Latest / Kvetch & Release / 610 CKTB| Antisemitism & Leaving Canada: Oklahoma Tales

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610 CKTB| Antisemitism & Leaving Canada: Oklahoma Tales · Kvetch & Release

0:00
Speaker 1: Hello, everyone, this is John lid Keith. Thank you so
0:03
Speaker 1: much for tuning in to this conversation that I'm about
0:07
Speaker 1: to share with you. Joined by the executive director of
0:10
Speaker 1: the Jewish Federation Tulsa, Joe Roberts, as well as a
0:14
Speaker 1: senior director at Federation of Tulsa, Oklahoma, Michael Sachs. Both
0:19
Speaker 1: of the two are Canadian expats who left the country
0:23
Speaker 1: due to ongoing anti Semitism and or other reasons. In
0:27
Speaker 1: this conversation, we will share why they did leave, what Tulsa,
0:32
Speaker 1: Oklahoma has offered them, and what their thoughts about the
0:34
Speaker 1: future for the Jewish people and anti Semitism and Canada is.
0:39
Speaker 1: It's a wide ranging conversation. I am so glad that
0:43
Speaker 1: both of them decided to take some of their time
0:44
Speaker 1: to speak with me about this. So, without any further ado,
0:48
Speaker 1: let's speak with Joe Roberts and Michael Sacks of the
0:51
Speaker 1: Jewish Federation of Tulsa, Oklahoma. Michael Sacks has a piece
0:56
Speaker 1: that is in the National Post opinion piece that I
0:59
Speaker 1: recommend all of you go check out that he has
1:02
Speaker 1: written about, and you know, it resonates unfortunately so strongly.
1:08
Speaker 1: I don't think there's a jew across the country who
1:12
Speaker 1: hasn't experienced this form of anti Semitism, let alone lived
1:17
Speaker 1: it or tried to escape it quite frankly. And Michael
1:23
Speaker 1: found the best way to escape it, I suppose, and
1:26
Speaker 1: so did Joe as well, down in Oklahoma, finding a
1:30
Speaker 1: way to find a new community because the one that
1:33
Speaker 1: exists wasn't what you thought it was. Michael, I'm just
1:39
Speaker 1: gonna bring you in.
1:40
Speaker 2: Hey.
1:40
Speaker 1: How you doing, Hey, John?
1:42
Speaker 3: Thanks for having me.
1:43
Speaker 1: Hey, Thanks? Yeah, Joe, how you doing?
1:47
Speaker 2: I'm doing great? Great? How are you?
1:50
Speaker 1: Do? You know? As good as me when it comes
1:53
Speaker 1: to these conversations, Michael, it's it's tough, right, Tell me
1:57
Speaker 1: a little bit about the piece that you just patted.
2:01
Speaker 3: Well, the piece is a second is a second part two,
2:05
Speaker 3: let's say of the first piece I had, which was
2:08
Speaker 3: about less and less than a month ago. Now, I've
2:10
Speaker 3: only been in Tulsa for about a month, month and
2:13
Speaker 3: month and a little bit, so there's a lot of
2:15
Speaker 3: people from Canada who take vacations away from Canada to
2:19
Speaker 3: Europe longer than I've been away. So I kind of
2:22
Speaker 3: feel like I'm still in that area where I can
2:26
Speaker 3: kind of speak to some of the things that are
2:28
Speaker 3: going on in Canada, and I think that it's important
2:31
Speaker 3: because right now we really are Canadians, are really faced
2:34
Speaker 3: with a lot of problems. So my initial piece was
2:37
Speaker 3: the reason why I actually chose me and my family
2:41
Speaker 3: made the personal decision to leave anti semitism. One hundred
2:45
Speaker 3: percent was on there was on that list, but there's
2:48
Speaker 3: there are a few other major pieces that are on
2:53
Speaker 3: the list that are you know, of importance, uh and
2:56
Speaker 3: also part of the factor that we as a personal
2:58
Speaker 3: as a family made when we made our calculations. The
3:02
Speaker 3: second piece was kind of like, I wasn't even planning
3:05
Speaker 3: a second piece, but the overwhelming amount of reach out
3:11
Speaker 3: that I received, DMS, emails, text messages from Canadian Jews
3:16
Speaker 3: being like, how did you do it? I need to
3:18
Speaker 3: get out. And then they're sharing their experiences. They're sharing,
3:21
Speaker 3: They're sharing being in the Union and being marginalized and
3:25
Speaker 3: being told that they're baby killers, you know, being their
3:29
Speaker 3: kids having anti Semitism in their classrooms. There are coworkers
3:34
Speaker 3: having difficult conversations with their coworkers who are you know,
3:38
Speaker 3: don't know anything about the nuance of what is going on,
3:43
Speaker 3: but they're they're bearing the brunt of what's going on
3:45
Speaker 3: in Israel, and so that was kind of what this
3:48
Speaker 3: piece was about. There was also a little bit about
3:51
Speaker 3: how the unfortunate situation Canada is currently in when it
3:54
Speaker 3: comes to the trade war, and also the economy in Canada,
3:59
Speaker 3: which has been you know, having a hard time anyway.
4:03
Speaker 3: How this also just exacerbates the whole scenario of anti
4:08
Speaker 3: Semitism because people look for skateboats and usually, unfortunately history
4:14
Speaker 3: has shown us that it's usually the Jews.
4:17
Speaker 1: And so I have not done due diligence much for
4:21
Speaker 1: the listening audience. Right now, you are a senior director
4:26
Speaker 1: at the Tulsa Jewish Federation, and Joe you're the executive
4:32
Speaker 1: director at the Tulsa Jewish Federation. Is that correct?
4:37
Speaker 2: That's right.
4:38
Speaker 1: I did the name right. I did my best.
4:41
Speaker 2: You got it right.
4:42
Speaker 1: It's easy enough, right, you just do the city and
4:44
Speaker 1: then you do Jewish Federation at the back end there. Hey,
4:47
Speaker 1: so you know you did the same thing right Like
4:50
Speaker 1: you and Michael both had a similar experience, although you know, disparate.
4:55
Speaker 1: You both looked at what the scales were like what
4:58
Speaker 1: things were going on in Canada, and you decided this
5:02
Speaker 1: ain't the place for me. This ain't the place for
5:06
Speaker 1: my family. And you know, I think there are probably
5:10
Speaker 1: a lot of Jews who might listen to that and go, ah,
5:13
Speaker 1: you're both just you're just you're hyperbolic, You're just a
5:18
Speaker 1: bunch of Michigan Eh. No one needs to hear this,
5:21
Speaker 1: quite frankly, but like you actually found this to be
5:24
Speaker 1: very very very real. And you both actually you did
5:28
Speaker 1: the thing. You uprooted, you left everything that you had,
5:32
Speaker 1: and you did you did the thing that so many
5:36
Speaker 1: of our people have done throughout our history, our ancestral history.
5:43
Speaker 2: Why hello, Yeah, look, John, I think we were So
5:51
Speaker 2: we've been in Tulsa about a year and it really
5:55
Speaker 2: came down to we. You know, we have two little kids.
5:59
Speaker 2: Our oldest was about to start kindergarten pre K or
6:02
Speaker 2: junior kindergarten in Canadian context, the pre K here in
6:06
Speaker 2: the US context, but was about to start. You know,
6:09
Speaker 2: we were in a small community about fifty miles east
6:12
Speaker 2: of Toronto and knew he'd be going to public school.
6:16
Speaker 2: And look, it was a lovely school and people were great.
6:18
Speaker 2: So so you know, our oldest son was about to
6:21
Speaker 2: start at public school and we thought, you know, the
6:24
Speaker 2: school was great, The people were great, we had done
6:25
Speaker 2: the kind of meet the teachers and all of that,
6:27
Speaker 2: but looking at the at the bigger ecosystem of what
6:30
Speaker 2: was happening in Canada, you know, the anti Semitism was
6:34
Speaker 2: just is so virulent that we were thinking about, you know,
6:38
Speaker 2: not necessarily that his physical safety was at risk, although
6:42
Speaker 2: you know that's that's not a guarantee either, but just
6:46
Speaker 2: kind of like who is our is this little boy
6:50
Speaker 2: going to become if he has to shape his identity
6:53
Speaker 2: in this place where there's so many pressures on who
6:57
Speaker 2: he is at his core being a Jew? And you know,
7:02
Speaker 2: I this is not what we wanted for our children.
7:04
Speaker 2: I think we really thought about it. And when we
7:07
Speaker 2: made the decision that we did not want that for them,
7:11
Speaker 2: we said, okay, great, then then what does that mean?
7:13
Speaker 2: And that the kind of next step was that we
7:15
Speaker 2: have to go and we talked about making eliyah, but
7:20
Speaker 2: you know, I understand my wife was said, look, we're
7:22
Speaker 2: trading one set of concerns for a different set of
7:25
Speaker 2: safety concerns.
7:27
Speaker 1: Do you want to go live under missile strike warnings?
7:30
Speaker 2: Exactly? And I think that you know, it's it's kind
7:33
Speaker 2: of identity versus fiscal safety. You know, there's all these
7:35
Speaker 2: different pressures. But I think this is very much part
7:38
Speaker 2: of the Jewish experience, right, is how do we prioritize
7:42
Speaker 2: what's the most pressing threat at this moment? And for us,
7:46
Speaker 2: it felt like we want these guys to be proud
7:48
Speaker 2: of who they are and to grow up with a
7:50
Speaker 2: positive Jewish identity and a positive Jewish experience and not
7:54
Speaker 2: be told, you know, because of who they are, that
7:56
Speaker 2: they're genocide genocideairs or genocide support or you know, murders
8:01
Speaker 2: or whatever the nonsense it's happening is. And so when
8:05
Speaker 2: we made that decision, we said, okay, great, so we're
8:06
Speaker 2: going to go. And we very randomly. I had been
8:10
Speaker 2: in a fellowship where this guy was talking about this
8:14
Speaker 2: program Tulsa Tomorrow, which is like a birthrate trip to Tulsa.
8:17
Speaker 2: He kept saying, and you come and see if you
8:19
Speaker 2: like it and check it out. And so when we
8:21
Speaker 2: had this conversation, I said what I said to my wife,
8:23
Speaker 2: what about Tulsa? And she said, what is that?
8:26
Speaker 3: Like?
8:26
Speaker 2: Where where is Oklahoma? But look, a couple of months
8:29
Speaker 2: we came to visit, fell in love with it. A
8:31
Speaker 2: couple months later, here we are well Listen.
8:33
Speaker 1: You might not have made Aliyah, but I would, uh,
8:36
Speaker 1: and I understand why. I mean, listen, you don't want
8:39
Speaker 1: to have the missile strike warnings, but I wouldn't quite
8:42
Speaker 1: right off Kansas or Missouri, Arkansas or Colorado. Quite frankly,
8:47
Speaker 1: you got some pretty hostile neighbors around you, guys. A joke,
8:51
Speaker 1: jokes aside, jokes aside.
8:54
Speaker 2: Hey, look, I think John, there's something to be said about,
8:57
Speaker 2: you know, Tulsa in Oklahoma in general. I mean, this
9:01
Speaker 2: is a place where you know, there's still this is
9:04
Speaker 2: a values based kind of place, right, People care about
9:07
Speaker 2: their neighbors, They care about civic life here. You know.
9:13
Speaker 2: It's sure to are their disagreements, both political and otherwise.
9:17
Speaker 2: Of course there are. It's normal. It's a normal place.
9:19
Speaker 2: But this is a place where you know, people are,
9:23
Speaker 2: by and large people of faith. They you know, they
9:25
Speaker 2: care deeply about each other. And I see people in
9:30
Speaker 2: this place step up in all kinds of ways that
9:32
Speaker 2: I have never seen before and reach out and reach
9:35
Speaker 2: out their hand to each other in ways that I've
9:37
Speaker 2: never seen before. And it's a way that's made us
9:39
Speaker 2: feel like this is a place where we can raise
9:41
Speaker 2: a family. This is a place where our kids can
9:43
Speaker 2: grow up to have that that safety and who they
9:45
Speaker 2: are and have that experience.
9:47
Speaker 3: So I want to add on, I want to add on.
9:49
Speaker 1: Yeah, please, Michael.
9:50
Speaker 3: Absolutely, Joe's saying exactly the similar mindset and thought process
9:56
Speaker 3: that me, my wife and our family just went through.
10:01
Speaker 3: It's also an affordable place, right, It's a place where
10:04
Speaker 3: you're costure living is reasonable. It's a place where you
10:07
Speaker 3: have all these you know, when we first came to visit,
10:11
Speaker 3: and we also came on Tulsa tomorrow, we came down,
10:15
Speaker 3: we looked at we as we're driving in the neighborhoods.
10:18
Speaker 3: People in the neighborhoods are waving to us as we're
10:21
Speaker 3: driving through the neighborhoods, and like, I looked at my
10:24
Speaker 3: wife and I say, you know, this doesn't happen in Vancouver.
10:28
Speaker 3: So Joe is from the Toronto area. I'm from the
10:31
Speaker 3: Vancouver area. We're talking about two fundamentally different periods.
10:37
Speaker 1: Yeah, very different.
10:38
Speaker 3: Who would have different anti anti semitism experiences as well.
10:44
Speaker 3: But you know, in our part and also in Toronto,
10:47
Speaker 3: cost of living is a huge factor, right, tax is
10:50
Speaker 3: huge factor. These are factors that you know, what are
10:53
Speaker 3: you getting from your taxes. What what kind of healthcare
10:56
Speaker 3: a you're receiving. I mean in BC, they're closing they
10:58
Speaker 3: close up ers for weekends at a time. Right, Like,
11:02
Speaker 3: these are factors that kind of come in hand in
11:05
Speaker 3: hand on top of, you know, the actual anti semitism
11:09
Speaker 3: that is being experienced across Canada and mind you in
11:12
Speaker 3: different ways across Canaday.
11:15
Speaker 1: And so this is what I wanted to of course discuss,
11:20
Speaker 1: primarily is the anti semitism that both of you experienced
11:25
Speaker 1: and that is still ongoing here in my country. I
11:30
Speaker 1: don't want to say your countries anymore, because both of you,
11:33
Speaker 1: respectively have decided to leave and for you know, various reasons.
11:38
Speaker 1: But Joe, Joe, we're both on this call because we
11:44
Speaker 1: love Canada, of course, right, that's the thing.
11:47
Speaker 3: We may have made the decision personally for our family
11:51
Speaker 3: to leave, but my sister in law's there, my brother
11:54
Speaker 3: in law's there, my niece and nephew's there, my mom
11:56
Speaker 3: is there, my wife's my father in law's there. Right,
12:00
Speaker 3: we have both of us had strings at personal connections
12:04
Speaker 3: to Canada that you know, even though we're out, we
12:08
Speaker 3: want to we want Canada to be a better place.
12:11
Speaker 1: I think we all we all do, of course, And Joe,
12:14
Speaker 1: I you know it's I'm gonna I'm gonna go to
12:18
Speaker 1: you first, because, as you know, the executive director of
12:21
Speaker 1: the Tulsa Jewish Federation, sorry Michael, he gets the stature
12:27
Speaker 1: just right there, right off the bat, by all means.
12:30
Speaker 1: And I just you know, you you left, you left
12:36
Speaker 1: your community. You were an active member of your local
12:40
Speaker 1: Jewish community in Toronto. Yeah, you looked at it, you
12:45
Speaker 1: saw what was happening externally, and you you made a
12:47
Speaker 1: decision the best action that I can do for me,
12:51
Speaker 1: for my family, and I would imagine for the Jewish community.
12:55
Speaker 1: I don't want to speak for you outside of that,
12:56
Speaker 1: but I do feel comfortable speaking for you before that,
13:01
Speaker 1: the idea that you want to take care of you
13:02
Speaker 1: and your family. Uh, you made that decision one. It
13:08
Speaker 1: must have been very hard to do so, to abandon
13:11
Speaker 1: something that you had spent so many years trying to
13:14
Speaker 1: build up. But you did so because you felt that
13:20
Speaker 1: at this time it wasn't actionable to continue. Like what
13:26
Speaker 1: was it, Joe?
13:28
Speaker 2: Yeah, like I said, I mean, we had been living
13:32
Speaker 2: post October seventh. I think this, you know, the anti
13:35
Speaker 2: Semitism had been rising and kind of reached it. I
13:38
Speaker 2: don't want to say it's reached a Christiando, because I
13:40
Speaker 2: don't know if that's true. I don't think. I don't
13:42
Speaker 2: think we've seen the end of this thing. But when
13:46
Speaker 2: it was just, when it was just me, right, and
13:49
Speaker 2: I was probably was a public voice, I got a
13:51
Speaker 2: lot of a lot of hate when it was just me.
13:54
Speaker 2: So be it fine, That's what I signed up for, right,
13:57
Speaker 2: But really what it came down to was I hadn't
14:00
Speaker 2: thought about in a meaningful way what it was going
14:03
Speaker 2: to be like when these little kids were starting school
14:05
Speaker 2: and what that meant for them. That was the trigger
14:07
Speaker 2: for us, right, It wasn't we had never We had
14:10
Speaker 2: considered it. I mean a little bit, we had talked
14:12
Speaker 2: about it, but it really became a necessity when that happened.
14:16
Speaker 2: That's not to say that those who make the other
14:18
Speaker 2: decision that they want to stay and fight and you know,
14:21
Speaker 2: stand up for their community or be involved or making
14:23
Speaker 2: the wrong decision. I don't. I would never say that.
14:25
Speaker 2: I would never tell people that, you know, you've got
14:27
Speaker 2: to go. That's a decision everybody has to make for themselves.
14:31
Speaker 2: And look, we also I recognize we had the ability
14:33
Speaker 2: to do it right. We had the ability to do it.
14:35
Speaker 2: We were lucky in many ways. You know, I'm erginally
14:38
Speaker 2: American able to come here, my wife's originally from the
14:40
Speaker 2: United States. Both had both or US citizens. Made it
14:44
Speaker 2: very easy for us to make that decision. You know,
14:47
Speaker 2: I'll mention Tulsa tomorrow again, brings you here, helps to
14:51
Speaker 2: offset costs of moving to Tulsa. There's also other programs
14:54
Speaker 2: in Tulsa. There's a program called Tulsa Remote. If you
14:57
Speaker 2: work remotely, they'll give you ten thousand dollars to choose
14:59
Speaker 2: Tulsa right for a year. Yeah, I mean really quite
15:03
Speaker 2: there's a lot of there's a lot of.
15:06
Speaker 1: I work, I work remotely. Can I can I move
15:08
Speaker 1: back digitally?
15:10
Speaker 2: You got to apply to the tuls through Tulsa Remote.
15:13
Speaker 2: But you know, I think, look, there's so we were
15:16
Speaker 2: lucky in that way that we had that ability to
15:18
Speaker 2: make this decision. That said, you know, the Canadian Jewish community,
15:26
Speaker 2: I mean it's it's one of the large juice community
15:28
Speaker 2: in the world. First of all, I think number four,
15:30
Speaker 2: by depending what metric you look at, kind of goes
15:32
Speaker 2: back and forth between France and and Canada. It's a
15:37
Speaker 2: great community. There's a lot of important things happening there.
15:39
Speaker 2: I mean, there are people who are are doing incredible
15:42
Speaker 2: work on behalf of the Jewish community. The community is
15:44
Speaker 2: strong and has a great ethos. I mean, you know,
15:48
Speaker 2: I miss I missed many things about it, especially being
15:51
Speaker 2: in a small Jewish community like Tulsa. Right there, there
15:54
Speaker 2: are things that are Our data shows about seventy five
15:59
Speaker 2: hundred Jews in the Tulsa metro area.
16:01
Speaker 1: Wow, okay, so you are seven times larger than the
16:03
Speaker 1: city than I live in. So like, the joke for
16:07
Speaker 1: me is like, well, there's like eleven.
16:08
Speaker 2: Of us, yeah, twelve if well, yeah.
16:12
Speaker 1: Twelve if you count the new barmetswa coming in somehow
16:14
Speaker 1: there's four synagogues and we all hate each other.
16:22
Speaker 2: No, but I think it's just like, you know, everybody
16:24
Speaker 2: has to make those decisions for themselves. And you know,
16:28
Speaker 2: I don't envy people who have to sit down other
16:31
Speaker 2: families who sit down and have those conversations. I know
16:34
Speaker 2: many many people are right. And that's the scary thing
16:37
Speaker 2: is everybody is having everybody I know, at least at
16:41
Speaker 2: the like around showbout dinner table, having like a quiet
16:44
Speaker 2: conversation about is this okay? Like, where are we going
16:48
Speaker 2: with this? What's happening to us? And what does that
16:51
Speaker 2: mean for Jews in Canada. I think that's a fair
16:53
Speaker 2: question to ask, and I frankly, I feel like there
16:57
Speaker 2: are many voices outside of the Jewish community in Canada
17:00
Speaker 2: that minimize that and say it's alarmist and hyperbolic, but
17:06
Speaker 2: it is a reality for Jewish Canadian Many Jewish Canadians
17:09
Speaker 2: are feeling that way, and that should be something that
17:12
Speaker 2: I think Canadians written large, should have much more concern about,
17:16
Speaker 2: is that their Jewish friends and neighbors are feeling that
17:19
Speaker 2: kind of concern about their future in the country that
17:23
Speaker 2: is a liberal democracy. I mean, it doesn't make sense.
17:26
Speaker 3: And that's also the reason I wrote my first piece.
17:29
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, they tell me all technic.
17:31
Speaker 3: On exactly what Jo was saying, because Joe's hitting the
17:34
Speaker 3: nail on the head my family, I mean I as well.
17:39
Speaker 3: I was born in the US. My family came to
17:42
Speaker 3: Canada when I was twelve years old and I left
17:45
Speaker 3: it forty four, right, so three quarters of my life
17:48
Speaker 3: was in Canada. I had a US passport, but I
17:53
Speaker 3: was Canadian period, full stop. Anyone from the Jewish community
17:57
Speaker 3: of Vancouver will tell you that I was all in
18:03
Speaker 3: answering phone calls in the middle of the night, helping
18:06
Speaker 3: people in the community. Like it is not a reflection
18:10
Speaker 3: on the community of either you know, respectively, Joe's or mine.
18:14
Speaker 3: Where we left, It's not a reflection on them, right
18:18
Speaker 3: at the end of the day, it's the difficult personal
18:21
Speaker 3: decisions that we had to make. Right in Joe's very
18:26
Speaker 3: eloquently pointed and you know, talked about the kids.
18:29
Speaker 4: I mean, six months before we left, my son had
18:33
Speaker 4: twice in his school Seghile kids walking in his class
18:37
Speaker 4: doing the Nazi salute, right, and we started really having
18:42
Speaker 4: that serious discussion. But once again, for us as a family,
18:46
Speaker 4: there were these other factors that we also had, right, So,
18:50
Speaker 4: I think that my first.
18:51
Speaker 3: Piece was saying out loud what a lot of Jews
18:54
Speaker 3: are saying around their tables, right, and they're saying to
18:57
Speaker 3: their friends. At least my cohort was very much along
19:02
Speaker 3: the same mindset and the same conversations were being had,
19:06
Speaker 3: and so that is, you know, as Joe said, really, well,
19:10
Speaker 3: that's what should be concerning Canadians, is that this community
19:15
Speaker 3: that is given so much Right has punched way above
19:19
Speaker 3: its weight class as far as contributing to Canadian society,
19:23
Speaker 3: in the Canadian way of life and Canadian rights and
19:26
Speaker 3: Canadian everything. Right is now feeling that Canada is is.
19:32
Speaker 2: Not okay it.
19:36
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's that's what's the most concerning about this
19:38
Speaker 1: is that Canada is seemingly becoming a place where so
19:41
Speaker 1: many Jews are experiencing the things that you are describing. Joe.
19:48
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely. I mean I think you know, it's not
19:51
Speaker 2: something you can get away from. And I think there's
19:53
Speaker 2: are there. It's happening everywhere across the country. I mean,
19:56
Speaker 2: it's not it's not limited especially to you know, people think, oh,
20:00
Speaker 2: this is a Toronto problem, this is a Vancouver problem.
20:03
Speaker 2: I don't think that's true. I think that this is
20:05
Speaker 2: a Canadian problem that we have to think about as
20:08
Speaker 2: a what is a national strategy to fight anti semitism
20:12
Speaker 2: in Canada and make sure that Canadian Jews are safe?
20:14
Speaker 3: Right?
20:15
Speaker 2: I think that's that is something that we should expect
20:17
Speaker 2: from our government and from our elected officials the same
20:21
Speaker 2: way we would we expect them to have an actual
20:22
Speaker 2: strategy on on fighting racism. Right, These are this is
20:26
Speaker 2: a common sense thing that we should expect, especially from
20:29
Speaker 2: a liberal government that has made those kinds of strategies
20:32
Speaker 2: part of their governance.
20:34
Speaker 1: And they seemingly haven't made much moves on that. Michael,
20:38
Speaker 1: I'd imagine that's probably one of the reasons why you
20:40
Speaker 1: decided again to leave. Yeah.
20:43
Speaker 3: I mean, like we definitely lost the confidence leadership for
20:48
Speaker 3: the country after the election, mostly because I'm an actions person.
20:58
Speaker 3: I believe that when you want to do something, you
21:02
Speaker 3: do it right. I don't like lip service. I don't
21:07
Speaker 3: like this virtue signaling. I don't like gaslighting. I think
21:12
Speaker 3: that these are like, if you want to help the
21:15
Speaker 3: Jewish community, then you have to roll up your sleeves
21:18
Speaker 3: and actually start combating anti semitism, right, And there are
21:22
Speaker 3: amazing organizations in Canada right now, with amazing, amazing Jewish
21:26
Speaker 3: professionals that are trying and really doing the work. The
21:30
Speaker 3: problem is is that just does not seem that there
21:35
Speaker 3: is any desire whatsoever from our organized government to actually
21:41
Speaker 3: do it, and instead to just tweet twenty four hours
21:46
Speaker 3: after something happens, right, something.
21:50
Speaker 1: Worse Quite frankly, well, yeah.
21:52
Speaker 3: I mean, like listen, they're they're they're calling for the
21:55
Speaker 3: releases of hostages. Right, they're calling for a ceasefire, right,
21:58
Speaker 3: even though I know there I'm two groups will look
22:03
Speaker 3: at that the exact, two total different ways. But you know,
22:07
Speaker 3: it's the most but it's the most ParvE thing you
22:10
Speaker 3: can be doing right now, right and Canadians are looking
22:14
Speaker 3: to their their leaders for leadership. They're looking to their
22:18
Speaker 3: government for leadership. They're not looking to their government for
22:21
Speaker 3: a tweet or or or a statement. And right now,
22:26
Speaker 3: when you're not seeing that, you're losing confidence, right, You're
22:30
Speaker 3: losing confidence in your in your leaders.
22:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I agree with you on that, Joe. I
22:37
Speaker 1: would imagine you probably feel a bit the same way.
22:42
Speaker 2: I mean, I think you know, I don't know we
22:47
Speaker 2: were concerned about the post October seventh. I think we were.
22:50
Speaker 2: I was very concerned with the response to the Trudeau government,
22:54
Speaker 2: you know, really felt like trying to have it all.
22:57
Speaker 2: And you can't have it all, right, You can't. You
22:59
Speaker 2: can't say, well, you know, we're going to play both
23:02
Speaker 2: sides of this thing and and try to get an
23:04
Speaker 2: outcome that we think is going to be politically best
23:06
Speaker 2: for us. It doesn't work that way. This is a
23:09
Speaker 2: we're in a situation where we have to be base,
23:12
Speaker 2: we have to govern based on our values and our morals, right,
23:16
Speaker 2: and and be principled in that and say, you know,
23:20
Speaker 2: and and to be unwilling to kind of make a
23:23
Speaker 2: very direct statement about anti semitism. You know, it seems
23:27
Speaker 2: like there's always qualifiers with the government statements about anti Semitism.
23:31
Speaker 2: It's like, oh, you know, we we're really worried about antimittism,
23:33
Speaker 2: but also Islamophobia. It's like, hey, this thing can be
23:36
Speaker 2: bad on its own, right, you can, you can, you
23:38
Speaker 2: can say that it's bad on its own. Actually you
23:40
Speaker 2: know what you should be saying it's bad on its oone.
23:44
Speaker 2: There doesn't have to and Islamophobia can be bad on
23:46
Speaker 2: its own. Also, you don't. It doesn't need to be this.
23:49
Speaker 3: I can't, I can't.
23:52
Speaker 1: I can't wait to hear like when there is a well,
23:54
Speaker 1: I mean I'd rather not happen, of course, but like
23:57
Speaker 1: you know, an instance of like black racism, but I
23:59
Speaker 1: will want to hear like, and also we need to
24:02
Speaker 1: stop anti Asian hatred.
24:04
Speaker 2: Well, they would never dream of do this, Like, we're
24:07
Speaker 2: not never dream.
24:08
Speaker 1: Of doing it, and we be obscene to even suggest that.
24:12
Speaker 2: Yeah, well and I think also, you know, we live
24:14
Speaker 2: in a time where anti semitism instead of being kind
24:18
Speaker 2: of the racist, like racial anti semitism that it was,
24:22
Speaker 2: you know, if you look at by Lord Jonathan Sachs
24:24
Speaker 2: kind of said that, we're in the iteration of antimitism
24:26
Speaker 2: where it's political. But that also makes it harder to define, right,
24:31
Speaker 2: So we have people who say, hey, this is political speech.
24:35
Speaker 2: I'm just speaking politically and it's part of our you know,
24:37
Speaker 2: my right is a Canadian to speak politically and to
24:40
Speaker 2: say whatever I want. And it's like, Okay, that's fine.
24:42
Speaker 2: But it's also hatred and it's hateful to the Jewish community,
24:45
Speaker 2: and it causes fear and concern and security concerns, right,
24:49
Speaker 2: And those things are all real at the same time.
24:53
Speaker 2: And I just feel that we're just not we're not
24:56
Speaker 2: taking it seriously with the I mean, I think the
25:00
Speaker 2: Jewish community very much is, but I think the Canadian
25:03
Speaker 2: government Canadians writ large are not taking it seriously with
25:07
Speaker 2: the level of seriousness that it deserves.
25:10
Speaker 3: And Canadians have a problem with what they're seeing out
25:13
Speaker 3: of anti semitism as well. Like the majority of the
25:15
Speaker 3: studies are showing that the Canadians are causing a problem
25:21
Speaker 3: or sorry, excuse me, are having a problem with this
25:24
Speaker 3: level of anti Semitism, and they're against it. The problem
25:30
Speaker 3: is they're being very Canadian about it. They're being quiet
25:34
Speaker 3: and thanks, you know, and like soft conversations and sories
25:39
Speaker 3: where you know, this is a moment in time, at
25:42
Speaker 3: least for the Jewish Canadian world where we really need
25:45
Speaker 3: to see definitive actions.
25:51
Speaker 1: We are a deferential lot up here. That's certainly the case.
25:56
Speaker 1: I hope that both you and Joe, having now decided
25:59
Speaker 1: to cast aside these Canadian persuasions a little bit, become
26:04
Speaker 1: you know, American brethren. Maybe you can tell us a
26:09
Speaker 1: little bit about what we need to do more. And
26:11
Speaker 1: maybe it's just about being loud. Maybe it's just about
26:14
Speaker 1: being you know, Jews have always been such vocal members
26:19
Speaker 1: of our communities, but never boastful members of our communities.
26:23
Speaker 1: And maybe that's that's the course that needs to happen.
26:26
Speaker 1: I don't know what it is, but it sounds like
26:29
Speaker 1: you're saying that, you know, Jews be louder. Well, yes
26:35
Speaker 1: or no.
26:35
Speaker 3: So I'm very mindful of the fact that, like now
26:39
Speaker 3: I'm on the outside of the tent being in the
26:42
Speaker 3: US right now. I did kind of prefix this with
26:47
Speaker 3: previously by saying I have only been out for about
26:50
Speaker 3: a month, so technically how outside of the tent is that?
26:54
Speaker 3: I don't know, But you know, the Jewish community has
26:57
Speaker 3: had to adapt Close October seventh, twenty three. It's it's
27:04
Speaker 3: a big ship that takes a long time to change
27:07
Speaker 3: its direction, and I think they're doing it. The best
27:12
Speaker 3: thing that can happen is regular Canadians, And when I
27:16
Speaker 3: say regular I'm talking about the non Jewish Canadians, allies, etc.
27:22
Speaker 3: Can come together and start to stand with us and
27:27
Speaker 3: speak up on our behalf and demand action. Because you
27:31
Speaker 3: know what, they turn around and demand the action for
27:34
Speaker 3: many other minority groups. Why should the Jewish community be
27:37
Speaker 3: any different.
27:39
Speaker 1: I wholeheartedly agree with you on that, Michael. I really
27:43
Speaker 1: do appreciate your time to speak with me. Joe as well,
27:46
Speaker 1: thank you so much for your time to chat about this,
27:50
Speaker 1: both of you. From the Jewish Federation of Tulsa. And Hey,
27:55
Speaker 1: any Canadian Jews that are looking to go somewhere a
27:58
Speaker 1: little bit warmer, with maybe a bit more of a
28:01
Speaker 1: friendly hospitality, welcoming check out Tulsa. Hey, Thank you so much.
28:05
Speaker 1: Early appreciate it. Thank you so much, Shen cheers,