On the eve of Canada's federal election, U.S. President Donald Trump took to Truth Social, the little-used social media website he created, to recommend Canadians head to the polls and vote for... Donald Trump. "IT WAS MEANT TO BE," he typed, in all-caps, prompting the vast majority of Canadians to roll their eyes and remain in minimal voting lines, eagerly awaiting their election results to roll in well before bedtime.

In spite of Trump's demands, Canadians are prioritizing nationalism and sovereignty in this election, with a spotlight being shone on the distinctions between Canada and the United States. This has been a topic of interest for Phoebe Maltz Bovy, a dual citizen of both countries, who has been following the shifting aesthetic of patriotism since moving here in 2015. She sits down with David Polansky, an American writer and political theorist living in Toronto, to discuss these issues and more, including the Jewish community's shifting political affiliations and the dynamics of ethnic minorities within Canadian conservatism.

Related links

• Subscribe to David Polansky's Substack, Strange Frequencies, and follow him on Twitter
• Read his latest article, "Canada on the brink", in The Hub

Credits

• Host: Phoebe Maltz Bovy
• Production team: Michael Fraiman (producer & editor), Marc Weisblott (editorial director)
• Music: "Gypsy Waltz" by Frank Freeman, licensed from the Independent Music Licensing Collective

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to The Jewish Angle

The United States has historically been unusually resistant to antisemitism, for a number of reasons: some that speak well of America; others that are more the result of Americans preferring to pick on other marginalized minorities over Jews. But right-wing antisemitism has flourished in the age of social media and President Donald Trump's first term in office, and left-wing antisemitism has skyrocketed since Oct. 7.

Now the U.S. seems less apart from other countries vis-a-vis antisemitism. And with Donald Trump back in the White House, he's brandishing a shiny new executive order for combatting antisemitism. His administration has begun arresting immigrants and people on student visas—who are all in the country legally—for participating in the student encampment protests, or, in one case, co-authoring a student op-ed critical of Israel. His administration is also defunding a higher education institutions, starting with elite Ivy League universities such as Columbia and Harvard, ostensibly in the name of antisemitism.

Phoebe Maltz Bovy, The CJN's opinion editor, is a dual Canadian-American citizen, watching the chaos unfold from downtown Toronto. To better understand the nuances of the situation, she sat down with Emily Tamkin, a journalist based in Washington, D.C., who writes for the Washington Post, Slate, The New Republic and the Forward.

Hear their conversation in the debut episode of The Jewish Angle, a new weekly podcast by The CJN, that analyzes the uncomfortable new political realities for Jews in a rapidly evolving cultural landscape.

Related links

• Subscribe to Emily Tamkin's Substack, ET Write Home
• Read Tamkin's piece, "Trump’s Crackdown on “Antisemitism” is Making Jews Less Safe", in The New Republic
• Her article, "Is this extremist Zionist group trying to protect Israel — or just punish left-wing Jews?", in the Forward
• Phoebe reviews Tamkin's book Bad Jews in The CJN (from Oct. 2022)

Credits

• Host: Phoebe Maltz Bovy
• Production team: Michael Fraiman (producer & editor), Marc Weisblott (editorial director)
• Music: "Gypsy Waltz" by Frank Freeman, licensed from the Independent Music Licensing Collective

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to The Jewish Angle