A victory for student and freedom fighter, Lauren Isaacs of Hey Root Canada, joins me to talk about her recent victory for her organization, and how she plans to continue to fight for free speech on Canadian university campuses.
00:02:05.660Free speech on Canada's university campuses is under attack. I don't think it's even
00:02:10.080the slightest bit controversial to say any of that. In a story I very recently covered, the University
00:02:17.160of Ottawa Student Union retroactively rigged the rules to keep students for life from becoming
00:02:25.080an officially recognized campus group. And the University of Alberta pro-life group has recently won
00:02:31.920a five-year-long legal battle with the school over mob tactics and censorship that they faced on
00:02:39.760campus. But it's not just pro-lifers that are under attack. There's another, what I would call a free
00:02:46.240speech canary in the coal mine, Jewish student groups. Campus culture is overwhelmingly left-wing.
00:02:53.000Again, that's not a controversial statement. And the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement
00:02:57.880against the state of Israel is fully integrated with far left-wing culture. Which means that Jewish
00:03:06.020student groups are often targets of boycott, divestment and sanctions, except it's their
00:03:11.940rights being boycotted and their ability to speak freely being sanctioned, often by the university
00:03:18.000and even sometimes with a riot, as my guest tonight will explain. Joining me tonight to talk about her
00:03:24.840recent free speech victory for her Hey Root Canada Campus Club is York University student and
00:03:31.780freedom fighter, Lauren Isaacs, in an interview we recorded yesterday afternoon.
00:03:51.700Joining me now is Lauren Isaacs from Hey Root Canada. Lauren Isaacs is a university student at York University
00:03:58.660and she's been embroiled in quite a bit of controversy, I guess, over the last three months.
00:04:05.680Lauren, I know you're on your lunch break. Thank you very much for joining me. Why don't you tell us a
00:04:10.000little bit about yourself, first of all, because I think you're a fascinating young lady. And also tell us
00:04:15.660about Hey Root Canada and what you're trying to do within that organization.
00:04:21.680Thank you. It's great to be here. So my name is Lauren Isaacs. I'm the director of Hey Root Canada and I'm also a student at York University.
00:04:30.680Hey Root Canada is a Zionist organization. We're an educational organization. We teach about Israel and the Middle East and we're a pro-Israel organization, obviously.
00:04:40.680And we started a Hey Root club at New York University campus. It's a mini version of Hey Root Canada.
00:04:47.680And since we started it, it has been controversial.
00:04:55.680Hey Root actually means freedom in Hebrew.
00:04:58.680Isn't that great? Now, yeah, you have been involved in some controversy. I think it started at the end of November.
00:05:07.680November, you tried to hold a campus event and mob violence broke out. You were boycotted.
00:05:15.680I mean, it was insane, like something we haven't seen on university campuses in Canada in a very long time.
00:05:24.680It was the kind of thing you would see at Berkeley when a conservative tries to speak. And that's what happened to you.
00:05:30.680Why don't you tell us a little bit about that?
00:05:33.680Right. We brought four former Israeli soldiers to speak at York University.
00:05:39.680We wanted them to speak about their experiences, about BDS, about anti-Semitism, and engage in dialogue with the audience.
00:05:46.680Now, they were former Israeli soldiers, not active duty. And since conscription is mandatory in Israel, every Israeli civilian is a former soldier.
00:05:54.680So really, we were just bringing four Israeli civilians to speak about their experiences on campus.
00:06:00.680And that's when everything hit the fan and mobs and riots broke out. There were huge protests to our event beforehand.
00:06:09.680There were calls on Facebook and social media to boycott the event, to disrupt it completely, to have protests, to have Palestinian vigils outside our event, all these things.
00:06:20.680And on the night of our event, they seriously disrupted us. The protesters intimidated us. We had to have 40 cops there just to keep the protesters outside of our room.
00:06:31.680They banged on the walls all night. And it was quite something. I've never seen that with my own eyes at a university.
00:06:38.680I've never seen such rowdy, violent protests before.
00:06:42.680Yeah, I mean, some of the images coming out of that were really, it was crazy. It must have been very frightening for you.
00:06:48.680Now, one of the groups that was involved in organizing against you was Students Against Israeli Apartheid, which, you know, I almost said Students for Israeli Apartheid, which is really the case.
00:07:04.680Because I've been to Israel and, you know, when you're there, the only people experiencing apartheid are the Israelis, because there are places they can't go, as opposed to what the world thinks the other way around, where the Palestinians can't go places.
00:07:21.680It's, it's the other way around. Now, you've actually, your group has been called the extremist faction within the right wing Jewish movement or Jewish community.
00:07:33.680I laugh every time I say that. And that was said about you by independent Jewish voices.
00:07:38.680So, you see independent Jewish voices a lot and you think, oh, okay, well, they're Jewish voices. They must speak for the Jewish community at large. But really, they are the pro-Palestinian, anti-Zionist Jewish fringe movement. And they are equating you, I suppose, with white supremacy by saying that you're, you know, the extremist faction within the right wing white Jewish community.
00:08:03.680Exactly. And it's crazy. Obviously, the whole thing is counterintuitive. You know, our group is pro-Israel. We are pro-Jewish identity. We believe one of the tenets of our organization is that Israel and Judaism are inalienable. They're connected.
00:08:19.680I myself, I'm an Orthodox Jewish girl. So to be called a white supremacist or a Nazi or any of these crazy things, it's just absurd. And it's just, people use these names in order to delegitimize our position.
00:08:33.680They use them to label us as something that society will, you know, condemn. And independent Jewish voices, that group, is not actually a Jewish voice in mainstream Jewish thought.
00:08:45.680They do not speak for the Jewish community at large. They are a fringe group with a small number of people who don't believe anything that mainstream Jews believe.
00:08:53.680And yes, they are very anti-Israel. They don't believe we should have a state or be allowed to have a country. They side with the Palestinians and the terrorists who want to destroy us.
00:09:04.680So no, we don't recognize them as a mainstream Jewish group, but we are called a lot of things. We're called a lot of things.
00:09:11.680Yeah. Now, I wanted to talk to you about the aftermath of, really, that riot that happened at your event at York University. Both your group, Herut Canada, and Students Against Israeli Apartheid were suspended and stripped of your campus club status in the aftermath of the violence, really, that broke out there.
00:09:36.680And you received some criticism because the Jewish Defense League showed up, as they tend to do when they hear about Jews that are being threatened with violence.
00:09:49.680And some of the criticism is that the scuffles were induced by the JDL as opposed to the hundreds of violent protesters that showed up to shout everybody down.
00:10:04.680And both your campus groups were suspended in the aftermath.
00:10:09.680So can you address the criticism you've received because the JDL showed up and also the university suspending both of you, in particular your group, even though you guys were the victims of violent censorship?
00:10:29.680So, first of all, the university sends us a letter and says they're going to suspend us, and they sent Asaya the same letter.
00:10:36.680And this was disgusting. This really was a show of blatant anti-Semitism on the university's behalf.
00:10:44.680And why? Why is it just anti-Semitic if both groups were suspended?
00:10:47.680Well, because one group was clearly the victim and one was clearly the violent perpetrator.
00:10:53.680And this is akin to punishing both the rape victim and her rapist after the fact.
00:10:59.680It makes no sense. It's immoral and unconscionable and horrifying.
00:11:03.680We never did anything wrong. We were provided with no information as to what we did wrong.
00:11:08.680Never a single example of how we broke the student code of conduct or anything like that.
00:11:13.680We know we didn't do anything wrong. There's no evidence of wrongdoing, and we followed all the rules very, very carefully.
00:11:19.680They know we didn't do anything wrong, and yet they suspended us anyway.
00:11:22.680So that's why it's an extremely transparently anti-Semitic move.
00:11:26.680With regard to the criticism of who showed up for which groups, first of all, I don't have any control over who shows up.
00:11:33.680And our event was open to the whole community. We invited everyone.
00:11:37.680We wanted everyone to be there, both friends, supporters, and people who didn't support us to come hear what we had to say.
00:11:43.680As for the JDL, we are grateful that members of their organization individually showed up, because they protected us.
00:11:51.680They really did. And thank God, because if they hadn't been there, and had the, you know, 40 policemen and security also not been there,
00:11:58.680it would have been a disaster, because the rioters were very violent, they were threatening, they were trying to get into our room all night.
00:12:05.680I don't know what would have happened if they hadn't been there.
00:12:07.680So while people may, you know, complain that certain people were there, I say thank God they were there.
00:12:13.680You know, I think a lot of people are complaining just because some Jewish people had the audacity to protect themselves.
00:12:20.680Much like how you're critical of Israel for doing the same. You know, they say, how dare they fire back after they've been pelted with rockets for days and days and days.
00:12:33.680And I think it's the same attitude bleeding over into Jewish students trying to have a little bit of a talk on campus.
00:12:42.680I wanted to ask you about how you ended up being reinstated, because just last week, your group, as well as Students Against Israeli Apartheid, were both reinstated by the university. How did that happen?
00:12:57.680So, we have a fantastic legal team that has worked tirelessly to get us reinstated, and to kind of hold the university accountable to their anti-Semitic nonsense.
00:13:09.680And we were reinstated, we had to go to some meetings with the university, and still, even after the meetings, after we were reinstated, up until this moment in time, we still have not been provided a single reason why we were ever suspended in the first place.
00:13:23.680But they reinstated us, thanks to our lawyers, and we basically said, enough is enough.
00:13:29.680Our amazing legal team said, if you don't reinstate us today, which was last week, we said we're going to take further action against the school.
00:13:37.680And we were prepared to do that, we still are, and they reinstated us.
00:13:41.680Now, it's successful in that we've been reinstated, and now we have free speech like everyone else on campus, but it's a fight that we never should have had to have in the first place.
00:13:50.680We never should have been silenced or discriminated against, so it was ten steps back to make one step forward.
00:13:57.680We're happy, but we're not going to forget the anti-Semitism and the anti-free speech policies that are very alive and well at the university.
00:14:07.680Well, and what would have happened to you if you didn't have legal help?
00:14:10.680Like, yes, you did have a lawyer who stepped up to help you, but if you were, you know, a smaller Hayroot branch, let's say in Winnipeg or at the U of A here in Alberta, who knows what would have happened?
00:14:25.680Because you at least had the ways and means to do something about this and fight back against the university.
00:14:30.680But again, like you say, you never would have, you never should have had to.
00:14:36.680I think they probably underestimated you is what I think happened here.
00:14:43.680I think they're ruining the day that they accepted me as a student to the university.
00:15:30.680You know, I think that's a really great point.
00:15:34.680You're not asking for special treatment.
00:15:36.680You're just asking to be treated the same as everybody else, as the same as some of the other controversial groups, like things that would be controversial outside of the university.
00:15:48.680I think normal people think, yeah, Israel has a right to exist.
00:15:54.680But inside the bubble of a university campus, the prevailing attitude is that Israel is an illegitimate state and the Jews, the indigenous people of Israel, don't have a right to be there.
00:16:24.680You get more of that outside, but within university walls, you don't really get to discuss ideas anymore or anything, you know, outside of a one specific narrow, one minded train of thought.
00:16:35.680I think in the culture of postmodernism and progressivism and intersectionality and political correctness, I think, well, when it comes to intersectionality, the Jews fall on the bottom of the totem pole, right?
00:16:48.680But I think that's true with Israel and with conservative thought as well.
00:16:53.680And we're seeing that a lot in the universities.
00:16:56.680Groups are being silenced just because they don't have, you know, a necessarily leftist progressive idea.
00:17:03.680And as you say, it's funny because some stuff that goes on in the university wouldn't even be allowed to go on in greater society.
00:17:10.680You know, the Students Against Israeli Apartheid Club, which is recidivistic.
00:17:28.680So the stuff that goes on in universities nowadays is almost like we've moved back in time to a much more oppressive dark age where thoughts and ideas are silenced and we can't speak.
00:17:42.680And it's almost like, you know, we're cave people again in universities.
00:17:48.680You know, it's funny as you're saying that it occurred to me that these progressive left-wing students who everyone is literally Hitler, if you ask them, they're the ones that share Hitler's view on the Jews in the state of Israel.
00:18:04.680And I think you and I were talking the first time we tried to record this and that for me, I think pro-life students and pro-Israel students are really the canaries in the coal mine of free speech on campus.
00:18:20.680Those two groups are routinely subject to having the rules changed on them retroactively.
00:18:26.680They have motions passed against them by the students union, yet your mandatory dues are extracted from you only so that your campus club can be banned.
00:18:37.680So, I mean, they can't really have it both ways.
00:18:41.680They can't take your mandatory dues from you and then not allow you to have a campus club.
00:19:00.680But we'll continue to fight for Israel and for free speech.
00:19:04.680And it doesn't even matter what we're fighting for.
00:19:06.680We continue to fight for the right to fight for our rights.
00:19:09.680You know, that's a great way to put it.
00:19:13.680Now, I wanted to ask you about some of the other things that Jewish students on campus have to face all the time.
00:19:22.680I mean, Israeli apartheid week on campus is so normalized that you almost forget it's happening every single year.
00:19:31.680And, you know, the anti-Semites on campus have become so emboldened that they are making steps so that Jewish students can't access their dietary needs.
00:19:44.680And this would not happen to any other religious group.
00:22:01.680They want to silence us and therefore their ideologies can prevail because there's no counter ideologies.
00:22:07.680We need to be loud and proud on and off campus and continue to do what's right.
00:22:12.680We're on the right side of history and we just have to stick to our guns and, you know, be proud of ourselves.
00:22:18.680Yeah, I don't think you're going to have any problem with that.
00:22:21.680Lauren, I wanted to ask you, because it's 2020, it's election year in the United States,
00:22:28.680I wanted to ask you about Donald Trump because he gets called, again, literally Hitler or that he's a white supremacist or a Nazi or whatever.
00:22:39.680But I don't think that there has, and I'm going to say, I'm going to include Ronald Reagan in this.
00:22:47.680I don't think there's been ever a more pro-Israel president.
00:22:52.680He's moved the embassy, his daughter is an Orthodox Jew, and he's now targeting anti-Semitism and Israeli boycotts on campus.
00:23:03.680What do you have to say about the criticism that President Trump gets leveled all the time from the left and, in particular, on university campuses for being this alleged anti-Semitic mastermind?
00:23:18.680Where's the disconnect here? Because I think he's the worst Nazi ever. He's not good at this.
00:23:25.680I agree with you. He's the worst anti-Semite ever. He just doesn't get the concept. He does way too many pro-Jewish things.
00:23:32.680Jews around the world do recognize that. Whether you agree with his policies or not, it doesn't change the fact that they named streets and towns after Trump in Israel because he has been amazing, an amazing friend to Israel.
00:23:48.680And, yeah, when he gets called, you know, a Nazi or whatever, it's just cognitive dissonance at play. It's just absolute delusion.
00:23:57.680And people generally nowadays hate Trump, and we can see this through the media and how they spin every story.
00:24:04.680Even when he does something positive, he's labeled as a racist or a homophobe or an Islamophobe or something.
00:24:10.680You know, so anything he does, people are going to find a reason to hate him. And whether you agree with him or not, it doesn't matter.
00:24:17.680There's facts and there's fiction. And the facts are he's been great to Israel, and he's done some amazing things for the Jewish people and our country's relationship,
00:24:25.680America and Israel, the allyship between them. He's done amazing things.
00:24:31.680So to call him a Nazi is just, it's crazy. It's ridiculous. It's, you know, to call Martin Luther King Jr. a KKK member, it just doesn't make any sense.
00:24:41.680You know, it's funny because I would say that a lot of the criticism of Donald Trump as some sort of white supremacist anti-Jewish monster
00:24:51.680often comes from the kind of people who would never own a soda stream because the company is Israeli and they just can't put the two together.
00:25:00.680Lauren, you've been so generous with your time today. I wanted to give you a chance to let people know where they can find you
00:25:09.680and how can they find out about some of the work that you're doing on campus because you said you're planning other things.
00:25:14.680You're not backing down. I'm sure our people would love to support you. So how do they do that?
00:25:21.680Great. Thank you. So I'm available. People can find me from Herut Canada, the Herut North America website.
00:25:29.680If you Google Lauren Isaacs, my email readily pops up. You can contact me directly.
00:25:35.680And I want people to get involved. I want them to join Herut, become members. Look into us, see what we do.
00:25:41.680You know, be supportive. We're looking for votes right now for the World Zionist Congress. Go ahead and vote for Herut.
00:25:48.680But really reach out. We'd love to hear from you any way they would like to get involved. And they can write to me directly and I will answer them.
00:25:55.680We can tell them how to be proud Zionists, how to fight for free speech, how to open up Herut chapters on their own campuses.
00:26:01.680We'd love to hear from you. So just keep doing what you're doing. Be loud and proud. Don't buckle to the pressures of the universities right now.
00:26:09.680And I'd love to hear from everyone. So if people reach out, I'll be ecstatic to hear from them.
00:26:14.680RIP your email inbox because you're going to get inundated. Lauren, I want to thank you so much.
00:26:23.680And I'd love to have you on the show again, maybe before you plan something so that you can announce it here and probably after when you get boycotted. I hope that's OK.
00:26:35.680Sure. I'd love to. Great. Thank you so much, Lauren. Have a great day.
00:26:48.680Lauren has exactly the right idea. When someone tries to censor you, guess what? That's when you talk louder.
00:26:53.680And she's got a great strategy that has worked for us. When people try to censor you, lawyer up if you can, because the censors know their feelings about what you're saying are not going to hold up in any sort of legal proceedings.
00:27:11.680I think these people at York University have made a big mistake.
00:27:15.680If they didn't want any more Lauren Isaacs, picking a fight with her is exactly how you get more Lauren Isaacs.
00:27:22.680Well, everybody, that's the show for tonight. Thank you so much for tuning in.
00:27:26.680I'll see everybody back here in the same time in the same place next week.
00:27:30.680And remember, don't let the government tell you that you've had too much to think.