Rebel News Podcast - April 25, 2019


Changing the media landscape with a community focused Jewish project (Guest： Marty Gold)


Episode Stats

Length

40 minutes

Words per Minute

166.6448

Word Count

6,778

Sentence Count

330

Misogynist Sentences

3

Hate Speech Sentences

23


Summary

Marty Gold joins me to talk about his new project, TheJ.ca, which he hopes will become the place for pro-Israel, Jewish-focused news this side of Toronto. Marty Gold is a Winnipeg-based broadcaster, journalist, and wrestler.


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Hello Rebels, you're listening to a free audio-only recording of my weekly show, The Gun Show.
00:00:05.740 My guest tonight is veteran Winnipeg broadcaster and journalist, Marty Gold.
00:00:11.840 He joins me tonight to talk about his new project, TheJ.ca.
00:00:16.520 It's something he hopes will become the place for pro-Israel, Jewish-focused news this side of Toronto.
00:00:23.680 Now, if you like listening to this podcast, then you will love watching it.
00:00:27.100 But in order to watch, you need to be a subscriber to premium content.
00:00:31.900 That's what we call our long-form TV-style shows here on The Rebel.
00:00:36.280 Subscribers get access to watching my weekly show, as well as other great TV-style shows too,
00:00:41.300 like Ezra's nightly Ezra Levant show and David Menzies' fun Friday night show, Rebel Roundup.
00:00:47.940 It's only $8 a month to subscribe, or you can subscribe annually to get two months free.
00:00:53.340 And just for our podcast listeners, you can save an extra 10% on a new premium membership
00:00:59.540 by using the coupon code PODCAST when you subscribe.
00:01:03.100 Just go to therebel.media slash shows to become a member.
00:01:08.000 And please, leave a five-star review on this podcast and subscribe in iTunes or wherever you find your podcasts.
00:01:14.520 Those reviews are a great way to support The Rebel without spending a dime.
00:01:18.900 And now, please enjoy this free audio-only version of my show.
00:01:23.340 You're listening to a Rebel Media podcast.
00:01:26.940 You know, we really don't have a lot of places to go for pro-Israel Jewish-focused news this side of Toronto,
00:01:32.680 or we didn't until now.
00:01:35.700 I'm Sheila Gunn-Reed, and you're watching The Gunn Show.
00:01:53.340 I'm pro-Israel in the same way that I'm pro-Singapore and pro-Brexit and pro-renegotiating equalization within the confines of Canada.
00:02:04.340 What I mean to say is that I'm always in favor of democracy, capitalism, and especially self-determination for people.
00:02:11.420 I think, like a lot of people, I'm strongly interested in the state of Israel as this beacon of democracy and freedom and capitalism and human rights in a sea of anything but.
00:02:24.160 But a lot of the pro-Israel, pro-Jewish news media is based out of Toronto.
00:02:29.400 And you know what? To be honest, that makes perfect sense because Toronto has a large Jewish community.
00:02:36.200 But what about the Israel-focused, Jewish-focused news outside of the center of the universe?
00:02:43.080 Who's covering the stories outside of Toronto that the mainstream media just won't,
00:02:47.440 either because they don't think it's important or relevant or because the news just doesn't fit the narrative?
00:02:53.820 Well, there is a new Western-based project to address this news deficit that is just launching.
00:03:01.880 Tonight, my guest is a real renaissance man, and I'm sad to say it took so long to get around to talking to him.
00:03:07.880 Joining me in an interview we recorded yesterday afternoon is veteran Winnipeg broadcaster, journalist, and wrestler Marty Gold
00:03:15.200 to tell us about his new project, TheJ.ca.
00:03:23.820 So joining me now from Winnipeg is Marty Gold.
00:03:39.220 Now, Marty's not an unfamiliar face to me.
00:03:42.480 I've been following Marty's career as long as I've been on the Internet.
00:03:45.820 But he might be a new face to some of our viewers.
00:03:49.680 He's a Winnipeg-based broadcaster and a veteran journalist.
00:03:54.820 Marty, why don't you give us a Coles Notes version of, I guess, your professional career?
00:04:00.800 My professional career as it relates to journalism fell into the practice of citizen journalism.
00:04:07.540 You know, growing up, I wanted to do two things, basically.
00:04:11.020 I wanted to be in media, and I grew up mostly on radio in the land of Peter Warren.
00:04:15.020 Or going into the circus, which in my case became the wrestling business, which I've been in and out of in this country for 40 years.
00:04:26.260 Straight out of high school, like a week out of high school, I started doing sports and news at the University of Manitoba radio station, CJUM.
00:04:34.340 And there was people there like Howard Manshine, who's a lifelong friend of my family's, and the late Reed Dickey, who could mentor me along.
00:04:42.780 In my early 20s, I did some freelance writing and commentary for Global TV, for CBC Radio North Country, for the Jewish Post and News, a few other things.
00:04:53.260 I was, I was, in the late 80s, briefly, the legislative correspondent for Craig Broadcasting, for what was then MTN TV in Winnipeg.
00:05:03.080 Towards the end of the 90s, I became a talk radio host for what was, I'm trying to remember who owned it at the time, for Talk Radio 1290 in Winnipeg.
00:05:11.600 And then moved towards more of the citizen journalism on community radio, with two stations in Winnipeg.
00:05:18.580 I did the drive-home show on Kick FM for four years.
00:05:21.700 And then I did a very unique program on Shaw TV called City Circus that focused on long-form interviews with school trustees and, you know, city officials and counselors that nobody else in the country would risk losing an audience, boring them to death with.
00:05:36.780 So I've done a variety of those kinds of projects, a lot of investigative journalism, always dabbled in sports to some degree as well.
00:05:46.700 The reason I ask you that is because you have this, what I think is a phenomenal new project underway, and really that's why I wanted to have you on the show.
00:05:54.480 And it really, I believe, is going to fill the gap in Jewish-based, even pro-Israel or pro-Zionist-based journalism west of Toronto.
00:06:07.700 Because, I mean, our viewers at home know I'm not Jewish, but I am an absolute philo-Semite.
00:06:13.820 I'm pro-Israel in the same way that I'm pro-Singapore.
00:06:16.880 I'm pro-democracy.
00:06:17.880 I'm pro-self-determination.
00:06:19.300 I'm anti-extremism and anti-terrorism.
00:06:22.120 And there's a real gap in that sort of journalism west of Toronto.
00:06:28.040 It just doesn't really exist, except for when I find time to get back to it here at The Rebel with everything else that's happening in Alberta.
00:06:35.520 So why don't you tell us a little bit about this new project that you're working on?
00:06:39.460 Well, it stems back to a large degree to in my 20s, in the mid-80s, I fell into the circle of a fellow named Yarm HaMizrachi.
00:06:51.120 He'd been a lieutenant colonel in the Israeli Defense Force and was the commander in southern Lebanon.
00:06:56.960 So he was the Israeli liaison to Sad Haddad and the Haddad family.
00:07:00.680 Yarm had family in Winnipeg.
00:07:02.460 He had a dispute with Ariel Sharon over the Lebanon incursion.
00:07:07.440 He moved to Winnipeg with his family.
00:07:09.740 His wife was from Germany.
00:07:11.520 She was also a very skilled broadcaster and journalist who worked for CBC and other outlets here after they got here.
00:07:19.080 Yarm was a colonist with Yedio D'Akonot.
00:07:21.380 And he, I literally, my wife at the time and I, we were driving in the North End and he was waiting at a bus stop.
00:07:30.940 And he had just been on CTV News that morning, time about Lebanon.
00:07:34.620 And I recognized him and I said, well, I think that's that guy.
00:07:37.320 And I turned around and picked him up and gave him a lift to the mall.
00:07:39.600 What resulted was the most influential figure in my adult life.
00:07:45.960 He wanted to get involved in community affairs in Winnipeg.
00:07:50.180 He did not have the same view of multiculturalism.
00:07:53.620 He didn't swallow it as some kind of cure-all for the ills of immigrant communities in Canada.
00:07:59.980 He viewed it as often used to divide communities by dangling projects and money as opposed to dealing with hardcore issues of poverty, of education, of English second language training.
00:08:11.820 And Yoram taught me both the journalism side and the community development side.
00:08:16.940 And his son was above bar mitzvah age when I first met him.
00:08:21.880 And so it starts with him worrying or looking at the stories about anti-Semites, about incidents in Winnipeg or in Canada.
00:08:32.280 That's something that's a throwback to, for me, 1984, 5, 6, 7.
00:08:36.900 And I really, outside of, on my radio show where I had regular segments with Yoram and with Ron, with his son,
00:08:43.080 I didn't really do a lot of Jew-oriented or Israel-oriented stuff.
00:08:47.360 And it was in November that, in talking with Ron, that I came to recognize that there was, had been such a fundamental shift,
00:08:57.700 not only in society, but also in the nature of so-called journalism among the mainstream,
00:09:03.100 that I had to start devoting more of my time and relying on my background, my institutional knowledge, to come forward.
00:09:11.700 And so we discussed the idea of a website.
00:09:14.120 Ron is a publisher of Huddle Media.
00:09:16.940 He's put out various glossy sports magazines, very successful at that.
00:09:22.320 But his true love is with the Jewish people in the state of Israel.
00:09:27.820 He was born and raised in Metula and had, his family had a bounty put on their heads by Yasser Arafat.
00:09:35.600 Bullets would whiz like through the house and hit the kitchen window.
00:09:39.800 So he, years ago, of course, served in the Israeli Defense Force, and he wanted to move his media interest towards this as well.
00:09:49.540 And in particular, in January, I discovered that the synagogues and the Jewish Federation of Winnipeg were inadvertently, as it turned out, sponsoring a self-hating Jew, as we put it,
00:10:04.960 an anti-Zionist, opposed to birthright, opposed to programs the synagogues and the Federation were fundraising for.
00:10:10.720 But this fellow, Lex Rolfberg, a rabbinical student from Wisconsin, is a darling of the LeMood movement.
00:10:18.140 He's identified by If Not Now as a leader, and I saw the reference to If Not Now in his biography.
00:10:23.780 And this is in an ad for him to appear at the synagogue dinner as a guest speaker with the support of the Federation.
00:10:28.600 So I got a hold of Ron, and he was completely shocked, started making calls the next day, and I got a story posted in an outlet called Manitoba Post in Winnipeg,
00:10:38.620 which is owned by the family of city councillor Kevin Kline, who is a friend of mine who is a strong supporter of the Jewish community,
00:10:45.320 and ended up running, like, four stories in six days or five in six days about this Rolfberg affair.
00:10:50.420 And it was evident that, you know, without me intervening and pointing out the kind of things that If Not Now does,
00:10:58.600 the kinds of protests that they've engaged in, the arrest of Federation offices in Boston,
00:11:02.820 harassing Jewish schoolchildren in Detroit because they are Marxists to the point of rejecting their own, the core of Judaism.
00:11:10.080 And I was startled that there's a stream of Judaism that believes that you can be a Jew,
00:11:16.320 but be disconnected from Eretz Yisroel, from the state of Israel, as our homeland.
00:11:21.340 That's just not something I was raised in.
00:11:24.480 Winnipeg has a very strong tradition, from Sulkane to Izzy Asper.
00:11:29.540 My own grandfather was director of the Canadian Zionist Federation.
00:11:34.140 You can be a secular Jew. I live as a very secular life.
00:11:37.780 But at our core, we are connected to the Holy Land.
00:11:40.400 And this idea that these young, hip academics and rabbinical students or whatever,
00:11:46.160 that they're trying to influence Jewish youth and the broader youth and give comfort to anti-Semites
00:11:51.260 and to the BDS movement, I just found that reprehensible.
00:11:54.400 And it became obvious that, you know, Manitoba Post is of general interest.
00:11:58.940 And we thought that there was a need, Ron thought there was a need to advance this concept immediately
00:12:05.760 into what we call the J.ca.
00:12:09.220 And it's had a remarkable response so far, in part because of the variety of stories that we're covering.
00:12:15.500 But just the principle, as you've espoused, that there's no pro-Israel voice in the media,
00:12:22.600 seemingly west of Toronto.
00:12:24.420 And there's a lot of dissatisfaction with what comes out of Toronto as well, I've learned.
00:12:28.020 Yeah, I mean, there are a lot of stories that go undercovered this side of Toronto.
00:12:37.120 And you actually pointed out to me, and to my great shame, I guess I didn't really know
00:12:42.840 or I hadn't been paying attention, that Linda Sarsour had actually been to Vancouver
00:12:47.420 and it was completely underreported.
00:12:51.320 Oh, yeah, it was a total mystery.
00:12:53.720 And, you know, this has been a bit of a path that, journalistically, that I've been following
00:12:59.360 as editor, Ron, as publisher.
00:13:02.380 It started with Rothberg.
00:13:04.420 And the idea that you can bring in a character like this, that the Limud movement, which is
00:13:09.640 about Jewish learning and therefore tries to be, you know, almost non-denominational when
00:13:15.080 it comes to the kinds of speakers they bring in.
00:13:17.720 And, well, just because Rothberg was going to talk about the Winnipeg Jets, you know,
00:13:23.600 this is, it's an affront to so many, it was an affront to so many in the Jewish community
00:13:29.820 that he's speaking on the campus, on the Asper campus, named after Izzy Asper.
00:13:34.840 And here's a guy who says immigrating, making Aliyah to Israel is a sin.
00:13:40.440 And it was just, you know, so imbued in this Marxism that what he says is a total rejection
00:13:48.360 of the average Jewish belief and experience, certainly in Canada.
00:13:53.360 I can see it in the States, but in Canada, 80% of Jews identify as either conservative
00:13:57.760 or religious orthodox.
00:14:00.400 My own tradition was orthodox, not in daily practice, but in observation and observances.
00:14:07.660 And so Rothberg led, although there were other things that intervened that we found out about,
00:14:13.720 Rothberg led to Sarsour, to Linda Sarsour appearing at a fundraiser in Winnipeg.
00:14:19.060 And what I discovered was in just doing a search about Sarsour Canada, that she had appeared
00:14:24.400 in a couple of weeks after Rothberg was here, March 3rd or whatever.
00:14:28.320 On March 18th, 17th or 18th, she appeared on behalf of a Muslim charity, a women's helpline
00:14:34.340 in Vancouver.
00:14:36.100 And there was no media coverage.
00:14:37.320 There's one story in like the Richmond community newspaper.
00:14:41.040 The Jewish community there, look, they don't have a Ron East.
00:14:44.000 They don't have somebody like me, unfortunately, who will raise the alarms and knows how to cover
00:14:49.620 these stories.
00:14:50.280 And this is the cover now that's being used to bring Linda Sarsour into Canada, is they
00:14:56.420 connect it with a Muslim charity to try to make it unassailable.
00:15:00.200 How can you oppose helping women that are fleeing domestic violence?
00:15:03.140 I've worked in that sector.
00:15:04.480 So I understand the psychology of that argument.
00:15:06.840 In this case, the Canadian Muslim Women's Institute, who last had an event listed in May
00:15:11.940 of 2017, and who provide social services to immigrant Muslim women.
00:15:19.160 And these aren't people necessarily from the Middle East.
00:15:22.640 These are from African countries, etc.
00:15:25.000 Daycare, food bank, worthwhile services, to be sure.
00:15:29.020 I didn't find a single political kind of activity on their website at all.
00:15:34.420 And all of a sudden, they're co-sponsoring a dinner with Linda Sarsour, not a dinner,
00:15:39.060 rather a fundraising, and they backed off from being a fundraiser.
00:15:42.520 And initially, it was designed as a fundraiser for the Social Planning Council's 100th anniversary
00:15:46.620 with a couple of other panelists about activism and how you can make a difference.
00:15:51.480 But no matter where Linda Sarsour appears, North Carolina, for instance, in a couple of instances,
00:15:56.880 I think it was Orange County, North Carolina, at a procession, a medical graduation,
00:16:04.140 I think it was, in Chapel Hill, she always brings it around to Israel, to the Middle East,
00:16:09.180 to colonialism, to the evils of Zionism, consistently.
00:16:13.600 So we know where this is going in Winnipeg.
00:16:15.740 But in the interim, there was a couple of other appearances by pro-BDS, anti-Zionist characters.
00:16:22.180 And so Winnipeg's become, I don't want to say a hotbed, but these characters walk in with impunity.
00:16:28.320 There was an event on March 16th with a Palestinian postal worker, I've got to grab the guy's name,
00:16:39.100 Ima Tamiza, and he made a film.
00:16:41.460 And so CUPE and the postal workers union host this with other organizations at the Union Center in Winnipeg.
00:16:48.280 The Jewish Federation had no knowledge of it.
00:16:50.260 This Tamiza guy was just in town last week with another speech about the oppression of Palestinian laborers in Hebron, of all places,
00:16:59.780 scene of a famous massacre of Jews at an Arab cafe in Winnipeg.
00:17:05.980 April 17th, I just found out this morning doing prep to appear with you.
00:17:09.640 On April 18th, there was a Slavoj Zizek, who's some distinguished philosopher,
00:17:15.580 who came in as part of the Lloyd Axford, the Distinguished Speaker Series for Social Justice and the Public Good.
00:17:22.020 So these people are coming in, giving legitimacy through these platforms.
00:17:27.840 Social Planning Council haven't done much good work in Winnipeg over the years,
00:17:31.800 but is now captured by Marxists, by hardcore Israel haters,
00:17:40.800 and some, I dare think, cross the line into outright Jew-hating.
00:17:44.780 The Seven Oaks School Division was the original venue,
00:17:47.720 and Ron East started a petition, which now has over 4,200 signatures,
00:17:52.580 and the school division, having their policy cited directly to them,
00:17:56.940 immediately canceled that event.
00:17:58.400 And it got booked in because the chair of the Social Planning Council
00:18:01.420 was an employee of the school division.
00:18:04.360 Nobody had any hesitation at first to plan an event during Passover,
00:18:08.240 on a Friday night at the beginning of Sabbath,
00:18:13.240 on a Jewish holy day in Passover.
00:18:16.320 Nobody thought anything of booking a character like Sarsour,
00:18:19.760 a provocative character like Sarsour,
00:18:21.700 across the street from the Hebron Mishnaya synagogue.
00:18:24.820 The Social Planning Council met with B'nai B'rith,
00:18:26.740 subsequently apologized, and they've rescheduled that event to another venue
00:18:30.460 that's linked to the vice chair of the Social Planning Council.
00:18:33.880 So they create their own little fiefdom.
00:18:35.800 They try to create a web with their other organizations and affiliations.
00:18:40.380 This is all coming from the far left,
00:18:42.380 and they don't recognize at any moment that this is not only offensive to Jews
00:18:48.120 and the supporters of the Jewish community,
00:18:50.600 but it's divisive and can lead to lots more problems.
00:18:54.480 But as we've seen here in the last, you know, six, seven weeks,
00:18:58.600 character after character after character is being imported into Winnipeg
00:19:01.980 to try to create academic legitimacy,
00:19:06.780 journalistic legitimacy,
00:19:07.900 and delegitimize the state of Israel and support for the state of Israel.
00:19:13.340 Yeah, I think that should take me actually to the next story
00:19:17.560 that the J.ca has covered just a couple of days ago.
00:19:23.740 And, you know, it goes to that issue of importing these people,
00:19:28.360 normalizing their views by lending the credibility of the organizations
00:19:32.560 who are bringing them in to the words that they're saying.
00:19:35.680 And then it just becomes part of the normal ethos of the Canadian conversation.
00:19:40.960 You guys are covering the Peel District School Board apologizing
00:19:44.800 and removing an anti-Semitic poster.
00:19:48.680 And the poster, it says,
00:19:50.900 if animal testing is not okay, then why is human testing okay?
00:19:55.080 And then it says, protect Palestinian prisoners.
00:19:58.340 This was up on the wall in a school.
00:19:59.880 And this is absolute, I mean, I suppose in the old days
00:20:03.180 they would call this blood libel, because none of this is true.
00:20:06.200 Nobody's testing on Palestinian prisoners.
00:20:09.400 But that is the libel that's being spread about the Israeli government.
00:20:12.500 And it's showing up in our schools as just, you know, part of the conversation.
00:20:17.120 Well, I've dug deeper, I think, than a lot of media outlets have.
00:20:20.260 And there's material I haven't yet published.
00:20:22.300 One thing that was very disturbing,
00:20:24.960 and it was pointed out by Meyer Weinstein of the Jewish Defense League,
00:20:29.180 and other individuals who contacted the Peel District School Board.
00:20:32.900 These complaints about it, this is a social justice course.
00:20:39.040 The poster was being complainable by April 2nd.
00:20:41.960 It wasn't taken down by April 12th.
00:20:44.480 In the notice that was put out by the Center for Israel Jewish Affairs,
00:20:50.160 which is like the umbrella organization for all Jewish federations in Canada,
00:20:55.900 and these Jewish federations collect and distribute money to the Jewish agencies,
00:20:59.720 the Jewish projects, charities, old folks, homes, the schools, etc.
00:21:03.660 The sixth point they made was, you know, as they went through this list,
00:21:08.320 we met with Peel, they've taken down the poster, they've removed all the social media.
00:21:12.000 But the sixth point referred to a problematic climate within the school.
00:21:16.360 Now, without further explanation from the Peel District School Board,
00:21:20.320 if this was so innocent as they claim,
00:21:23.060 that the teacher and the students had no idea that this was based on falsehoods,
00:21:27.320 which is obviously something that it should not be taken to face value,
00:21:30.520 you're telling me that no, and I know there's at least one Jewish teacher in that school
00:21:35.980 with a child or children in there.
00:21:38.600 You're telling me that in those 10 days that the Jewish students,
00:21:42.200 the Jewish parents, the Jewish teachers didn't go to the principal,
00:21:45.860 the vice principal, and complain about that poster and were rebuked?
00:21:49.740 Obviously, that's the case.
00:21:51.620 Now, what makes this more problematic for the school board is,
00:21:54.220 my research uncovered, to the surprise of some of my friends in Toronto,
00:21:57.880 for any poster to go up in the Stephen Lewis secondary school,
00:22:02.560 it has to be reviewed and initialed by a principal or a vice principal.
00:22:07.020 And so this attempt by the district to mollify everybody,
00:22:13.420 and there was no ill intent, and it was like some kind of mistake.
00:22:16.400 I don't know how a mistake like that sits on the wall for 10 days
00:22:19.020 and supposedly was approved by one of the senior administrators.
00:22:22.800 And the mainstream media certainly hasn't caught on to that angle,
00:22:26.480 but I've got it, and I'm going to be following up on it.
00:22:28.820 Which I suppose is why the J.ca exists,
00:22:31.520 is because you do dig a little deeper.
00:22:34.580 And we'll get to another story that you're digging a little deeper on in a second.
00:22:38.480 I want to talk about one of the other things that you folks are covering,
00:22:43.580 and it's about the pig poster pasted on a synagogue door.
00:22:46.800 This is on the Grant Avenue Synagogue in Winnipeg.
00:22:52.920 This pig poster, you label it as an anti-Semitic prank.
00:22:59.540 And I think that's an important distinction because nobody was hurt.
00:23:04.080 It's a stupid thing to do.
00:23:06.360 It's a gross thing to do.
00:23:07.740 It is indeed anti-Semitic.
00:23:09.860 But it is...
00:23:10.900 There was no threats attached to it.
00:23:12.620 Yeah, yeah.
00:23:13.960 And I mean, but I suppose the outrage here doesn't match the outrage that we would see
00:23:20.940 if the very, I would say the very same poster were posted on a mosque.
00:23:25.760 A hundred percent correct.
00:23:27.300 The mainstream media did not pick up on this until the subsequent incident at the cafe.
00:23:32.360 And then the CTV reporter, she, somebody probably mentioned it to her.
00:23:37.780 And so CTV seems to be the only outlet, and they didn't even have a picture of the poster
00:23:42.380 attached to any of their online news stories until yesterday.
00:23:45.800 It's only received a passing mention.
00:23:48.260 And if a poster, it's a photograph of a pig that is then decorated with the word Satan
00:23:53.420 and devil's horns, and it's also wearing pearls.
00:24:00.220 I mean, it's a goofy piece of provocative, you know, taunting art, so to speak.
00:24:07.800 If that had been found on a mosque, whether it was in Winnipeg or anyplace else, this would
00:24:14.260 have been a story on The National for three days in a row.
00:24:18.580 There would have been panels about it all over CTV and CBC News, that global news, God
00:24:23.860 knows somebody would have had a coronary over there.
00:24:25.740 It happened here, and even after we published that story, no pickup whatsoever from any media
00:24:34.340 outside of, significant media outside of Winnipeg in terms of the mainstream.
00:24:40.000 And I'm, I mean, that shows me, not that it's a federal case, but an incident like that,
00:24:47.220 as we said, if it happened to another faith, another house of worship, they'd be all over
00:24:52.420 it.
00:24:53.280 But a reform synagogue in Winnipeg, I guess that's, you know, you know, devour our hair,
00:24:58.380 as we say in Hebrew, that's something different.
00:25:00.460 Now, I alluded to the story that you guys are digging down a little bit deeper on, and
00:25:05.040 it's about a violent incident at the Burmack's Cafe and Bistro.
00:25:12.040 Now, what I like about this story is that you are sort of bucking the narrative and digging
00:25:21.080 a little deeper and following the facts where they might take you.
00:25:24.820 What on its face seems like an anti-Semitic incident may not be exactly that way.
00:25:31.760 Um, and, and, uh, I'm not alone in the, in the Jewish media in Winnipeg in, in having
00:25:39.760 that approach.
00:25:40.640 Um, uh, the, there was an incident originally in December that I don't even know was reported.
00:25:46.760 And then two incidents of the fence or the, the parking lot being spray painted with us
00:25:51.260 with a Jews or, and I think the building had it was spray painted the word Jews.
00:25:55.580 So, uh, again, in the realm of anti-Semitic incidents, uh, you know, this is very Nazi
00:26:03.020 oriented, this stuff.
00:26:04.140 It's not, there's no free Palestine.
00:26:06.160 It's not the, the, the, uh, you know, the, the Marxist social justice warrior woke crowd
00:26:11.920 that seems to be either behind it or being portrayed as being behind it.
00:26:16.080 So the other incidents, you know, were very disturbing to the owners and to the community.
00:26:19.660 It's, it's in a Jewish community in River Heights.
00:26:21.500 It's, it's about, um, probably, uh, 12 blocks, uh, 12 blocks east and six blocks south of,
00:26:30.460 uh, uh, of the synagogue of the Temple Shalom synagogue.
00:26:34.100 So it's a very Jewish neighborhood that my own, uh, uh, family resides in actually, um, but
00:26:41.160 it's not way up in the, in the realm of, uh, you know, the communities under threat or under
00:26:46.260 attack.
00:26:46.740 Uh, uh, this most recent incident because of the escalation seemed, you know, disproportionate
00:26:53.280 to what had gone on earlier in February.
00:26:55.760 Uh, and, uh, some parts of the, uh, story as it's come out to been withheld by the police
00:27:01.600 as they investigate.
00:27:02.340 I've spoken with the, uh, police in regards to this matter.
00:27:06.240 Uh, but, um, this is like the only place you leave, let's leave aside the poster, the pig
00:27:12.580 poster on the shul for a second.
00:27:13.960 This is the only Jewish business that seems to be getting harassed in any way.
00:27:18.840 There's nobody spray painting the windows at Bernstein's, which is in River Heights
00:27:23.400 also, uh, down Grant Avenue.
00:27:26.060 Uh, uh, nobody going into Myers Deli and tossing the matzo off the shelves or anything of the
00:27:32.720 sort.
00:27:33.400 Uh, so it's very, it's isolated.
00:27:35.300 This one location that actually is on a, uh, you know, well-driven on court, a well-driven
00:27:40.260 street on a corner lot with a number of other units in this, uh, strip mall kind of configuration.
00:27:46.340 So that right there makes you wonder, um, there, another complication is that on the,
00:27:53.360 then the, the afternoon that this, uh, apparent break-in and violence, uh, happened inside the,
00:28:01.600 the, uh, restaurant that a, uh, a local, uh, group of Israeli, it's an Israeli gay, uh, contingent,
00:28:10.240 uh, but, uh, but to live, they had just moved their offices and they've been seeking to buy
00:28:15.140 the restaurant by into the restaurant.
00:28:16.500 They've been running programming out of it.
00:28:17.940 They'd just done a RuPaul tribute contest the night before.
00:28:21.680 So, uh, and to me, it's kind of a bizarre concept that a place that's run by, uh, uh, the Maxim
00:28:28.300 is, uh, is, uh, uh, uh, apparently a Pchabadnik.
00:28:31.800 He's a religious Jew.
00:28:32.800 I don't know about the rest of the family, how religious they are or aren't, but he's very
00:28:36.840 receptive to, you know, events involving, um, you know, garish outlandish cross-dressers,
00:28:42.040 not something you usually see mixed with Orthodox Jews, but here's, you've got this gay group
00:28:47.700 that's very activist and very outspoken and very, um, you know, this again, isn't, uh,
00:28:52.580 the, the intellectuals from, from, uh, uh, from political science departments or something.
00:28:58.280 It's a young, uh, uh, a young motivated bunch.
00:29:01.900 They move in and that night, not only does this, uh, cafeteria, this cafe get attacked,
00:29:07.820 uh, uh, defaced, certainly, uh, CBC, I think reported a swastika on the wall.
00:29:13.620 It seems to be accurate.
00:29:14.780 There was certainly other things spray painted on the wall.
00:29:17.340 The first thing is who goes to break into a place carrying spray paint.
00:29:21.740 So obviously there's an intent, but with whoever goes in that's, you know, revolves around
00:29:28.680 destruction, around, uh, ruination, not around like teaching the Jews a lesson.
00:29:34.980 Uh, the, the mother was present.
00:29:38.000 Uh, she received some kind of injury, was discharged relatively quickly from the hospital,
00:29:42.480 but according to our source is receiving treatment all, all week.
00:29:46.420 Uh, the, according to our source, the son found her at the restaurant.
00:29:51.640 I don't know whether she phoned them and he then phoned the police.
00:29:54.040 She didn't call and they didn't, she didn't call the police.
00:29:56.360 Somebody called for medical assistance.
00:29:57.980 Uh, nowhere else in the media and the police did not report that the son found her, uh,
00:30:04.500 on the scene.
00:30:05.680 We've gotten confirmation from our source today that in fact, uh, and it's in our updated,
00:30:10.280 uh, the newest story, uh, the way the ball is configured, which apparently is owned by
00:30:14.520 Burmax, the parent company, which is a design company.
00:30:17.600 There's, I guess, an interior hallway that if you open a door, it connects another unit
00:30:22.680 where the gay group had moved into and where apparently the son was also maintaining a
00:30:27.700 business office, right?
00:30:28.740 To run the restaurant, the paperwork.
00:30:31.020 So that area I had confirmed today was also defaced and apparently at the very least has
00:30:36.060 anti-Semitic spray paint, uh, uh, uh, logos or something spray painted on it.
00:30:40.940 Uh, but no information as of yet about what the degree of damage is in that area.
00:30:46.160 So this wasn't just the restaurant where people sit part, uh, the police confirmed to me that
00:30:50.900 the whole place, when they told me the whole place was wrecked, I've heard that a toilet
00:30:54.680 was taken out when somebody takes out the toilet, you know, that's, that's serious business
00:30:58.960 and try to ruin, uh, ruin an operation, uh, that, that relies on the public, but this
00:31:04.640 destruction went all through the building and yet still people are not convinced that
00:31:09.980 it's anti-Semitic in nature because it's unlike anything the police have seen here.
00:31:14.240 It's disproportionate to the other incidents, even at that location.
00:31:18.620 And, uh, in doing some research, uh, the, the, the, not the cafe itself, I'm not sure
00:31:23.800 what the ownership arrangement is in terms of what corporation owns shares and what, but
00:31:29.060 the bare max, uh, uh, uh, company family of companies, they've certainly had some challenges
00:31:36.180 the last few years, certainly in the furniture design manufacturing and, uh, whatever you expect
00:31:41.500 to see the odd builders lean, things will happen. But last summer they lost the default judgment
00:31:46.180 to the federal business development bank for over a hundred thousand dollars. And more recently
00:31:50.860 at the end of March, uh, they're being sued by some individuals in a condo corporation.
00:31:55.440 There's a number of, uh, other defendants, including a, um, uh, a company that analyzes building
00:32:02.180 envelopes and environmental issues. Uh, they're being sued. I recognize their name from, uh, from,
00:32:07.400 uh, uh, prior, uh, enterprise I was involved in where they did work for that enterprise.
00:32:12.520 Uh, Burmax and one of the other defendants, a Jewish name I recognize are cross claiming
00:32:18.420 in this lawsuit against some of the other defendants, uh, two of whom are former business
00:32:24.760 associates of Ray Rybichuk and Ray Rybichuk passed away on Grey Cup Sunday in 2014. He was a notorious,
00:32:32.020 uh, Winnipeg criminal, uh, in the property industry. Uh, at one point he tore down a house. He imitated
00:32:38.040 the owner of a house, uh, was absentee landlord, had a house torn down next to his apartment building
00:32:43.760 in the West end of Winnipeg. So it would have parking. Uh, he, uh, when he died, he was, uh,
00:32:50.640 had muscled out, uh, his partner in the Royal Albert hotel. And upon his demise, I was actually
00:32:55.600 recruited with my son to, to take the Royal Albert hotel over in crisis management and, and, and, and,
00:33:02.740 and drive out the gangs and the drug dealers that were on the verge of ruining the business and,
00:33:07.620 and, uh, the hotel and taking out the plumbing and displacing people who otherwise would be
00:33:11.600 homeless in our community. So Rybichuk was not a good character and he is a violent character.
00:33:15.880 And, uh, his business partners somehow ended up subsequently in some kind of business with
00:33:20.980 Burmaqs and now there's a cross suit. So people look at these circumstances and it raises an
00:33:26.760 eyebrow about whether this is related not to the, not to anti-Semitism per se, but whether the
00:33:33.460 anti-Semitism was covered for other messages that are being sent to the family, to the owners in
00:33:38.680 relation to business matters, business dealings, and, and potentially debts. Uh, nobody expected that
00:33:45.340 kind of an angle. Uh, but I can tell you that other, there are other people in the Jewish media here
00:33:50.460 that, uh, you know, we were in a position to hear things from families, from people to see things,
00:33:55.120 pick up on things that somebody sitting in a CBC or a free press newsroom wouldn't. Uh, and, um,
00:34:00.900 this is the police themselves are investigating these other angles. They've told me, uh, they are
00:34:06.540 investigating it as a hate crime, but they, they, they see that there's a lot of loose ends that
00:34:12.120 don't fit neatly into the notion that some bunch of neo-Nazis have suddenly decided to target, uh, a cafe
00:34:18.080 in River Heights out of the middle of nowhere. Yeah. And I guess the point is we probably don't
00:34:23.660 need to be making up anti-Semites roaming loose on the streets when we can just import ones like
00:34:29.580 Linda Sarsour and Tamika Mallory to speak at, uh, you know, NDP proxy events. Uh, Marty, I wanted to,
00:34:37.380 uh, give you a chance to, uh, plug some of your work, um, let people know exactly where they can find
00:34:43.660 the J.ca and how they can support you because you're just getting off the ground, but I think
00:34:49.000 you're already doing some valuable and impactful work. You know, Ron East is a great admirer of,
00:34:54.780 of, of the, the rebel and the work that it does in, in, uh, the kind of journalism. It's not very,
00:35:00.560 it's not unlike what you do, what I did in a microcosm on kick FM and reap the ultimate reward
00:35:05.240 of being railroaded out of there. Uh, of course. Uh, so this is, um, uh, very validating for my,
00:35:13.240 for myself, uh, you know, our, our relationship has been pretty much strictly through Twitter,
00:35:18.400 but you were a voice and a supporter for me in the course of my litigation against Red River
00:35:23.500 College and the free press. And, uh, for myself, I'm trying to find a niche and rebuild things and
00:35:28.640 run is put in a lot of work and effort. Um, uh, we're, uh, among other things we're planning,
00:35:36.580 there's a counter rally that's been organized, uh, within the community at large on Friday to the
00:35:42.720 our sore appearance. One of the people who's committed to appearing apparently is the permanent
00:35:48.400 deacon from the Archdiocese of St. Boniface. So this is getting cross-cultural, uh, support. Uh,
00:35:55.240 Ron is hoping to live stream from the site on Friday. We have a support page. When you go to the
00:36:01.400 j.ca, there's a support page with different categories, uh, builder, supporter, warrior of
00:36:07.540 Israel. And we've, uh, uh, put together a program at those different levels, uh, ranging from 10 to
00:36:13.100 a hundred dollars where, uh, there'll be, uh, uh, tokens of our appreciation, uh, t-shirts, sweatshirts,
00:36:19.620 warrior of Israel hats. Uh, uh, we're certainly looking for advertisers, uh, to join us. We've got,
00:36:26.020 uh, uh, uh, not just Winnipeg coverage, but Toronto. I've been in contact with someone in Calgary
00:36:31.200 about getting legs and voices on the ground there. Uh, and, uh, we're hoping to be able to do something
00:36:36.860 that is, you know, the traditional Jewish media here is still very shtetl oriented and the journalism
00:36:42.820 is, is often very, you know, they try to be even handed to a point where it's a disservice to the
00:36:48.260 Jewish community, uh, trying not to, not, not to piss off people on the far left. We stand for Israel.
00:36:54.680 We stand for Zionism and, and not everybody associated with what we do. Ron himself is not
00:36:59.800 left wing. Uh, and not everybody's the biggest fan of Netanyahu, but when it comes to the, the right of
00:37:05.540 the people of, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, the Jewish people to have, uh, uh, the state of Israel
00:37:10.180 to have a homeland, we do not broker any notion that, that this is something that can be wiped off
00:37:16.780 the map, uh, and, and are not going to, are not going to bridle those kinds of discussions. You know,
00:37:22.980 the sort of thing to try to gain some academic legitimacy and journalistic legitimacy, they haven't
00:37:28.460 announced, they, they announced it, but not announced it broadly. Shannon Sampert, the former
00:37:33.320 op-ed page editor of the Winnipeg Free Press, who's with the University of Winnipeg,
00:37:37.540 she's going to moderate this panel. So when you have characters like her, who's, you know,
00:37:43.180 respected in this community, jumping in on an event like this, it reinforces the need
00:37:47.680 for, for a website like the j.ca for the kinds of stories we do. We're going to be, uh, moving
00:37:53.460 towards podcasts and, and, and similar, um, you know, media devices to get the message out,
00:37:58.920 to give a platform to people to talk, to get their messages out, uh, as well. And, uh, and, um, I'm
00:38:06.200 hoping that we can modernize coverage of Jewish affairs, of Israeli affairs in Canada and join,
00:38:12.120 uh, and jointly with the rebel and, and other like-minded people in the media provide some
00:38:17.740 balance to what you end up seeing coming out of the University of Winnipeg, uh, who of course their
00:38:22.840 people have access to CBC and other media all the time. Uh, and, and it's time for, for, uh,
00:38:29.360 instead of the federations, the other organizations that are very passive, uh, so to speak, and they're
00:38:34.740 worried about interfaith, uh, bridge building, that's all very well and good, but ultimately
00:38:39.240 somebody has to stand up and say, die, you know, they have to say that's enough. And that's the role
00:38:43.820 that I'm hoping to fill along with, uh, Ron East and other supporters of the j.ca. We have a Twitter
00:38:49.020 account. It's a CA underscore the J for whatever reason, uh, as well as the Facebook group and the
00:38:55.260 website. And we welcome, uh, contributions, opinion, and advertising support will be very key
00:39:00.640 to being able to maintain this. If, uh, as I mentioned to you, if this turns into what I do
00:39:04.940 for the next 10 years of my life, it's a, it's a, it comes full circle for me, for my involvement with
00:39:10.020 Yom HaMizrahi, uh, now with his son and fulfilling the kind of work he did to ensure that Jews didn't get,
00:39:15.860 uh, steamrolled in, in the media and steamrolled with narratives coming from academia and from the
00:39:21.500 social justice crowd. Well, Marty, I, I wish you the best of luck. I think you're doing valuable
00:39:27.240 work that is, um, sadly absent, uh, on the Canadian media landscape. And I got to tell you,
00:39:32.880 you're the best kind of guest because I just asked the odd question and you just
00:39:36.180 let her rip for 25 minutes or 30 minutes. So that's great. I hope I can invite you back on the show.
00:39:42.540 Um, love to.
00:39:45.860 I wish Marty and his team at the J.ca the very best of luck. In the past 24 hours since we've
00:40:02.180 recorded our interview, pressure from Marty and the rest of the Jewish community has now forced
00:40:08.340 Winnipeg's mayor to renounce Linda Sarsour and her proposed speaking engagement in Winnipeg. I say
00:40:15.440 that some pretty effective journalism from the J.ca already. And you guys know how I love a good
00:40:21.540 journalism startup mixed with a healthy dose of activism. Well, everybody, that's the show for
00:40:27.520 tonight. Head on over and check out Marty's website. Thanks as always for tuning in. I'll see everybody
00:40:33.320 back here in the same time in the very same place next week. And remember, don't let the government tell
00:40:38.740 you that you've had too much to think.