Juno News - December 12, 2023


Hanukkah is the new Christmas (and they’re both cancelled!)


Episode Stats


Length

18 minutes

Words per minute

186.62503

Word count

3,506

Sentence count

191

Harmful content

Toxicity

5

sentences flagged

Hate speech

20

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Candice Malan explains why Christmas is being demonized by the left, and why Hanukkah is getting the same treatment in the wake of the September 11th terrorist attack on the Jewish holiday of Hanukah.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 The woke, progressive, left-wing cultural forces have spent years, well, they've spent decades, really, trying to cancel Christmas.
00:00:07.680 Fascinatingly, the same forces that are trying to kill Christmas now have their sights set on another religious holiday, the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah.
00:00:16.400 It's taken them 50-plus years to demonize and destroy our beloved Christmas, and only one year to do the same to Hanukkah. 0.76
00:00:23.380 I'm Candice Malcolm, and this is The Candice Malcolm Show.
00:00:30.000 Hi, everyone. Thank you so much for tuning into the podcast.
00:00:37.880 Don't forget to like this video, subscribe to the True North channel, leave us a five-star review if you enjoy the podcast,
00:00:42.800 and head on over to our website, www.tnc.news, to sign up for our newsletter so you never miss a story.
00:00:48.980 And if you do enjoy our work, please consider supporting our journalism, hit that donate button, and consider leaving us a modest donation.
00:00:56.300 Okay, so here we go. The left goes after Christmas, our most beloved holiday, the most wonderful time of the year.
00:01:02.420 They go after Christmas for one reason, and one reason alone.
00:01:05.700 They hate Christianity. They hate everything it represents, and everything that it has created. 0.99
00:01:10.680 Now, you and I might look around at our world of peace and prosperity, respect, tolerance, basic human rights, dignity for all,
00:01:17.860 the idea that we are all inherently equal, and that we have free will.
00:01:22.900 We look at those things, and we think, wow, that is wonderful. Those things are worth preserving.
00:01:27.060 The left looks at those traditions, the ones that you and I cherish, and they want to dismantle them.
00:01:32.000 They want to replace it with something entirely different, some utopian scheme, some system that has never been tried before,
00:01:37.980 or even worse, something that has been tried and has led to mass murder and universal misery.
00:01:44.300 That's what the left wants to do. They want to unravel everything about our society.
00:01:48.340 Now, remarkably, when it comes to Christmas, these forces have been successful.
00:01:52.420 They slowly erased the most important day in the Christian calendar, the day that simply acknowledges the birth of the most consequential person in all of human history. 0.67
00:02:03.420 So how did they do that?
00:02:04.420 Well, first, they stripped the holiday of any religious meaning whatsoever, making it just merely about commercialism and imaginary children's characters.
00:02:12.540 And then after that, they went even further, and they demonized the very idea of acknowledging Christmas.
00:02:19.260 We must say happy holidays. In Canada, in 2023, you will rarely hear a person wishing you Merry Christmas at the store, in your kid's school, anywhere you go.
00:02:28.980 You will hear happy holidays. You very rarely hear Merry Christmas. Why is that?
00:02:32.860 Well, we wouldn't want to offend people who don't like Christmas.
00:02:35.380 We wouldn't want to offend those Marxist atheists who get triggered by hearing the word Christmas.
00:02:41.280 So it isn't just about erasing religion from our society.
00:02:44.720 It's about erasing everything, erasing our history, erasing our traditions and the values that have been embedded in that history and in those traditions.
00:02:54.840 And we reached a new low in 2023 when the Canadian government told us that Christmas, I kid you not, Christmas is a white supremacist holiday.
00:03:03.380 Simply acknowledging Christmas is a form of discrimination and intolerance, this according to the brilliant Canadian Human Rights Commission.
00:03:13.340 Well, now Christmas is not alone. It's not just those who celebrate Christmas or who want to acknowledge Christmas that are being demonized.
00:03:20.980 Jews have been added to the basket of deplorables. 1.00
00:03:23.820 And now Hanukkah is getting canceled. It's getting the Christmas treatment in just two short months, two short months since that October 7th terrorist attack. 0.91
00:03:32.820 Remember, that was when Arab terrorists, an Arab Islamist group called Hamas, invaded Israel and attacked Jewish civilians in their beds.
00:03:41.360 So for the crime of being the victim of a terrorist attack, Jews have suddenly fallen to the very, very, very bottom of the left's victim hierarchy.
00:03:49.940 Jews are now perhaps even lower on that hierarchy than straight white males in their sympathy from the left, believe it or not.
00:03:57.060 So just like that, Hanukkah has also been canceled by the woke mob. 0.70
00:04:01.780 Jews are settlers, we're told, and settlers are not civilians.
00:04:04.400 So they're all fair game for violence, apparently what the left just likes to call resistance.
00:04:09.860 So this is what we've seen in cities across North America.
00:04:12.700 Hanukkah being canceled, being downplayed, being outright rejected in American cities like Washington, D.C., Williamsburg, Virginia, and Los Angeles for good measure.
00:04:21.860 They just canceled both.
00:04:22.780 They canceled both Christmas and Hanukkah, just to be fair.
00:04:26.680 Up here in Canada, we've seen the same thing in Moncton.
00:04:29.260 New Brunswick City Council decided to end the 20-year tradition of lighting the Hanukkah menorah in front of City Hall,
00:04:34.960 only to then reverse that decision after some negative feedback.
00:04:39.260 I think that Jodi Gondock, the mayor of Calgary, takes the cake.
00:04:42.620 She sort of said it all when she refused to attend the Hanukkah memorial lighting ceremony.
00:04:49.280 She said that it was just too political.
00:04:52.080 So here's a flyer for that event.
00:04:53.720 It just says Calgary Community Menorah Lighting.
00:04:56.280 It says here,
00:04:57.120 which simply means the people of Israel live.
00:05:00.840 So again, just say that Jews have the right to live. 1.00
00:05:04.060 Apparently that is political.
00:05:05.520 Here it says unity supporting Israel, Jewish pride.
00:05:08.460 So we had Jodi Gondock, and she said,
00:05:10.820 On the eve of a beloved Calgary tradition, the annual menorah lighting at City Hall,
00:05:15.220 I've learned that the event has been repositioned to be political.
00:05:19.440 This breaks my heart.
00:05:20.800 It is with great regret and sadness that I will not be attending.
00:05:23.280 My statement is posted.
00:05:25.020 And then she shared a picture of the poster.
00:05:28.660 For those who don't know much about Jewish holidays,
00:05:30.920 and Calgary Mayor Jodi Gondock has simply outed herself
00:05:33.580 as being a person who does not know very much about Jewish holidays,
00:05:37.240 Hanukkah is an inherently political celebration.
00:05:41.240 It is intrinsically tied with the state of Israel.
00:05:45.100 It is a festival commemorating the recovery of Jerusalem
00:05:49.460 and the rededication of the second temple at the beginning of the Maccabee revolt.
00:05:54.140 So the story you probably know is about how there was enough oil to keep one candle lit,
00:05:58.860 and it was a miracle because it remained lit for nine days.
00:06:02.400 That was during a war.
00:06:03.420 That was when the Israelites were taking back Israel and Jerusalem. 0.96
00:06:07.420 So again, the celebration is inherently political.
00:06:11.140 It is about the state of Israel.
00:06:12.840 And so this ceremony is simply acknowledging that.
00:06:15.860 And by acknowledging that, apparently, that makes it too political for the Calgary mayor to attend,
00:06:20.640 just for good measure.
00:06:21.660 Let's just recall a year ago when Calgary raised the Ukraine flag to show its support
00:06:27.860 for a sovereign nation under attack.
00:06:30.360 These are Jodi Gondock's own words.
00:06:33.280 Show support for sovereign nation under attack.
00:06:35.820 Under a horrifying and unprovoked attack.
00:06:38.480 Sound familiar?
00:06:39.800 Does it sound familiar?
00:06:40.480 We stand in support of the Ukrainian community in our city and the people who have close ties
00:06:45.580 to their homeland.
00:06:46.400 So it is okay to go to a political event.
00:06:48.780 It is okay to turn City Hall into a political symbol by raising the Ukraine flag when it comes 0.97
00:06:54.620 to supporting Ukraine.
00:06:56.240 But when the same thing happens when Israel is invaded, it is a sovereign and democratic
00:07:00.280 country.
00:07:00.760 When it is invaded, that's too political.
00:07:02.920 And we just can't quite get involved.
00:07:04.840 Those aren't the only examples.
00:07:06.420 A student over at the University of Alberta, my alma mater, wanted to put a menorah up to
00:07:12.140 celebrate Hanukkah.
00:07:13.500 And the school said no.
00:07:14.500 And then they also took down the Christmas tree for good measure.
00:07:17.060 So what can I say?
00:07:18.100 Jews, welcome to the club. 0.99
00:07:19.380 You're getting canceled just like Christians have been canceled over the many years. 0.99
00:07:23.280 So to get more insight on this issue, I would like to bring in my friend and colleague,
00:07:28.280 Andrew Lawton, host of the Andrew Lawton Show here at True North, to get his opinion.
00:07:31.940 Hey, Andrew, thanks so much for joining us.
00:07:33.740 It's my pleasure.
00:07:34.400 Thanks very much.
00:07:35.920 So, Andrew, you have been covering the war on Christmas since, as long as I've known
00:07:39.460 you as a journalist, I think that you are someone who covers this every year and you
00:07:42.800 stay on top of the latest craziness like the Human Rights Commission this year saying
00:07:46.380 that celebrating Christmas is discriminatory and white supremacist or something like that.
00:07:50.680 So can you just tell us about the forces behind this movement and when you first started
00:07:55.480 observing it or when you think it started?
00:07:58.040 Yeah, it's a bit of a weird one.
00:07:59.760 And I never even like using the term war on Christmas because there's this weird parallel
00:08:05.640 reality in which you get a number of people, typically those on the left, that say there's
00:08:09.440 no such thing.
00:08:10.240 It's made up.
00:08:11.080 There's no war on Christmas.
00:08:12.600 And it's kind of like political correctness where it's a term that becomes the subject of
00:08:17.020 debate as to whether or not it even exists.
00:08:19.120 And the point that I always say to counter that is that there is a war on Christmas, but
00:08:24.240 it's not coming from Muslims.
00:08:26.280 It's not coming from Jews. 0.99
00:08:27.880 It's not coming from immigrants that are offended by this, you know, originally Christian holiday.
00:08:33.160 It's coming from white secular liberals that want to be offended on other people's behalf.
00:08:39.340 Now, that's historically been the case.
00:08:41.520 And I think that worldview has become very much institutionalized, not just in the Canadian
00:08:46.540 Human Rights Commission, which you alluded to, but also in the bland, risk-averse corporate
00:08:52.160 world, which thinks that we need to just strip away anything that might possibly at some point
00:08:57.240 maybe just offend one person.
00:08:59.860 And as a result, Christianity and Christmas, which are not mutually exclusive, I'd argue
00:09:05.560 that Christmas has become more of a cultural holiday to a lot of people than strictly a religious
00:09:10.560 holiday, which it is for me.
00:09:12.180 But as a result, Christmas tends to be in the crosshairs.
00:09:15.120 And, you know, you always see some wacky manifestations of that.
00:09:19.260 Well, it's so interesting, Andrew, because I think a lot of people who come to Canada
00:09:22.100 as immigrants, and I would count my in-laws, my husband's family in that group, you know,
00:09:27.340 they really admire the West.
00:09:29.040 They like Western civilization, and they understand how it is intrinsically tied to Christianity,
00:09:34.740 to the birth of Jesus Christ.
00:09:35.800 Like I said, Christmas is simply acknowledging the birth of probably the most influential,
00:09:40.620 consequential person in human history.
00:09:42.320 And so they actually like the Christmas markets and the Christmas festivals and the Christmas
00:09:46.640 trees, and they're more likely to say Merry Christmas than, you know, the white liberal
00:09:52.120 atheists that you described.
00:09:53.860 And so it's kind of a shame I made this comment to some people at True North that, you know,
00:09:58.520 if you were like in Dubai or if you were somewhere in the Arab world, and it was Ramadan,
00:10:04.400 could you imagine like someone not saying Happy Ramadan around you because they were worried
00:10:09.140 about offending you and saying Happy Holidays and said like it would just never happen.
00:10:12.280 It's something that's like uniquely happening in the Western world and probably a lot in Canada.
00:10:17.080 So I talked a lot about how Jews and people celebrating Hanukkah are now getting a very
00:10:21.980 similar treatment to us Christians and those who want to celebrate Christmas.
00:10:26.780 It's been interesting to watch.
00:10:28.100 So, you know, does this surprise you?
00:10:31.020 What do you make of Jews being lumped in now with sort of the deplorables and not being able 0.99
00:10:36.320 to celebrate their own holiday?
00:10:38.100 It doesn't surprise me because it's been part of a very long term process here where there's
00:10:44.560 this Caucasification of Jews and Judaism.
00:10:49.040 And what I mean by that is that Jews have always been a religious minority.
00:10:54.000 They've always been an ethnic minority. 0.63
00:10:55.460 They've always faced tremendous persecution.
00:10:57.800 And my friend Laura Rosen-Cohen has this very, I mean, it's a sad, but it's a very apt
00:11:03.420 line that everyone meets at Jew Hate Junction. 0.67
00:11:05.700 It's the place that is the target of hate for the far left, for the far right, for various
00:11:11.280 religious fundamentalists.
00:11:12.580 And anti-Semitism is always the most prevalent form of hate whenever there are studies done
00:11:18.780 on hate crimes, which I realize is a bit of a loaded term.
00:11:22.140 But Jews have also been rebranded by, in a lot of cases, anti-Semites so that they cannot
00:11:29.700 be oppressed. 0.88
00:11:30.880 They can only be the oppressors.
00:11:32.660 Jews are not victims. 0.95
00:11:34.220 They are privileged.
00:11:35.460 And it's why this anti-colonialism narrative has been injected into the horrendous atrocities
00:11:41.760 that Hamas was perpetrating against Jews and Israelis just a couple of months ago.
00:11:46.860 So you have now Jews that people refuse to see as minorities and refuse to see as being 0.99
00:11:53.720 targeted by anything.
00:11:55.420 So now their holiday, which is not nearly the most widespread holiday in Canada, Hanukkah,
00:12:02.140 is viewed as part of the dominant culture now, this hegemony like Christmas, which is just
00:12:09.060 bizarre and makes no sense whatsoever, unless you follow that context of how Jews have 1.00
00:12:14.520 been perceived by largely anti-Semites.
00:12:17.800 Well, it is kind of interesting, Andrew, because I have a lot of Jewish friends and I even have
00:12:23.220 Jewish members in my own family.
00:12:25.860 And for religious Jews, Hanukkah isn't really that big of a deal.
00:12:30.540 Like the main holiday in the Jewish calendar is Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, the new year,
00:12:35.740 and then Yom Kippur is the holiest day of the year, the Day of Atonement, and that happens 0.69
00:12:39.260 in the fall, and that's sort of very important.
00:12:40.820 And then you have Passover, which is like the big feast, and again, like celebrating the existence
00:12:45.340 of Israel, but also just celebrating your community and your family.
00:12:49.720 And then Hanukkah has sort of been made, especially in North America and the U.S., to be a big holiday
00:12:55.040 because it coincides with Christmas.
00:12:56.780 And a lot of the Jewish kids growing up felt left out that they didn't get a Christmas tree,
00:13:01.620 and so their parents made Hanukkah like a bigger deal over the last, I don't know,
00:13:04.760 maybe a century or so.
00:13:06.600 But if you go to Israel or if you're in a very strictly religious community, it's not
00:13:10.200 the big of a deal.
00:13:10.940 But the meaning behind Hanukkah is political.
00:13:14.980 It's about the fight for Jerusalem, Jews recapturing Jerusalem during the Second Temple 0.91
00:13:19.500 period, and about the Jewish people having their own place.
00:13:23.500 So it's kind of ironic that a holiday that wasn't necessarily the top profile Jewish holiday
00:13:31.660 has become that way because of North America.
00:13:33.340 And then now, you know, as we saw in Calgary, Mayor Jordi Gondek saying that it was too political
00:13:38.780 to go to Hanukkah because, you know, it said support Israel or something on the flyer, but
00:13:44.800 it's hard to remove the holiday of Hanukkah from Israel.
00:13:50.560 So, yeah, I just wanted to sort of get your thoughts again on, you know, like, let me ask
00:13:59.040 you this question.
00:13:59.740 It seems that Christians have sort of come to terms with the fact that our holiday isn't,
00:14:05.680 we can't celebrate Christmas out in the open anymore.
00:14:08.000 We'll just say happy holidays and we don't want to offend people.
00:14:10.520 But it seems to me that Jews aren't going to take that. 1.00
00:14:13.460 They're fighting back.
00:14:14.080 They're saying, no, we're going to push back against the Jodi Gondeks that are cancelling
00:14:17.860 Christmas.
00:14:18.800 We saw the city council in New Brunswick say that they're not going to celebrate Hanukkah.
00:14:23.540 And then there was so much pushback that they said, OK, OK, fine, we will.
00:14:26.480 It seems to me that Jews are fighting back a lot more than Christians are. 0.93
00:14:30.020 What do you make of this?
00:14:31.840 Well, I think there are two things.
00:14:33.100 I think as far as Christmas goes, and this is where I go back to why the war on Christmas
00:14:38.160 is a bit of a challenging term.
00:14:40.200 I'd argue we don't just hide Christmas, but we do this internally inconsistent and illogical
00:14:46.800 thing where we try to strip away what Christmas is and we'll keep the red and the green and
00:14:52.380 we'll keep the holly and we'll keep the presents, but we'll pretend that it's not Christmas
00:14:56.900 we're doing.
00:14:57.580 We just happen to be doing all of these things that kind of look and feel and sound and smell
00:15:02.180 like Christmas around the same time as Christmas.
00:15:05.080 What a coincidence that we're doing all this on December 25th.
00:15:08.340 I mean, Justin Trudeau, a couple of years ago, issued a Christmas statement in which
00:15:13.060 he did not mention Jesus or Christianity.
00:15:16.560 So to him, Christmas, I mean, he might as well have just been honoring the winter solstice
00:15:20.140 or something.
00:15:20.760 It was just this generic, I mean, some might say pagan, but it was just this generic, bland
00:15:25.400 honoring of Christmas as being some meaningful day.
00:15:28.180 And he was saying Christmas is for everyone.
00:15:29.700 Now, look, I believe as a Christian that people should be able to enjoy Christmas, whoever
00:15:33.620 they are, but Jews don't say Hanukkah is for everyone and Muslims don't say Ramadan is
00:15:38.680 for everyone.
00:15:39.360 And the people that honor Diwali don't say, like really directly that Diwali is for everyone.
00:15:46.360 That doesn't mean other people can't participate and exchange and learn about it.
00:15:50.720 But Jews are saying, no, Hanukkah is this to us.
00:15:54.500 And when you mentioned, I think quite accurately that there is an inherent politics to the history
00:15:59.940 of Hanukkah, what I would do is go one step further and say it shows the inextricable link
00:16:05.340 between Jewish people and Israel, that you can't just separate these two things out and
00:16:10.480 say, well, I'm not anti-Jew, but I'm anti-Israel or, well, yes, I'm okay, you know, being nice
00:16:15.840 to my Jewish neighbors, but I don't want them to mistake me for being pro-Israel, which is
00:16:20.640 basically what Jodi Gondek was doing.
00:16:23.540 Well, it's interesting what I've observed, Andrew, to your point, I think you're completely
00:16:26.820 right, that even secular atheist Jews are standing up for Jewish people at this time
00:16:34.060 and saying, no, like it doesn't matter how religious you are or how orthodox you are,
00:16:38.540 or even, I mean, to your point, like there is something intrinsic about Jewish identity
00:16:43.660 and the state of Israel.
00:16:44.620 But I've noticed sort of across the board, every Jew that I know, I was talking to a Jewish
00:16:49.640 friend, Andrew, from Montreal, who is very liberal, so much so that he's one of the top
00:16:54.340 donors and fundraisers for Justin Trudeau.
00:16:57.320 And he's one of the people who just absolutely live in, I've had enough, and he's like, look,
00:17:01.360 you know, me and my wife are very much on the left, and when you lose my wife and I, you
00:17:05.460 know, you know that you've lost this battle because they are no, I said, hey, welcome to
00:17:09.180 our side, you know, it's good to have you.
00:17:11.200 But I feel like this is a breaking point for so many Jewish people that they just, they see
00:17:15.780 the true colors of the sort of anti-colonial, decolonized woke left, and they don't like
00:17:23.520 it and they've had enough of it.
00:17:24.620 What do you think of that?
00:17:26.140 Yeah, I think you're right.
00:17:27.520 And I think everyone has their red line.
00:17:30.180 Everyone has their hill to die on.
00:17:32.180 And for Jewish people, Israel has always been that, I shouldn't say always, but for many
00:17:37.840 Jewish people, Israel has always been that hill to die on, because for them it is personal.
00:17:42.980 I mean, you cannot find that many Jewish people that do not have at some point in their family
00:17:48.180 some horrendous loss, either directly to the Holocaust or to some other atrocity that's
00:17:54.500 taken place against the Jewish people with alarming regularity and frequency.
00:17:58.540 So for Jews, this is very personal, and I'm seeing some incredibly far left Jews that 1.00
00:18:03.320 I know, I mean, people that would even be further left than the friends that you just described,
00:18:07.380 that right now are in lockstep with the right by promoting Israel, but because to them it's
00:18:13.620 not a left-right issue, it's not a partisan issue, it's just the survival of them, their
00:18:18.340 family, their community, and their people.
00:18:20.440 And that's the one thing that I think a lot of people that aren't connected to this debate
00:18:24.220 need to realize.
00:18:25.760 Very true, very insightful.
00:18:27.260 Well, Andrew, I really appreciate your thoughts and your comments, and I'll probably see you
00:18:31.360 again before Christmas, but just in case I don't, Merry Christmas to you and your family.
00:18:34.880 I hope you have a wonderful, blessed celebration.
00:18:36.980 Thank you so much for joining us.
00:18:38.680 Thank you, and happy Hanukkah to those affected by that as well.
00:18:42.560 Certainly, certainly.
00:18:43.720 All right, thank you so much for tuning in.
00:18:45.280 I'm Candace Malcolm, and this is The Candace Malcolm Show.