robinson]

Natalie Knight, an instructor at Langara, which is a community college here in British Columbia on October 8th or 9th went out and celebrated the massacre of October 7th. The amazing, brilliant offensive waged on October 7th. And I was asked by media what I thought about that. And I said that that behavior was reprehensible. That we have somebody teaching our children who celebrates the massacre of people, didn't make it about Israel, didn't make it about Gaza, just anyone who celebrates the massacre of anyone. It's reprehensible behavior. And there was a target right after that put on my back where I was targeted at rallies and other events by the anti Israel crowd. So I think I just became a target. Selena, Selena, you can't hide. You're committing genocide. No other MLA was named. So was I targeted because I was a minister for post secondary education? Because I was outspoken? Okay, maybe. Was I targeted because I'm an out Jew? Well, maybe. And on January of 2024 I was on a panel discussion talking about the rise in antisemitism and I was the last person to speak and got condensed for time and spoke about the rise in anti Semitism, particularly on campus. The Data that it's 18 to 34 year olds that have no idea about the Holocaust, they don't even think it happened. They don't even understand that Israel. And as part of my explaining why we are seeing so much anti Semitism among young people, talked about People not knowing their history and that Israel, it had been, and I quote, it was a crappy piece of land with nothing on it. You know, there were several hundred thousand people, but other than that, it didn't produce an economy. It didn't have. It couldn't grow things. It didn't have anything on it. And that it was the folks who were displaced that came and the people who had been living there for generations. And together they worked hard and they had their own battles.

[Lori Allen]

Right.

[Selina Robinson]

They were absolutely inelegant words that got clipped and went wild on social media. Sean Orr, who posted the clip Thursday, says it has garnered more than 1.8 million impressions.

[Jesse Brown]

And I've been noticing Selena Robinson's Twitter presence for some time now.

[Selina Robinson]

The B.C. muslim association released a statement requesting that.

[Lori Allen]

Robinson publicly recognize that she is engaged in a pattern of Islamophobia and anti Palestine racism.

[Selina Robinson]

The National Council of Canadian Muslims calling for her immediate resignation. I apologize several times. My apologies were not accepted. It just created a shitstorm.

[Jesse Brown]

I don't think it was an apology. Apologies are when somebody takes accountability.

[Lori Allen]

This provincial faculty unions says Robinson's apology is not enough.

[Jesse Brown]

She's not fit to serve as minister any longer.

[Selina Robinson]

You know, like my office was targeted. I received death threats that were Credible and David E.B. decided that I needed to be fired from Cabinet.

[Lori Allen]

She needs to focus on this work in community to repair that damage.

[Dr. Ted Rosenberg]

And that's what she's going to be.

[Jesse Brown]

Focused on going forward rather than on a cabinet roll. Did this happen because you're Jewish?

[Selina Robinson]

Yes, I absolutely believe this happened because I'm Jewish. I have had half a dozen colleagues at least who have either minimized the Holocaust in their speeches, who have called Jews Zionists in a derogatory way, who have minimized the experience of those who were slaughtered on October 7, and many faux pas by government where they have hurt the Jewish community in real ways. And in each and every one of those instances, the task was to apologize to the Jewish community, to make amends, to reach out to the Jewish community, to learn. And it's always been acceptable. It's always been acceptable to the party, except when the Jew steps in a pile of poop.

[Jesse Brown]

You know the response that many would have to that even accepting that, okay, it sounds like you were treated differently, but you were not treated differently because you're Jewish. This wasn't anti Semitism, this was anti Zionism.

[Selina Robinson]

Well, it's just code. It's a bullshit argument that holds no water when 94 to 97% of Jews are Zionists. I mean, you know, there are people in my life who are Canadian Italians or they're Italian Canadians. They love Italy. They cheer for Italy's soccer teams. They are very proud of Italy. When we criticize the Italian government, we don't tell these people that they don't deserve to have a home base or where their grandparents or where their ancestry's from. We don't shame them, humiliate them, call them names. We don't do that. But yet somehow for Jews, it's okay.

[Jesse Brown]

David Eby, the Premier of British Columbia, initially denied Selena Robinson's allegation that his government has an anti Semitism problem. But after political pressure mounted, he acknowledged the issue and promised that his politicians would take anti racism training. Back when she was BC's minister of post Secondary Education, one of Robinson's challenges was to address an ongoing crisis at the University of British Columbia's medical school where almost 300 Jewish doctors signed a letter to the administration demanding that action be taken against rising antisemitism. Once again, some of the alleged incidents were coming from other faculty members. One UBC professor of family medicine posted online that reports of Hamas raping Jews on October 7th were all fake. She shared a post titled Christ in the Rubble, the Rubble of Gaza, an apparent callback to the age old idea of Jews as Christ killers. Dr. Ted Rosenberg was one of the Jewish professors who was disturbed by these posts. He'd been a professor of medicine for 30 years. He wanted his dean to do something about his colleagues public statements which he believed were very clearly hateful. He signed the letter demanding that the school take action. He said that he wanted an opportunity to make the case that those posts were not merely anti Zionist, but were in fact antisemitic. What he found was that this argument would be impossible to make because according to UBC Medical School's diversity, equity and inclusion policies, antisemitism did not exist.

[Dr. Ted Rosenberg]

So I went on the website and when I typed in the word Jew, it didn't exist. And then I typed in the word Jewish. None of those words came up, meaning.

[Jesse Brown]

That according to ubc, there's no problem.

[Dr. Ted Rosenberg]

Jews are not different. And I met with the head of the Diversity Equity Inclusion Program within the Faculty of Medicine, trying to implore her and the dean that you need to recognize that Jews are at risk. Antisemitism is real and they refuse to acknowledge that anti Semitism was an issue. They view Jews as white. Within this DEI framework, Jews are white and privileged. And worst of all, Jews are. If they're Zionist, they support Settler colonialism, and therefore they're the apex predator, you know, oppressor within that ideology.

[Jesse Brown]

What are the practical implications for the omission of Jewishness, Anti Semitism, Jews not.

[Dr. Ted Rosenberg]

Being a category, there was no way you could complain. You know, you basically had to suck it up.

[Jesse Brown]

Like if you were to say, if.

[Dr. Ted Rosenberg]

Someone came up to, you know, the students and said, you know, you're killing Palestinians, you're supporting murder, you're supporting genocide, if you don't recognize that there's such a thing called antisemitism. And even putting aside the anti Zionist antisemitism, we're talking swastik antisemitism. There's nothing in the DEI search engine at UBC that has the word antisemitism. Jew, Jewish, doesn't exist. The dean would not recognize it. So if someone came along and said, you Jews killed Christ, you know, classical anti Semitism and go back to Poland or whatever, they would have just said it's harassment. But not racial, ethnic, religious harassment, just harassment as an individual. That was their position.

[Jesse Brown]

Dr. Rosenberg resigned from UBC in protest. Eight months later, the Equity Committee of the Department of Medicine of the University of British Columbia added a note to their website which said, antisemitism will not be tolerated. There have been responses to your resignation that this is not antisemitism, that this is anti Zionism, that these are people who are participating in legitimate and urgent political speech and have nothing against you as a Jew or against Jews. And this isn't about you. This is about what's happening in the Middle East.

[Dr. Ted Rosenberg]

So why don't we deal with that? First of all, there's nothing wrong with criticizing the state of Israel. Nothing. I criticize the state of Israel, I criticize the government of Israel. 75% of the Israeli population were marching against the government before the war broke out. So I have no problem with somebody leveling complaints about the state of Israel or Israeli government policies. But what we're talking about is when people start to say that Israel is illegitimate, Israel is a country like the other 190 countries in the UN, whatever they are, the number that has existed for decades, like other countries that are newer countries and have only existed for decades. So when you say that Israel is illegitimate and does not have the right to exist, then you're crossing into the territory of anti Semitism. When you demonize the state in the most odious extreme terminology, that is anti Semitism. And when you use a double standard against Israel that you do not use, you hold them up to a standard that you do not hold for any other country in the world. So there's only one student Anti Apartheid Week at every university in the west, and it's Israel Apartheid Week. There's nothing against the treatment of the Uyghurs in China or the Rohingya in Myanmar, or the treatment of Baha' is in Iran or LGBT or no other country in the world is protested and demonized and said not to exist, including North Korea. When you feel that way, that Israel has no right to exist, well, almost 50% of the Jews in the world live in that country. Where are they to go? Most of the rest of the Jews in the world support the state of Israel and would consider themselves Zionists. And you're saying that they too are evil. So that's why I say if you hate Israel and you hate Zionism, you hate the majority of Jews around the world.

[Jesse Brown]

Dr. Rosenberg is now retired from academia and focused on his medical practice. Selena Robinson is done with politics. Lori Allen is still unemployed. As a teacher, I know just from talking to people over the past couple of years that since October 7, 2023 other Jewish teachers and students have left the public school system. More Jewish doctors have left public universities and hospitals. I know several Jews who have left newsrooms, and I know Jews who have left their unions, but I don't know how many. As a journalist, I would rather be sharing data with you than anecdotes. But the data does not exist. None of the diversity statistics collected by those industries or institutions count Jews as a category. I've heard a number of Jewish people say that anti Zionism is just a word that Jew haters use to disguise their antisemitism. That anti Zionists are people who have always hated Jews and who've just figured out a socially acceptable way to express that hatred. I know that it's true that there are some people who have always hated Jews and always will. But I have trouble believing that all of the millions of people around the world who have taken to the streets in support of Palestine are Jew haters. I know some of these people. Some of them are Jews. And the idea that they were all just hiding away their hatred towards Jews until October 7th, it just doesn't seem credible. I want to know what they think is happening here. Do they even know about the kinds of stories that you've heard so far? Do they accept them? Do they accept that what is happening to Jews in North America is real? Do they see any connection between the kind of rhetoric found at their demonstrations and the impacts on their Jewish neighbors. And if so, does that matter to them? I'm going to stop talking about anti Zionists and I'm going to start talking to them. People are dying by the tens of thousands. Women, children, babies. Like this is not the time to walk on eggshells. This is not the time to build bridges.

[Lori Allen]

I would be honored and proud if.

[Dr. Ted Rosenberg]

My daughter were to grow up to become part of the resistance. There are people out there that have made it their mission to expose what they call antisemitism and they do deliberately misrepresent what we say and what we're about.

[Jesse Brown]

Everything I was taught about Israel as a child was exaggeration, distortion, or just a complete flat out lie. So at this point, does Israel have a right to exist? I don't know. This episode was made possible by the generous support of George Berger, Dan DeBeau, Daniel Klaas, Marjorie Skolnick and Lee Zentner. This series is not yet fully funded. I want to be able to complete it. We want to bring it to campuses across Canada for town hall conversations about how all of this has created fear and harm in our university and college communities. We want to host discussions between people who are interested in working together to restore safety. To do any of that, we require financial support. Funders may be eligible to receive tax deductible donation receipts through our project partner, the Canadian Jewish News, a registered journalism organization with the CRA. Contributing is easy. Just email me [e-mail] and I'll take you through the process. My Name is spelled J-E-S S eanadaland.com what is happening Here is a co production of Canadaland Podcasts and the Canadian Jewish News. This episode was written and reported by me, Jesse Brown Research and story editing by Kate Minsky Original music by so called sound design, mixing and mastering by Caleb Thompson editorial input from Michael Freeman. We've put links to statistics and sources cited in today's episode in the show Notes. Thank you to Stephen Marsh, Jonathan Rothman, Mark Musselman and the entire team here at Canadaland for their input and their support. The next episode of what Is Happening Here will be available next week, wherever you get your podcasts. To become a Canadaland supporter, go to canadaland.com join thank you for listening.