The Jewish Angle https://www.thecjn.ca/the-jewish-angle Pinecast (https://pinecast.com) en-CAThe CJN Podcasts The CJN Podcasts mfraiman@thecjn.ca no The Jewish Angle https://www.thecjn.ca/the-jewish-angle https://storage.pinecast.net/podcasts/covers/35c3f186-e937-4496-b327-f841c454d7b0/TheJewishAngle_3000X3000.png episodic The Canadian Jewish News Stuck in the middle with Jews. David Schraub: Doesn't anyone care about incidental Nazi imagery anymore? https://pinecast.com/guid/4c53fca9-4150-4dfd-b620-beaae3c81889 Tue, 14 Apr 2026 17:00:54 -0000 00:36:28 Graham Platner is a progressive populist running to unseat longtime Republican Susan Collins in Maine. The military veteran's campaign has been fiery, to say the least, riddled with attacks about his past online comments and—notably for Jews—a tattoo that bore a resemblance to a Nazi symbol, which he's since covered up.

But his Nazi-adjacent imagery didn't damage his reputation in the way people expect. Instead, Platner's continued railing against billionaires and "the people in power", with antisemitic undertones, has bolstered his support. So American Jewish voters lose in both ways: either because Platner does indeed harbour antisemitic beliefs, or because he rallies his base against them with dog whistles and quiet accusations.

David Schraub, an associate professor of law at Lewis & Clark Law School, joins The Jewish Angle with Phoebe Maltz Bovy to break down the ramifications of this controversy—and how Jewish Americans also find themselves caught in the awkward middle of President Donald Trump's war on Iran (which some accuse them of starting, by way of Israeli affiliations) while simultaneously not voting for him in the first place.

Credits

  • Host: Phoebe Maltz Bovy
  • Producer and editor: Michael Fraiman
  • Music: " Gypsy Waltz " by Frank Freeman, licensed from the Independent Music Licensing Collective

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]]> no Hadley Freeman: A cafe vandalism fiasco & Woody Allen's novel https://pinecast.com/guid/bcf420be-eb0e-4dc3-b537-ab65054e90b5 Tue, 24 Mar 2026 04:00:00 -0000 00:41:37 Earlier this month, British vandals defaced a new location of Gail's, a bakery chain with 170 locations across the U.K. They smashed the store's windows, splattered it with red paint, and left pro‑Palestinian and anti-Zionist messages on its doors. One such message: "F*** Bain Capital." It refererred to an investment firm that manages USD$215 billion in global assets, including investments in Israeli security companies and, in some other far corner of the company's wide reach, the Gail's brand.

Gail's was also founded by an Israeli baker in the 1990s. So even though the business is not exactly Jewish, it is Jewish enough by vandals' standards—and this new location happened to be opening a few blocks away from a popular Palestinian cafe. After the week of on-and-off violence, a columnist named Jonathan Liew justified the acts of hatred in The Guardian, describing Gail's opening as an act of "aggression" towards its Palestinian neighbour. (The Guardian has since redacted that phrase and others; the piece remains online.)

At The CJN, opinion editor Phoebe Maltz Bovy had reached out to prominent British Jewish writer Hadley Freeman to discuss Woody Allen's new novel, which she'd recently reviewed. But then the Gail's controversy came up, and they pivoted. This week, Freeman dissects the issue and explains how British progressive movements have evolved over the years—and, yes, they'll discuss Woody Allen, too.

Credits

  • Host: Phoebe Maltz Bovy
  • Producer and editor: Michael Fraiman
  • Music: " Gypsy Waltz " by Frank Freeman, licensed from the Independent Music Licensing Collective

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]]> no Mark Oppenheimer: Judy Blume's underappreciated role in the Jewish literary canon https://pinecast.com/guid/af561227-733f-4e06-9de5-ac414bbfc0e7 Tue, 10 Mar 2026 04:00:00 -0000 00:37:45 Judy Blume, the acclaimed author of young people's novels, saw resurged interest in her work in 2023. One of her most famous books, Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret, hit the big screen as an acclaimed feature-length film; that same year, Amazon released a documentary about her, Judy Blume Forever. Meanwhile, Mark Oppenheimer—a writer, podcaster, editor and teacher at the John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics—was asked by the author herself to write her biography.

Months after the Blume bonanza, Oct. 7 happened. And while this has little bearing on the public's appreciation of Blume work, The CJN's opinion editor, Phoebe Maltz Bovy, got to wondering: would the world be so excited about a Jewish writer (who writes openly Jewish characters) if her movies were slated for 2024 instead?

It's one of many questions Maltz Bovy asks Oppenheimer on this week's episode of The Jewish Angle, which hones in on Blume's role in the broader Jewish literary canon. Despite selling around 90 million copies of her books, and even after the revived interest in her work, Blume is rarely granted the same literary standing as her Jewish male contemporaries. But Oppenheimer's book, Judy Blume: A Life, which comes out March 10, may help to change that.

Credits

  • Host: Phoebe Maltz Bovy
  • Producer and editor: Michael Fraiman
  • Music: " Gypsy Waltz " by Frank Freeman, licensed from the Independent Music Licensing Collective

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]]> no Kat Rosenfield: Separating art from identity politics https://pinecast.com/guid/b71e3d61-16c7-4132-af95-4a40975ac527 Tue, 24 Feb 2026 05:00:00 -0000 00:30:12 Kat Rosenfield doesn't write Jewish fiction. Her forthcoming book, How to Survive in the Woods, is a thriller set in the wilderness of Maine—not very Jewish. But that hasn't stopped random internet users from noticing her surname and making the link, sometimes with prejudice.

The idea that an artist must be inextricably linked to their identity politics—and that Jews are inherently Zionists—is not exclusive to Rosenfield, though it is a topic she has touched on often, both as a columnist with The Free Press and as a podcaster on Feminine Chaos, alongside The CJN's own Phoebe Maltz Bovy. Now the podcasting duo is hopping onto The CJN's network to talk about the role of Jews in this neverending conversation, particularly in light of controversies in Canada and Australia. The Art Gallery of Ontario declined work by acclaimed Jewish photographer Nan Goldin because of her anti-Zionist (antisemitic?) views, while in the Southern Hemisphere, a literary festival in Adelaide, Australia, was forced to cancel its entire program after it retracted an invitation to a Palestinian author—sparking the cancellations of 180 other writers in solidarity.

What do we risk when art becomes stringently political, and institutions only accept art from certain people on certain sides of the political spectrum? Rosenfield joins to discuss.

Credits

  • Host: Phoebe Maltz Bovy

  • Producer and editor: Michael Fraiman

  • Music: " Gypsy Waltz " by Frank Freeman, licensed from the Independent Music Licensing Collective

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]]> no Jonathan Kay: The end of the era of antisemitism 'czars' https://pinecast.com/guid/83763f15-8644-419b-9cb3-2251dcf6110c Tue, 10 Feb 2026 05:00:00 -0000 00:30:06 Earlier this month, the federal Canadian government announced it would dissolve the offices of two anti-hate envoys: one for combatting antisemitism, and the other for combatting Islamophobia. In their place, the Heritage ministry said it would fold both into a new advisory council on equal rights reporting to the minister of cultural identity.

If you ask Jonathan Kay, an editor at Quillette and former columnist with The CJN, this is a good idea. It scraps offices—and excessive budgets—who were never equal to begin with, owing to the fact that only two minorities were represented. (What, no Special Envoy on Combatting Anti-Hindu Racism?) Further, Kay argues, these posts were vestiges of an old political world, the Justin Trudeau era of national repentance and bemoaning so-called "Canada" as nation founded upon racism and genocide. After the re-election of U.S. President Donald Trump, nationalism and civic pride have soared to new heights—and with it, a newfound sense of unity against a greater enemy.

Kay digs into the deep political history behind the rise and fall of anti-hate special envoys in the latest episode of The Jewish Angle with Phoebe Maltz Bovy.

Credits

  • Host: Phoebe Maltz Bovy
  • Producer and editor: Michael Fraiman
  • Music: " Gypsy Waltz " by Frank Freeman, licensed from the Independent Music Licensing Collective

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]]> no Becky Aizen: How the JAP stereotype shaped perceptions of Jewish women https://pinecast.com/guid/8188ae26-89e1-4f9d-905c-ba9dc70dfbe0 Tue, 27 Jan 2026 05:00:00 -0000 00:29:15 In Canada, Jewish girls seen as uppity and privileged have a nickname: the JAP, which stands for Jewish American Princess. Meanwhile, around the world, the stereotype persists, even if the name changes: spoiled Jewish girls have been called JPs and Becks in the U.K., or even Kugels in South Africa.

Having lingered for decades, the stereotype has shaped both how Jewish women are perceived by non-Jews and how many come to see themselves. It seeped into pop culture, embodying mid-1990s sitcom characters like Fran Fine and Janice from Friends, and has been reclaimed at times, like in Rachel Bloom's JAP rap battle. But is all this just dressing around an inherently misogynistic and antisemitic caricature?

Becky Aizen has thought intensely about this subject, having written her PhD on Jewish identity in pop culture and focusing largely on the JAP stereotype. She joins Phoebe Maltz Bovy on this week's episode of The Jewish Angle to dig into the messy history and modern-day implications of the phrase.

Credits

  • Host: Phoebe Maltz Bovy

  • Producer and editor: Michael Fraiman

  • Music: " Gypsy Waltz " by Frank Freeman, licensed from the Independent Music Licensing Collective

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]]> no Adam Louis-Klein: How anti-Zionism emerged as a modern ideology https://pinecast.com/guid/f93b6276-3124-4d42-aeef-bec01ae3dac5 Tue, 13 Jan 2026 05:00:00 -0000 00:30:08 Anti-Zionism is often presented as simply a political critique of Israel. But in reality, it frames Zionists as a hostile, genocidal group, while often collapsing Jews and Israelis into the same stereotype due to their support for the Jewish State. From that perspective, anti-Zionists can quickly fall into racist tropes against Israelis, flattening identities into caricatures and seeing scapegoating Israel in broadly conspiratorial ways.

The consequences ripple outward. Some anti-Zionists end up sidelining Muslim and Palestinian voices that don’t fit a rigid ideological script, diverting attention from corruption and repression elsewhere in the Middle East. It also reshapes identity politics, excluding Jews from multicultural events, and turning “Zionist” into a charged label that Jews are pressured either to renounce or wear as provocation.

On this week's episode of The Jewish Angle, Phoebe Maltz Bovy sits down with Adam Louis-Klein, a writer and academic currently completing his PhD in Anthropology at McGill University. He is the founder of the Movement Against Antizionism and a pundit who covers this topic in the media. As he explains, by creating an activist organization with academic roots, Louis-Klein is on a mission to help Zionists prepare responses to public anti-Zionist claims while reframing the discussion entirely.

Credits

  • Host: Phoebe Maltz Bovy

  • Producer and editor: Michael Fraiman

  • Music: " Gypsy Waltz " by Frank Freeman, licensed from the Independent Music Licensing Collective

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]]> no Lior Zaltzman: The evolution of Lena Dunham in Netflix's 'Too Much' https://pinecast.com/guid/3e0635d0-978f-4410-9e02-5b2b5e950874 Mon, 15 Dec 2025 13:00:00 -0000 00:30:34 Lena Dunham’s latest Netflix rom-com series, Too Much, hasn't gained much traction since debuting in July 2025. In November, Netflix announced it was not renewing the series for a second season; the following month, it was ignored at the Golden Globes, despite strong casting and clever writing from Dunham, the Jewish showrunner behind the seminal HBO shows Girls.

Nonetheless, The CJN's opinion editor, Phoebe Maltz Bovy, has high praise for the show, which sees a young Jewish woman (Megan Stalter) tumultuously break up with her Jewish boyfriend (Michael Zegen), only to take a job posting in London, U.K, where she gets to live out her Brit-com and Jane Austen fantasies with a new love interest (Will Sharpe).

The show is fast-paced and funny, and drew mostly positive reviews, with critics complaining that Dunham—who famously writes autobiographically navel-gazing characters—falls into her same old habits with her lead character. But if you ask Lior Zaltzman, the deputy managing editor at Kveller, Too Much is just right, hitting the right notes both in terms of Jewish representation and assertive female storytelling. Ahead of the winter holiday season, Zaltzman joins The Jewish Angle to explain why the short-lived series is worth binging over Hanukkah.

Credits

  • Host: Phoebe Maltz Bovy

  • Producer and editor: Michael Fraiman

  • Music: " Gypsy Waltz " by Frank Freeman, licensed from the Independent Music Licensing Collective

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]]> no Bagel Emoji: What an Orthodox Jew learned while living as Reform for a week https://pinecast.com/guid/ea50806c-b372-48db-9f07-df4d6c913786 Mon, 08 Dec 2025 16:08:06 -0000 00:21:25 In certain Orthodox Jewish circles, Reform Judaism is synonymous with far-left, queer, antifa-aligned eco-protesters—and, if your only information about such things comes from the internet, that perception may go unchallenged.

Jesse—who does not publicize his last name, but writes a Substack under the pseudonym "Bagel Emoji"—wanted to see things for himself. He decided to explore the denomination in more depth for a blog post that contextualizes Orthodox suspicions and breaks down real life in a Reform synagogue.

In his essay, "I spent a week as a Reform Jew, and this is what happened", Bagel Emoji (who says he lives between traditional and modern Orthodox) describes with an outsider's comedic eye the details many Reform Jews take for granted: the penchant for singing, the pink tallits, the old age of nearly every congregant.

He joins Phoebe Maltz Bovy to explain his weeklong immersion on this week's episode of The Jewish Angle.

Credits

  • Host: Phoebe Maltz Bovy

  • Producer and editor: Michael Fraiman

  • Music: " Gypsy Waltz " by Frank Freeman, licensed from the Independent Music Licensing Collective

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]]> no Arno Rosenfeld: Indiana University and the conservativization of Jewish Studies https://pinecast.com/guid/c7fa870d-894f-4b2d-b6ac-a4e0a30d1bea Mon, 01 Dec 2025 16:16:29 -0000 00:36:41 Indiana University’s Jewish Studies program was thrown into turmoil after the quiet removal of its longtime director, Holocaust historian Mark Roseman. In his place, the administration installed Günther Jikeli, a non-Jewish academic with a reputation for a more combative, pro-Israel posture.

Jikeli quickly attracted controversy, barring a student from using a "Free Palestine" avatar on Zoom and shunting a pro-Palestinian student into an “independent study” that morphed into a planned lecture titled “In the Mind of a Pro-Hamas Student”. Faculty and students saw it as a breach of basic academic ethics—a sign that personal politics were bleeding directly into pedagogy.

What’s playing out in Bloomington mirrors a broader reckoning across American campuses, where Jewish Studies programs are wrestling with questions of identity, ideology, and the edges of academic freedom. To explore this more, Phoebe Maltz Bovy is joined by Arno Rosenfeld, a reporter at the Forward who covered this story.

Credits

  • Host: Phoebe Maltz Bovy

  • Producer and editor: Michael Fraiman

  • Music: " Gypsy Waltz " by Frank Freeman, licensed from the Independent Music Licensing Collective

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]]> no Chaya Lauer: Let Jewish writers write about whatever they want https://pinecast.com/guid/4cde1c90-e2e3-4027-a1a5-5aa925e91205 Mon, 24 Nov 2025 17:00:00 -0000 00:31:50 Earlier this month, the New York Magazine cultural spinoff Vulture published an article by Andrew Ridker, "A New Jewish Plotline", asking whether Jewish writers should tackle different stories after what happened in Gaza—stop portraying themselves as victims, and address the fact that Jews are broadly affluent and powerful. But Phoebe Maltz Bovy questions the logic of this article, as it conflates broad critiques of American Jewry with literature.

To help unpack what it means to write Jewishly in a publishing world that often feels hostile to Jews, we're joined by Chaya Lauer, who brings a reader’s perspective to the debate and maps a lineage from Philip Roth to contemporary voices to show how Jewish literature is plural, not prescriptive. She pushes back on the idea that Jewish writers must answer for actions done “in their name,” calling out the dangerous stereotype of collective culpability.

Credits

  • Host: Phoebe Maltz Bovy

  • Producer and editor: Michael Fraiman

  • Music: " Gypsy Waltz " by Frank Freeman, licensed from the Independent Music Licensing Collective

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]]> no Josh Yunis: How Jewish leftists are navigating a Zohran Mamdani world https://pinecast.com/guid/8bdd1ed2-4a23-4aba-a399-a5c82a40540e Mon, 17 Nov 2025 20:20:51 -0000 00:28:07 Zohran Mamdani, while running to be mayor of New York City, initially refused to disavow the slogan “Globalize the Intifada”. Once he did eventually reverse course on that, it came off more as politically expedient than a genuine act of bridge-building or moral leadership.

That's how it struck Josh Yunis, a Jewish leftist who writes a Substack called The Diaspora. The incident felt part of a broader trend of alienation leftist Jews are feeling, finding themselves caught between right-wing ethnonationalism and left-wing selective empathy. This lack of principled universalism seems to justify Jewish skepticism, especially given historical precedents of anti-Zionism leading to Jewish marginalization.

Yunis joins Phoebe Maltz Bovy on the latest episode of The Jewish Angle to expand on these arguments and give a balanced take on what many try to paint as a black-and-white issue.

Credits

  • Host: Phoebe Maltz Bovy

  • Producer and editor: Michael Fraiman

  • Music: " Gypsy Waltz " by Frank Freeman, licensed from the Independent Music Licensing Collective

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]]> no Emily Tamkin: How Israel caused a 'civil war' within right-wing politics https://pinecast.com/guid/0922443d-ede8-40d0-a280-ec814a1cabb9 Tue, 11 Nov 2025 02:01:49 -0000 00:30:42 In the wake of Charlie Kirk's assassination, other right-wing commentators are pushing their way into a more mainstream spotlight. To that end, Tucker Carlson recently hosted Nick Fuentes, a Christian nationalist and Holocaust denier, consequently enraging American Republicans who felt that his sort of extremist voice should be kept outside of the party's public dialogue. But Carlson platformed Fuentes anyway, under the presense of Fuentes being a right-wing thinker who dares to go against the establishment and criticize Israel.

Writer Emily Tamkin believes that the two sides of the party have come at odds over Jews, Israel and antisemitism. One side, she argues, comfortably claims to fight against antisemitism—even while using antisemitic dog whistles—while the other side has simply taken the mask off entirely. That's an argument she makes in a [new column](https://forward.com/opinion/782002/nick-fuentes-tucker-carlson-heritage-foundation-antisemitism/) in Forward, "The fundamental miscalculation behind the GOP’s antisemitism crisis"—and also to Phoebe Maltz Bovy on this week's episode of The Jewish Angle.

Credits

  • Host: Phoebe Maltz Bovy
  • Producer and editor: Michael Fraiman
  • Music: "Gypsy Waltz" by Frank Freeman, licensed from the Independent Music Licensing Collective

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]]> no Lahav Harkov: What's life like in post-ceasefire Israel? https://pinecast.com/guid/3a804c71-56c7-41e9-819e-dc41d9c9fc8b Mon, 03 Nov 2025 21:15:00 -0000 00:33:05 Israelis breathed a collective sigh of relief after Israel and Hamas agreed to a ceasefire that included the return of the remaining hostages and and end to the fighting in Gaza. But the question remains: What comes next? What does the future look like for embattled Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu heading into next year's elections? How are Western political figures like U.S. President Trump perceived in the region after this fragile peace deal?

To get an inside view of life this month in the Holy Land, we bring on Lahav Harkov, a senior political correspondent for Jewish Insider and co-host of the Misgav Mideast Horizons podcast, who is based in Israel but writes for a Western audience. She sits down with Phoebe Maltz Bovy on The Jewish Angle for a discussion of Israeli political polling, Israeli views on Canada and what are the ramifications of a possible Zohran Mamdani mayoralty in New York City.

Credits

  • Host: Phoebe Maltz Bovy
  • Producer and editor: Michael Fraiman
  • Music: "Gypsy Waltz" by Frank Freeman, licensed from the Independent Music Licensing Collective

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]]> no David Polansky: Is free speech suddenly freer in Canada than the U.S.? https://pinecast.com/guid/a0eef999-a001-4a6e-af16-e35e2cc6f59c Thu, 30 Oct 2025 15:00:00 -0000 NOTE: Due to a technical error from our host server, this episode of The Jewish Angle did not release as scheduled in RSS feeds on Oct. 23. We are publishing it today instead. We apologize for anyone sincerely irritated by missing their weekly dose of Phoebe Maltz Bovy's opinion—but, hey, at least you get two this week.

The U.S. government has, in recent weeks, began cracking down on controversial speech within its borders—especially for non-citizens speaking out against Israel. It's a surprising turn of events for a country whose right to free speech has been codified into the First Amendment, putting into question whether the U.S. has fallen behind the rest of the Western world when it comes to speech protection.

But according to David Polansky, a political theorist and senior fellow with the Institute for Peace & Diplomacy, countries like Canada and the United Kingdom are still far more restrictive with their speech laws, cracking down on in-person and online hateful comments with legal force. Yet the 2020s are still being marked by what Polansky has dubbed the "woke right", whereby American right-wing activists and politicians are dictating what is permissible public speech, much like the "woke left" did years ago. And at the centre of this debate are Jews, Israel and Palestine.

Polansky explains more on this week's episode of The Jewish Angle.

Credits

  • Host: Phoebe Maltz Bovy
  • Producer and editor: Michael Fraiman
  • Music: "Gypsy Waltz" by Frank Freeman, licensed from the Independent Music Licensing Collective

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]]> no Ari Y. Kelman: Antisemitism will always exist. Why do some Jews believe otherwise? https://pinecast.com/guid/0c27245f-6ee0-498a-bc26-54119a4cd434 Mon, 27 Oct 2025 17:13:28 -0000 00:30:26 The Western world has never "defeated" bigotry in the way it hoped. Try as some might to stamp out racism in all its forms, there are still plenty of prejudices, from grade school hallways to the highest offices of government officials. Why would antisemitism be any different?

It's a question posed by Ari Y. Kelman, a professor at Stanford's Taube Center for Jewish Studies. In a recent article published in Arc magazine, titled "More Than Zero", Kelman argues that, in a post-Oct. 7 landscape, "Jews must be content to flourish with a certain amount of antisemitism" existing out there in the world, and that it is a fantasy to expect anti-Jewish hatred to be legislated or educated into submission.

Kelman joins Phoebe Maltz Bovy on The Jewish Angle to discuss his pragmatic essay, including the central question it poses: if we are to accept that antisemitism will forever exist, how much can we expect from a country like the United States? (Or, we might add, in Canada?)

Credits

  • Host: Phoebe Maltz Bovy
  • Producer and editor: Michael Fraiman
  • Music: "Gypsy Waltz" by Frank Freeman, licensed from the Independent Music Licensing Collective

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]]> no Emma Forrest wrote a seminal Jewish novel—and was quietly ghosted for it https://pinecast.com/guid/8a9b6b07-f261-4598-8115-f15073247e16 Mon, 06 Oct 2025 20:08:22 -0000 00:31:02 The latest novel by British author Emma Forrest, Father Figure, is arguably the greatest work of Jewish literature in decades—at least, that's according to The CJN's opinion editor, Phoebe Maltz Bovy, who gave a glowing review to the new release on Sept. 29.

But across the pond, the book has received a muted reaction. It hasn't been spotlit in any British book fairs; it's been largely ignored by domestic literary awards; professional friends who've helped promote, and even written forwards for, her past works have largely ignored this one.

What makes this latest book different? It is unmistakably, idiosyncratically Jewish. Combine that with the growing antisemitism that's erupted in the United Kingdom since Oct. 7—which culminated in a lethal terror attack in Manchester on Yom Kippur—and it's hard for Forrest not to think her apolitical work of fiction has suffered from her personal cultural identity and a broader political climate.

Forrest joins Maltz Bovy on the latest episode of The Jewish Angle to discuss her novel, along with its deep inception and quiet reception. Forrest describes the real-life inspirations behind her boarding school setting, including her own encounters with Harvey Weinstein how they influenced her characters, before discussing the recent tragedy in Manchester and how her country's small Jewish community is reacting.

Credits

  • Host: Phoebe Maltz Bovy
  • Producer and editor: Michael Fraiman
  • Music: "Gypsy Waltz" by Frank Freeman, licensed from the Independent Music Licensing Collective

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]]> no Michael Inzlicht: Quebec as a model for Canadian patriotism https://pinecast.com/guid/adc926df-999b-4d7b-8921-312923ed60c5 Mon, 29 Sep 2025 20:55:53 -0000 00:26:48 Canadian patriotism has surged since U.S. President Donald Trump took office and waged a trade war with his country's northern neighbour. But while this flavour of patriotism has largely manifested in opposition to the United States ("Elbows up," etc.), one Jewish social psychologist, neuroscientist and writer wonders if Canadians could change that perspective. What if, instead of defining itself as "not America", Canadian patriotism celebrated its culture and achievements on their own merits?

That's the thesis from Montreal-born Michael Inzlicht, who now teaches in the psychology department at the University of Toronto. Earlier this year, he wrote a post on his Substack, "How Quebec Taught Me to Love Canada", outlining how Canadian pride has, in a few short months, seemingly caught up to what Quebec has been doing for decades.

To discuss this shift—especially from a Jewish perspective—Inzlicht joins his neighbour in Toronto's Roncesvalles Village, Phoebe Maltz Bovy, for a discussion about the shift in politics and perception, from their own neighbourhood to the international border.

Credits

  • Host: Phoebe Maltz Bovy
  • Producer and editor: Michael Fraiman
  • Music: "Gypsy Waltz" by Frank Freeman, licensed from the Independent Music Licensing Collective

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]]> no Erin Beser: A Rosh Hashanah resolution to cut back shopping https://pinecast.com/guid/4c8e5dcb-2dc3-4328-8850-e737cd6ed1df Tue, 16 Sep 2025 20:45:36 -0000 00:28:50 You may have new year's resolutions. But do you have Jewish new year's resolutions? Erin Beser, a Jewish educator and rebbetzin, does one each year with her family—sometimes just for the year, sometimes forever.

First they gave up meat. Then they gave up screens. This year? Shopping—no more impulse buys, extra clothes or excessive gifts. In 5786, they're only buying what they need.

Beser drew attention to this cause by outlining her plan in a recent JTA article, in which she outlined the steps, logic and limits of paring down her family purchases. ("I’m not canceling Hanukkah," she writes, "because I am not a monster.") She hopes to guide her family toward community connection, self-reflection and appreciation for what one has, while learning about the role of Jewish women in the evolution of 20th-century capitalism. She joins Phoebe Maltz Bovy on The Jewish Angle to explain more.

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  • Host: Phoebe Maltz Bovy
  • Producer and editor: Michael Fraiman
  • Music: "Gypsy Waltz" by Frank Freeman, licensed from the Independent Music Licensing Collective

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]]> no Marsha Lederman: Finding the 'humanitarian middle' after Oct. 7 https://pinecast.com/guid/3be804fe-f383-4139-b524-1e5bb79cee70 Mon, 08 Sep 2025 21:11:15 -0000 00:28:02 In the immediate aftermath of Oct. 7, 2023, Marsha Lederman wasn't sure if she wanted to write about Hamas' historic terror attack for her regular column in the Globe and Mail. Should she recuse herself because she was Jewish, or because she had family in Israel? Did even she want to step into the minefield of publishing an opinion on Middle Eastern politics?

In the end, she did weigh in—repeatedly—and has just published a collection of those columns, October 7th: Searching for the Humanitarian Middle, published by Penguin Random House in Aug. 2025. In the book, she outlines her desire to carve out an apolitical centrist stance that balances her Zionist beliefs as the child of Holocaust survivors with her support for Palestinian human rights. It's a glimpse into the micro-eras of that fraught year, with opinions and perspectives shifting with every new report and revelation.

Lederman joins her fellow Globe and Mail columnist (who is also The CJN's opinion editor and podcaster) Phoebe Maltz Bovy for an in-depth discussion about the tightrope she walked in the opinion pages of a national newspaper.

Credits

  • Host: Phoebe Maltz Bovy
  • Producer and editor: Michael Fraiman
  • Music: "Gypsy Waltz" by Frank Freeman, licensed from the Independent Music Licensing Collective

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]]> no Meghan Daum: Essay-writing in the era of outrage https://pinecast.com/guid/28822ebb-a6ab-4fe6-b6f1-a67ecc9a897a Tue, 02 Sep 2025 16:31:40 -0000 00:29:29 What's the line between a personal essay and a hot take? Takes are written quickly, maybe flippantly, to latch onto a news hook. But essays are longer, more thoughtful and nearly impossible to write once a week.

Meghan Daum has done both. And her latest book, The Catastrophe Hour, compiles a selection of her essays from 2016-2023, touching on cultural issues and providing insight into her approach to essay writing, which eschews both moral authority and excessive self-deprecation.

Daum, who is not herself Jewish (but gets a title of "honourary Jew"), joins Phoebe Maltz Bovy for a discussion on opinion-writing, cultural representation and cancel culture and the value of being an "outlier" in today's cultural landscape.

Credits

  • Host: Phoebe Maltz Bovy
  • Producer and editor: Michael Fraiman
  • Music: "Gypsy Waltz" by Frank Freeman, licensed from the Independent Music Licensing Collective

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]]> no Sharon Waxman: Hollywood is horny and white. But is it still Jewish? https://pinecast.com/guid/650b61fe-d299-47ca-9563-f2a5a9239032 Mon, 25 Aug 2025 19:00:00 -0000 00:24:14 There has been a vibe shift in Hollywood over the last couple years. Conventionally attractive white people having sex have come back in favour (see: HBO's White Lotus and Netflix's The Hunting Wives); Caucasian celebrities are embracing their genetics (Sydney Sweeney's genes); and studios continue capitalizing on 1990s nostalgia, bringing back classics like Basic Instinct and Sex and the City.

It all comes at the expense of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives of the last decade, especially in film and television, which have staunchly embraced minority groups' stories. Many Disney/Pixar, Marvel, Netflix, HBO and Amazon projects have since platformed Black, Indigenous and Asian heroes. (Jews were early beneficiaries of this trend, but that fizzled out in the 2020s.)

Now, in keeping with the political return of Donald Trump, studios are swinging back in the opposite direction, focusing on white-centric stories. Creators like Mike White and the South Park team are openly rejecting "wokeism". And Jewish stories—never fully a minority group, neither fully white—are, as usual, caught in the middle.

Sharon Waxman, the founder and CEO of TheWrap, recently wrote about the broader trend for the New York Times, and joins Phoebe on The Jewish Angle to discuss her piece and the ongoing changes happening in pop culture and politics.

Credits

  • Host: Phoebe Maltz Bovy
  • Producer and editor: Michael Fraiman
  • Music: "Gypsy Waltz" by Frank Freeman, licensed from the Independent Music Licensing Collective

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]]> no Joel Swanson: The Dreyfus affair, Clermont-Tonnerre, and other historical French analogies to better understand Trump and the Jews https://pinecast.com/guid/99753938-f469-4f77-aeda-23c01243cee1 Mon, 18 Aug 2025 19:38:57 -0000 00:28:42 In medieval and early modern Europe, the Christian ruling class enjoyed the banking services of what were known as "court Jews"—Jewish people acting as financiers in exchange for temporary protection, even while other Jews faced scrutiny and persecution. This protection, however, was never secured; if fortunes changed, they could easily become political and societal scapegoats.

This analogy proves useful for viewing how modern-day Republicans view the Jewish public, according to Joel Swanson, a scholar of modern Jewish intellectual history at Sarah Lawrence College in Yonkers, NY. In Swanson's view, while President Donald Trump's administration is cracking down on diversity and inclusion initiatives across the country, Jewish Americans are receiving special protection and treatment—but how long until the tide changes? He touches on this and more in his latest article on Slate, "What Are We Allowed to Say? How Trump’s Department of Education has made it harder for me to teach Jewish Studies".

On this week's episode of The Jewish Angle, Swanson joins Phoebe Maltz Bovy to get nerdy about European Jewish history and reflect on the lessons we can learn about Jews' modern-day place in North American society.

Credits

  • Host: Phoebe Maltz Bovy
  • Producer and editor: Michael Fraiman
  • Music: "Gypsy Waltz" by Frank Freeman, licensed from the Independent Music Licensing Collective

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]]> no Joanna Rakoff: Floral fashions and MAGA momfluencers https://pinecast.com/guid/14beaea2-cb79-4b02-81ff-fa4f9de506e4 Thu, 07 Aug 2025 08:00:00 -0000 00:35:56 The host of this show, Phoebe Maltz Bovy, likes to wear floral dresses. So does her guest, author Joanna Rakoff. But while these two women are fans of floral fashions, they are not MAGA supporters or "momfluencers"—a note that must be clarified for anyone following the political battleground that has erupted around this fashion trend.

In this episode of The Jewish Angle, we unpack the cultural tapestry of floral dresses, weaving together threads of personal experience, fashion history and political implications, from Laura Ashley's pastoral prints to Batsheva Hay's modern reinterpretations. As floral patterns become entangled with right-wing aesthetics and "tradwife" culture, Bovy and Rakoff navigate the shifting landscape where fashion choices carry unexpected political weight.

Credits

  • Host: Phoebe Maltz Bovy
  • Producer and editor: Michael Fraiman
  • Music: "Gypsy Waltz" by Frank Freeman, licensed from the Independent Music Licensing Collective

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]]> no Avi Finegold: Is it lashon hara to make fun of the Coldplay Jumbotron couple? https://pinecast.com/guid/d2cb8af9-e129-436e-a535-e97b037172d4 Mon, 28 Jul 2025 15:41:47 -0000 00:34:57 To our knowledge, neither the now-former CEO of tech company Astronomer, nor the company's now-former head of HR, are Jewish. The secretive couple—who were having an affair that was famously caught by a videographer behind the Jumbotron of a Coldplay concert—instantly became a viral sensation, sparking waves of ridicule and resulting in their departure from the company.

But The Jewish Angle podcast host Phoebe Maltz Bovy had to ask: is it lashon hara to speak of these people behind their backs? So she asked The CJN's resident rabbi, Avi Finegold, to shed light on the situation. It's not quite lashon hara if the secret has been put out in the open by a Jumbotron, but that doesn't quash the ick factor from giddily discussing people's personal lives on social media. Plus: why wasn't this seen as a #MeToo echo, given the power imbalance between the CEO and lower-level female employee?

Credits

  • Host: Phoebe Maltz Bovy
  • Producer and editor: Michael Fraiman
  • Music: "Gypsy Waltz" by Frank Freeman, licensed from the Independent Music Licensing Collective

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]]> no Gabby Deutch: The MAGA rift https://pinecast.com/guid/491f8e51-5e96-428c-86c8-c704cf039cc5 Tue, 22 Jul 2025 18:21:15 -0000 00:27:56 When U.S. President Donald Trump re-ran for the presidency in 2024, American voters elected him on the premise that he would mark a shift from 2000s-era neoconservatism and keep the U.S. out of foreign wars. Americans on the political left, along with an increasing number on the right, did not think American interventionism worked throughout the 20th and early 21st centuries, and felt these foreign conflicts were costly and did not always help American interests.

Then, this year, Trump ordered American troops to drop missiles on Iran. And some in the president's inner circle, according to journalist Gabby Deutch of Jewish Insider, said to themselves: "This is the Trump we knew all along."

The attack on Iran exposed a small but growing rift within the Republican party, wherein Israel sits squarely in the middle. Should the U.S. be interventionist or not? And what makes Israel the exception to any rule? Deutch, a senior Washington correspondent, joins Phoebe Maltz Bovy on The Jewish Angle to explain.

Credits

  • Host: Phoebe Maltz Bovy
  • Producer and editor: Michael Fraiman
  • Music: "Gypsy Waltz" by Frank Freeman, licensed from the Independent Music Licensing Collective

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]]> no Michael Kaminer: The shifting tide of trendy Jewish food https://pinecast.com/guid/44c85c63-7f2f-4c38-a7f1-db19c211ef16 Mon, 14 Jul 2025 19:08:49 -0000 00:36:28 Ashkenazi food—until recently relegated to the joke pile of ethnic foods, unavoidably beige and full of fat—is undergoing a surprising revival. From karnatzel to kasha, traditional dishes once associated with bubbe's kitchen are now finding their way onto trendy urban menus, sparking an unexpected culinary renaissance that's as much about cultural reconnection as it is about gastronomic indulgence.

That's the topic of an article written by journalist Michael Kaminer, headlined "Toronto chefs put a new twist on the old Jewish classics", recently published in The CJN. In it, Kaminer offers insights into this culinary trend, interviewing young Jewish chefs who are marking a professional return to their Ashkenazi roots. It marks a departure from popular Jewish food of the last few decades, which often skewed toward healthier Israeli restaurants—themselves often broadened as "Middle Eastern" or "Mediterranean". But a newfound wave of Jewish nostalgia, cultural reappropriation and the apolitical joy of comfort food have swung open the kitchen door back to blintzes and babka.

Kaminer joins Phoebe Maltz Bovy to discuss the trend and the possible politics underpinning it, including chefs' own reactions to embracing their Jewish heritage in an era of newfound antisemitism.

Credits

  • Host: Phoebe Maltz Bovy
  • Producer and editor: Michael Fraiman
  • Music: "Gypsy Waltz" by Frank Freeman, licensed from the Independent Music Licensing Collective

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]]> no David Weinfeld: Trump vs. Harvard and the managerial class https://pinecast.com/guid/ce72dd19-fa06-4c5f-9d55-6ef4aef6f874 Mon, 07 Jul 2025 19:14:24 -0000 00:32:52 On June 30, a task force set up by the U.S. federal government, aimed at combatting antisemitism, published an open letter to Harvard University. "Harvard University is in violent violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, and national origin," the letter alleges. "The enclosed Notice of Violation details the findings of fact supporting a conclusion that Harvard has been in some cases deliberately indifferent, and in others has been a willful participant in anti-Semitic harassment of Jewish students, faculty, and staff."

The letter continues to outline the task force's findings, including that a majority of Jewish students feel unsafe; Jewish and Israeli students have been physically assaulted; and antisemitic imagery and slogans have been prominent on campus. The letter concludes by stating that failure to adequately change Harvard's culture "will result in the loss of all federal financial resources". The university, meanwhile, has told reporters that it "is far from indifferent on this issue and strongly disagrees with the government's findings."

So how much of this has to do with Jews, really? And how much is President Donald Trump's administration simply taking aim at left-leaning, Democratic-aligned instutitions?

David Weinfeld—a Harvard alumnus, former columnist with The CJN and current associate professor of world religions at Rowan University—joins Phoebe Maltz Bovy on The Jewish Angle to analyze the issue, and how the university's symbolic status makes it an ideal focal point for a larger assault on America's higher education system.

Credits

  • Host: Phoebe Maltz Bovy
  • Producer and editor: Michael Fraiman
  • Music: "Gypsy Waltz" by Frank Freeman, licensed from the Independent Music Licensing Collective

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]]> no Aryeh Cohen-Wade: Zohran Mamdani's mayoral win marks a turning point for New York politics https://pinecast.com/guid/912b0f12-0315-493e-b9bf-9d55a50c062f Mon, 30 Jun 2025 15:11:55 -0000 00:36:22 When Zohran Mamdani announced his candidacy for mayor of New York City in late 2024, he flew under the radar of voters and critics. But as his campaign gained steam—notably for arguably radical proposals such as free bus fares, municipally owned grocery stores, and a $30 minimum wage—he wound up overtaking his chief rival, Andrew Cuomo, the former governor of New York, and winning the Democratic candidacy for an election that will take place Nov. 4, 2025.

Some of New York City's Jews started to fret. Mamdani, a 33-year-old democratic socialist, is a vocal ally of Palestinians and a critic of Israel, promising to arrest Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he were to visit the city, as per the International Criminal Court's arrest warrants for the Israeli leader.

On this week's episode of The Jewish Angle, Phoebe Maltz Bovy—who grew up in Manhattan—speaks to Aryeh Cohen-Wade, an opinion editor at The Hill, to unpack Mamdani's background, from his college days as a co-founder of his campus's chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine to his role as a state assemblyman. They examine how his youth, charisma and progressive policies have inspired voters—while angering others—and whether a Mamdani mayoralty could herald a new era of Muslim-Jewish solidarity in the face of rising right-wing authoritarianism.

Credits

  • Host: Phoebe Maltz Bovy
  • Producer and editor: Michael Fraiman
  • Music: "Gypsy Waltz" by Frank Freeman, licensed from the Independent Music Licensing Collective

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]]> no Hadley Freeman: Can we not have nuance in the Israel-Palestine conversation? https://pinecast.com/guid/a6f7e343-c236-43ef-9638-c96a5e86327c Mon, 23 Jun 2025 19:33:33 -0000 00:31:42 Hadley Freeman often goes back and forth, in her head, about Israel and Palestine. One the one hand, Israel has killed more than 57,000 Gazans; on the other hand, can you trust those figures when they come from Hamas? But what other number can you trust, if Israel refuses to allow in international reporters? Then again, can you even trust outsider news media anyway, or are they blatantly biased?

And on, and on.

This internal dialogue formed the basis for a compelling new article she wrote in The Times in the U.K, entitled, "A conversation every Jew I know is having". In it, Freeman quickly unpacks the inherent nuance and historical lens that Jewish onlookers—especially in the Diaspora—bring to a conversation dominated by loud, reductive activists.

Freeman returns to The CJN Podcasts to discuss this piece, making the internal debates external, with Phoebe Maltz Bovy on The Jewish Angle.

Credits

  • Host: Phoebe Maltz Bovy
  • Producer and editor: Michael Fraiman
  • Music: "Gypsy Waltz" by Frank Freeman, licensed from the Independent Music Licensing Collective

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]]> no Ellie Avishai: Cancelled to the left of me, cancelled by the right https://pinecast.com/guid/eb129b0d-e132-4ed7-8a87-1b0b71395373 Mon, 16 Jun 2025 19:22:39 -0000 00:35:04 On Mar. 3, Ellie Avishai hopped on a call with a senior colleague from the University of Austin in Texas. She was shocked when the colleague informed her a recent LinkedIn post of hers—an anodyne post of maybe 100 words, mostly a quotation and congratulation, which she had not given much thought to previously—had gotten her into big trouble with a university funder. In her post, which dealt with diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs, she wrote that "we can have criticisms of DEI without wanting to tear down the whole concept of diversity and inclusion."

That ran contrary to some higher-ups at the university. They tore up their contract with Avishai's educational organization, the Mill Institute, severing ties with Avishai and her team the very day she got the call.

Avishai, who lives in Toronto, recently published an account of this in Quilette, which brought its own wave of flak online—did she not know the UATX, whose website says they "champion academic freedom," was right-wing coded? That she would have to toe a line that pleases its ideological backers? But as Avishai explains to The CJN's opinion editor, Phoebe Maltz Bovy, on The Jewish Angle, the idea of advocating a hardline political stance in a classroom is entirely antithetical to the Mill Institute's vision of education.

Credits

  • Host: Phoebe Maltz Bovy
  • Producer and editor: Michael Fraiman
  • Music: "Gypsy Waltz" by Frank Freeman, licensed from the Independent Music Licensing Collective

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]]> no Eric Alterman: A civil war is tearing apart Western Jewry https://pinecast.com/guid/ce84f785-e83a-4468-b34d-5b1828edfe9b Mon, 09 Jun 2025 19:06:44 -0000 00:36:06 The mainstream North American Jewish Diaspora is at a crossroads. Down one path lies U.S. President Donald Trump, American Evangelicals and legacy Jewish organizations like the Anti-Defamation League and American Israel Public Affairs Committee, staunchly defending Israel to the general public; down the other, small-L liberal Jews find themselves awkwardly situated between arguing for Israel's right to exist while not endorsing the government's actions, and lacking significant fundraising capabilities to plea their case more broadly.

In some ways, this schism is reminiscent of the early days of Zionism itself, where politics and money influence public opinion and government action—and each sends followers toward starkly different outcomes. Steering the dialogue are campus protesters, like those at Columbia University, and President Trump, who uses antisemitism as a veil for deportations and crackdowns against liberal higher-education. This divide threatens to reshape the political identity of the United States, undermining its long-held commitment to liberal democracy.

That's the takeaway of a recent article, "The Coming Jewish Civil War Over Donald Trump", published in The New Republic by Eric Alterman, a distinguished professor of English and journalism at the City University of New York. Alterman joins Phoebe Maltz Bovy on The Jewish Angle to discuss this pivotal political moment and what comes next.

Credits

  • Host: Phoebe Maltz Bovy
  • Producer and editor: Michael Fraiman
  • Music: "Gypsy Waltz" by Frank Freeman, licensed from the Independent Music Licensing Collective

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]]> no David Schraub: Trump's anti-Harvard tirade has nothing to do with antisemitism https://pinecast.com/guid/d60a85a4-e786-4eb8-afba-21ef4ef9b943 Mon, 26 May 2025 18:15:44 -0000 00:32:37 Last week, U.S. President Donald Trump tried to revoke Harvard University's ability to enroll international students—a move that was soon blocked by a federal judge. So, instead, on May 26, Trump floated the idea of taking US$3 billion of grant money, earmarked for Harvard's scientific and engineering research deemed of national importance, and rerouting it to trade schools.

Nevermind the logistics—the Republican president has waged an all-out war on Ivy League education, and Jews are, once again, caught in the middle. The head of the Department of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, has said the White House is "holding Harvard accountable for fostering violence, antisemitism, and coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party on its campus."

But if you ask American Jewish academics, they'll tell you the "fighting antisemitism" argument is a smokescreen to advance a different political agenda. "I don't think the Trump administration's response to it is anything other than a fig leaf for its attempt to crack down on the university writ large," says David Schraub, an associate professor at the Lewis & Clark Law School in Portland, Oregon, on this week's episode of The Jewish Angle. "We see that because when antisemitism, for whatever reason, isn't available to them as a talking point on the given campus, they just switch to something else. The consistent point is the crackdown, and the justification comes and goes."

Listen to this week's episode for more on how Jews are finding themselves used as pawns in a wider political struggle on modern American campuses.

Credits

  • Host: Phoebe Maltz Bovy
  • Producer and editor: Michael Fraiman
  • Music: "Gypsy Waltz" by Frank Freeman, licensed from the Independent Music Licensing Collective

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]]> no Jacob Silverman: The internet has become an alienating place https://pinecast.com/guid/b862d121-ffb6-4a8a-9b76-47cb813173c2 Tue, 20 May 2025 00:55:31 -0000 00:28:28 Over the last year, odds are good that you've seen what's been dubbed "AI slop"—unhinged, nonsensical "art" generated by artificial intelligence tools. Maybe you've seen a bizarre cinematic animated mini-movie on Facebook, surreal pseudo-photographs on Instagram, or propagandistic images on what was once known as Twitter, now X. After seeing enough of this, a realization dawned on Jacob Silverman, a journalist in New York who covers technology and politics: if it's machines making this art, and bots who are showering them with likes, where do humans fit in?

The answer is that actual living people are being squeezed out of what Silverman has, in a recent Financial Times article, deemed the "hostile internet". Elon Musk's X will sell advertisements, and authority, to absolutely anyone; AI-powered chatbots are worryingly easy to manipulate; and it has never been easier for people suffering from mental illness to find positive reinforcement of their ideas, both from distant humans and AI. None of this is to the betterment of humanity.

Silverman joins Phoebe Maltz Bovy on The Jewish Angle to discuss these trends of digital devolution, and how we can navigate these murky waters on a sinking ship.

Credits

  • Host: Phoebe Maltz Bovy
  • Producer and editor: Michael Fraiman
  • Music: "Gypsy Waltz" by Frank Freeman, licensed from the Independent Music Licensing Collective

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]]> no Yoel Inbar: DEI was not designed for the fallout from Oct. 7 https://pinecast.com/guid/44d787e5-0136-4671-9655-05038484125d Tue, 13 May 2025 14:53:34 -0000 00:31:03 Yoel Inbar rose to prominence in the fall of 2023, when he was in the process of getting hired at the University of California, Los Angeles. He didn't end up getting the job—and it was transparently about a podcast episode he'd recorded a year earlier, in which he criticized "diversity statements". The mandated letters have become part of the academic hiring process, page-long essays explaining how the candidate would contribute to campus diversity. Inbar wrote one for UCLA—and has been involved in hiring processes, finding them useful tools—but has been outspoken of the concept as a blanket rule, along with the broader scope of diversity, equtity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives.

Now an associate professor of psychology at the University of Toronto, Inbar studies morality and judgments, particularly with respect to belief systems, political ideologies and social attitudes. While his flare-up with UCLA happened before Hamas's attack on Oct. 7, he has since followed closely how poorly designed DEI programs are for adhering to students with differing views on political and social issues—like the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Inbar sat down with Phoebe Maltz Bovy to share his story and discuss how the campus atmosphere has shifted for Jewish students and faculty in the last two years.

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Credits

  • Host: Phoebe Maltz Bovy
  • Producer and editor: Michael Fraiman
  • Music: "Gypsy Waltz" by Frank Freeman, licensed from the Independent Music Licensing Collective

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]]> no Leigh Stein on the bygone days of girl-boss social media https://pinecast.com/guid/4ea4a7d5-a607-4760-b01d-6f4ae4cd15da Mon, 05 May 2025 16:57:15 -0000 00:33:10 This month, the Federal Trade Commission in the United States finally brought a long-awaited antitrust court case against Meta, the company that owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. The FTC is arguing that Meta has a monopoly on the social networking space, which has squandered competition in the market. Critics point out that this might have been the case a decade ago, before TikTok entered the scene, but is simply no longer true.

That Facebook no longer has a monopoly on digital friend networks is not the only erstwhile stereotype about social media. In the bygone era before "President Trump" was a real thing, social media was a land of promise and opportunity, filled with "girl boss" memes and alleged commitments to social capitalism. But in the years since, much of that naive whimsy has flown out the window, and nobody believes the tech giants are anything but capitalist overlords.

A similar awakening strikes the main character of Self Care, a satirical novel by Leigh Stein that came out in 2020, which focuses on the virtue signalling of a fictional tech company. With Meta in the spotlight again, and with The CJN's opinion editor, Phoebe Maltz Bovy, having recently read Sarah Wynn-Williams's Careless People (which is, in essence, the real-life memoir version of Stein's novel), we wanted to bring Stein on to discuss the slow evolution of social media between the two Trump administrations and what we can learn about the ways in which social media manipulates our beliefs and emotions in an effort to keep us endlessly scrolling on.

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Credits

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

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]]> no Jewish voting patterns explained, feat. David Polansky https://pinecast.com/guid/283ec7c6-5552-40c2-9ffa-978ceb9fd126 Tue, 29 Apr 2025 08:00:00 -0000 00:28:53 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.

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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

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]]> no Emily Tamkin on a politically divided American Jewry https://pinecast.com/guid/a7c44f79-ea2a-4693-96fe-7bd76a61f9b7 Mon, 21 Apr 2025 18:27:04 -0000 00:32:40 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.

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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

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]]> no Trailer: The Jewish Angle with Phoebe Maltz Bovy https://pinecast.com/guid/c6669e0a-e4b1-40ff-b3c8-f80ee48b972b Mon, 31 Mar 2025 20:28:59 -0000 00:01:12 no trailer