My diaspora Jewish world is crumbling - with Jesse Brown
5/4/202656 min
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What is happening to Jewish Canadians, and what it tells us about the country Canada thought it was?
In today’s episode, Dan is joined by Jesse Brown, founder, editor, and publisher of Canadaland, to discuss how Jewish life in Canada has changed since October 7. Drawing on months of reporting for his six-part investigative series What Is Happening Here, Jesse explains why antisemitism in Canada feels more targeted, more tolerated, and more systemic than many outsiders understand. They discuss attacks on Jewish schools and synagogues, the role of progressive institutions and campus culture, the collapse of old assumptions about diaspora belonging, and whether Canadian Jewish life can ever go back to what it was.
Listen to Jesse’s six-part investigative podcast series here.
See Jesse at the Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan on May 21. More info here.
In this episode:
- Jesse Brown’s life as a Canadian Jew before October 7
- Why Jesse says his diaspora Jewish world is crumbling
- What Jewish life in Canada feels like now
- How Jewish schools, synagogues, and neighborhoods became targets
- Why antisemitism in Canada feels more systemic
- Canada’s postnational identity and the politics of settler colonialism
- The role of Islamist extremism and what Canada refuses to name
- Why anti-Zionist activism in Canada has become more explicit
- Zionism, anti-Zionism, and why Jesse says the labels matter less than the harm
- The fractures inside Canada’s Jewish community
- Why Jesse still wants to fight for diaspora Jewish life
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Credits: Ilan Benatar, Adaam James Levin-Areddy, Brittany Cohen, Ava Weiner, Martin Huergo, Mariangeles Burgos, and Yuval Semo
Clips
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsDan Senor· Host0:00
Hi, it's Dan. Over the past couple of years, Call Me Back has grown into something much bigger than we ever expected, a place for clarity, context, and honest conversations at a time when those things can seem hard to find. That's what Arc Media is all about, building a truly independent voice, which means no one shaping what we say or how we say it. To help support our rapidly expanding operations, we created Inside Call Me Back, our members-only feed, where we answer your questions and bring you into the conversations that typically happen after the cameras stop rolling. If Call Me Back has been meaningful to you and you want to be part of what we're building, I hope you'll join us. Right now, we're offering an annual subscription for sixty dollars. That's just five dollars a month. Your contribution goes a long way in helping us show up when it matters most. You can subscribe at arcmedia.org or through the link in the show notes. And to our insiders, thank you. [gentle music] You are listening to an Arc Media podcast.
Jesse Brown· Guest1:09
When I say that my world is crumbling, it's not simply about that I found myself under this fire. It's that something essential was broken about the country that I thought that I lived in. It just was felt unthinkable that Canada would accept these kinds of narratives and would turn on its Jews. The sectors of Canada that were turning