Advertise on podcast: The Jewish Angle

In early October, Jesse Brown—founder of one of Canada's most recognized independent podcast networks, Canadaland—abruptly announced that he "fired" himself as the host of his flagship program. But for those watching how Jesse has presented himself publicly since Oct. 7, 2023, his stepping away from the Canadaland microphone isn't exactly surprising. He's shifted away from his hallmark Canadian media criticism and begun focusing almost entirely on the rise of global antisemitism and what he calls the "social contagion" of pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel movements. That obsession has led him to realize he's distracted from his current job and needs a reset. He joins Phoebe Maltz Bovy on this week's episode of The Jewish Angle to shed some light on his decision and the broader social issues at play. Credits Host: Phoebe Maltz Bovy Producer and editor: Michael Fraiman 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)

After the federal Canadian government quietly adjusted its public-facing language to include anti-Zionism as a form of antisemitism, Britain’s Green Party took the opposite route: they formally adopted a policy declaring Zionism as racism. The decision has caused a loud rift within the party, with the Jewish Greens chair openly mulling over whether she'd leave the party over this, party leader Zack Polanski—who is also Jewish—said the policy wouldn't be reviewed until 2028. His personal approval rating has plummeted to negative 36. Daniel Sugarman, deputy editor of Jewish News in the United Kingdom, has been watching this political trainwreck unfold in real time. He joins Phoebe Maltz Bovy to trace how the Greens got to this point, including how an influx of Corbyn-era Labour activists fled their party, and the legacy of the 1936 Battle of Cable Street. Credits Host: Phoebe Maltz Bovy Producer and editor: Michael Fraiman 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)

Rachel “Archie” Matlow spent years feeling more at home in Toronto’s queer, progressive left than in organized Jewish life. They're trans, didn't fit in at Jewish summer camp, and ultimately found refuge among their fellow left-wing creatives, podcasters and journalists. But after Oct. 7, 2023, things started to change. Years of confusion, soul-searching, political research and social isolation led them to write an expansive essay in the Globe and Mail in September 2026, titled, "Jew-hatred has never stopped evolving. Antizionism is its latest iteration". Appearing on The Jewish Angle with Phoebe Maltz Bovy, Matlow explains that, starting after Oct. 7, they began recognizing forms of antisemitism they had not previously known how to name—why wasn't "Jewish" an identity option on arts grants?—which seemed conspicuous in spaces that considered themselves anti-racist. But the more Matlow would try and engage their friends in conversation, the more they were shut down: they had "work" they needed to do, or their media diet was skewing too right-wing, or they were suddenly "problematic". For a group that loves to break the gender binary, they joke, when it comes to Israel-Palestine, morality is completely binary. Credits Host: Phoebe Maltz Bovy Producer and editor: Michael Fraiman 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)

Before Nazi Germany invaded France, Catholic leaders had publicly condemned racist ideology. Jews felt reassured by this, and the fact that they enjoyed deep roots in the republic and reason to believe their institutions would defend them from the Nazis. Under Vichy, that confidence became misguided: bishops offered sympathy in private, but the Church often remained publicly silent as anti-Jewish laws hardened and deportations began. Aliza Luft, a Montreal-born sociologist, joins Phoebe Maltz Bovy to discuss her findings about this difficult Jewish-Catholic relationship in her new book, Sacred Betrayal: How the French Catholic Church Broke Its Pledge to Protect Jews During the Holocaust. They unpack how French Jewish leaders navigated assimilation, patriotism and the divide between long-established French Jews and more recent Jewish immigrants; how bishops balanced moral claims against institutional interests; and why reassurances from clergy and Vichy officials could make the threat harder to read. Credits Host: Phoebe Maltz Bovy Producer and editor: Michael Fraiman 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)

Over the summer, New York Magazine’s “Habibi City” issue set out to celebrate the city’s SWANA scene— Southwest Asia and North Africa, a term meant to replace "Middle East". But to David Polansky, a political theorist and writer living in Toronto, the whole piece read more like a hyper-online obituary for Jewish New York. On this episode of The Jewish Angle, Polansky joins host Phoebe Maltz Bovy to discuss this needlessly controversial article and the foodie politics surrounding it. In the broader context, the United States is the only country in the world, outside of Israel, where Jews still outnumber Muslims; that will almost certainly change over the next two decades. Should Jewish Americans be worried about their culture being shunted aside as a result of widespread anti-Zionist public sentiment? Credits Host: Phoebe Maltz Bovy Producer and editor: Michael Fraiman 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)

Back in April, bestselling author Meg Keene came on The Jewish Angle—with some reluctance—to talk about what she saw as a growing problem for Jewish writers in mainstream publishing. She spoke about being quietly pressured from agents, publishers and industry insiders to change Jewish characters' names and hide Israeli backgrounds or connections. But rather than be excommunicated from the publishing world, her inbox filled up with messages from writers and publishers in the same situation. She's since worked with the Anti-Defamation League and an offer from the publishers at Wicked Son to start her own imprint, Meg Keene Books. Now Keene is on a mission to publish around four Jewish fiction books over the next year, from romance to thriller. As she tells Phoebe Maltz Bovy on the latest episode of The Jewish Angle, the calibre of submissions landing in her inbox has convinced her that quality of the supply isn't the issue; she just hopes the demand is there, too. Credits Host: Phoebe Maltz Bovy Producer and editor: Michael Fraiman 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)

Between 2018 and 2022, Marnie Salsky travelled around Toronto, taking photographs of her Jewish community. The project was meant to capture the diversity and reality of Jewish life in a rapidly changing world. But then Hamas terrorists attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and the entire tenor of her project shifted. She continued snapping photos, but this time captured images of police guarding synagogues, anti-Israel posters around her neighbourhood and defiant Jewish community members showing their pride. The final book project, A Peoplehood | Amiut Yehudi, was released June 2026. Salsky now joins Phoebe Maltz Bovy on The Jewish Angle to discuss why the work and her sensitive editorial decisions, including why she left interview subjects anonymous, how photographs of ordinary Jewish life sit alongside images of security and hostility, and how creatives can make Jewish art about anything other than antisemitism in a post-Oct. 7 world. Credits Host: Phoebe Maltz Bovy Producer and editor: Michael Fraiman 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)

In a move the editor certainly knew would be unpopular among the organization's core audience, PEN America, earlier this month, published an article about the isolation and exclusion of Jewish and Israeli writers. Shortly afterwards, the organization's president resigned, and PEN America issued a statement standing by the piece while reminding everyone that it has also repeatedly condemned Israel—a sequence of events that likely pleased no one. Being ostricized from the publishing world is familiar territory for Toronto writer and cultural critic Hal Niedzviecki, the founding editor of Broken Pencil, a Canadian magazine about zines. After Niedzviecki faced repeated threats of boycotts unless he condemned Israel, he shut down Broken Pencil entirely in 2024. He now joins Phoebe Maltz Bovy to discuss how the publishing industry has imposed a not-so-silent moratorium on Jewish writers, and what the possible solutions are, including kickstarting a new community-driven grant. Credits Host: Phoebe Maltz Bovy Producer and editor: Michael Fraiman 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) https://pnc.st/s/jewish-angle

Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner was, for a moment, a Democratic golden boy—an oyster farmer and Marine veteran whose rough-hewn authenticity thrilled progressive strategists. Then came the Reddit posts, the Nazi-linked chest tattoo he claimed not to understand, and finally the rape allegation that collapsed his campaign. But what does it say that a Nazi tattoo and edgelord posting weren't disqualifying, while an accusation of sexual misconduct was? Arno Rosenfeld, who covers antisemitism for the Forward (but is soon joining Haaretz as its Washington correspondent), joins Phoebe Maltz Bovy to unpack the strange dynamics of the Platner saga: how anti-Israel positioning became a permission slip to wave away scandal, why he became the target of two mutually exclusive antisemitic conspiracy theories at once, how "authenticity" got tangled up with a certain kind of white male gentileness, and what Platner's rise and fall reveals about antisemitism's shifting place in the Democratic Party—and whether it's still disqualifying at all. Credits Host: Phoebe Maltz Bovy Producer and editor: Michael Fraiman 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

In May, The CJN's opinion editor, Phoebe Maltz Bovy, published her latest book, The Last Straight Woman. One of the most incisive reviews (from a Jewish writer, no less) was Virginia Karnstein, a PhD candidate whose research crosses feminism, antisemitism and vampires—and, sometimes, the middle of that unique Venn diagram. The Last Straight Woman does not focus on vampires, but it does look at the evolution of feminism and its intersection with sexual orientation and gender identity. So we invited Karnstein onto The Jewish Angle podcast to discuss Maltz Bovy's book, the history of second- and third-wave feminism, separatism, MeToo, tradwives, femcels, the changing cultural status of heterosexual women... and a little bit of vampirism. Credits Host: Phoebe Maltz Bovy Producer and editor: Michael Fraiman 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

For decades, Jewish women played a central role in building feminist movements, shaping ideas about equality, activism, and social justice. Yet as of the last 30 years, they find themselves cast as symbols of privilege, whiteness, and oppression within the very spaces they helped create. How did that happen? Writer and scholar Kara Jesella joins Phoebe Maltz Bovy to discuss her new book, Feminist Antisemitism: An Intellectual History. They explore the evolution of feminist theory, the rise of identity politics and queer theory, the emergence of the “as a Jew” phenomenon, and the ways Jewish women became uniquely positioned within debates over race, power, Zionism, and belonging. The conversation traces a decades-long intellectual history that helps explain some of today's fiercest conflicts over Jewish identity, feminism, and Israel. Credits Host: Phoebe Maltz Bovy Producer and editor: Michael Fraiman 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

As the Western world grows more hostile to Jewish life—as exemplified by rising attacks on synagogues and Jewish schools, bullying and boycotts—one would think this strengthens the case for Israel's right to exist as a safe homeland for Jews. But Israel's existence, many anti-Zionists argue, is the very reason for so much antisemitism right now. On the flip side, several of those same anti-Zionists wish for Israel to disappear. But then where would the Israeli diaspora go? To the Western world—where they would open up Israeli stores that one can imagine being continued targets of protests and graffiti. These paradoxes have no easy answer. But for writer Josh Yunis, they raise the question of what it means to centre—or deliberately decentre—Israel in contemporary Jewish life. As he writes in a recent article, "On Collective Jewish Guilt", debates over Zionism, diaspora identity, and progressive politics are intensifying while many Jews feel increasingly alienated from leftist movements that once promised solidarity. Yunis joins Phoebe Maltz Bovy on the latest episode of The Jewish Angle to explain more. Credits Host: Phoebe Maltz Bovy Producer and editor: Michael Fraiman 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

Hasan Piker, a left-wing provocateur with millions of digital subscribers, injected himself back into the news cycle after appearing alongside writer Jia Tolentino to discuss the ethics of stealing food from big-box grocery stores in the New York Times. Those who keep tabs on the world's most vocal anti-Zionists will recognize Piker's name—he's been called out by the ADL and other Jewish activists for veering into flippant antisemitism, including calling Orthodox Jews "inbred" and calling Zionism a "mental illness". Due to these and other extreme positions, mainstream Jewish organizations would like to silence, or deplatform, Piker in much the same way that extreme right-wing internet activists have been. (See: Nick Fuentes, Alex Jones, et al.) But there's a problem: Hasan Piker isn't just popular, he's becoming mainstream. He has been featured in the New York Times several times before this shoplifting conversation, and he's beginning to join politicians who are soliciting his assistance on the campaign trail. This is more than just millions of subscribers on Twitch and YouTube, and it's a level beyond what Fuentes and Jones ever achieved. So what do you do with a problem like Hasan Piker? Emily Tamkin tried to parse the issue in a recent article in the Forward, "American Jews have a Hasan Piker problem. Solving it is going to hurt". She joins Phoebe Maltz Bovy to dig into the issue 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 Support our show Subscribe to The CJN newsletter Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt) Subscribe to The Jewish Angle

In the 1970s, in the wake of an emerging second-wave feminism, women's magazines were expanding rapidly with a unique style. Their focus, however, tended to exclude minorities. Jewish women were seen as privileged "others", not facing the same constraints as their gentile peers. That's why the Winnipeg-born Susan Weidman Schneider founded Lilith, a Jewish feminist magazine, out of New York City in 1976. Lilith was radical in many ways, tackling taboo subjects like abortion and gay rights from a female Jewish perspective. Now celebrating its 50th anniversary, Lilith has persevered as a community of literary, engaged and often mature Jewish women, hosting salons and creating a space for Jewish women to express themselves freely. To reflect on its impact, Weidman Schneider joins 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 Support our show Subscribe to The CJN newsletter Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt) Subscribe to The Jewish Angle

When best-selling author Meg Keene tried to pitch her latest novel, she was told—outright, by multiple people in the industry—that her book wouldn't sell. Not because it was too controversial, or violent, or suggestive, but because Keene herself is openly Zionist, and her book included authentic, lived-in Jewish and Israeli references and personalities. Keene isn't the only one facing this. In the last two years, mainstream book publishers have barely released any Jewish fiction—and the only Jewish fiction that does make it through tends to be anti-Zionist or hyper-progressive. It's left Jewish authors in a difficult spot, having to choose sides or be ostricized from their audiences and peers. On this week's episode of The Jewish Angle, host Phoebe Maltz Bovy speaks with Keene about the pressures facing Jewish authors today, from editorial demands to erase cultural specificity to an industry climate shaped by fear of backlash and organized boycotts. Keene worries about the future of Jewish literature and doesn't see the trends reversing any time soon, which would result in a literary ecosystem where Jewish stories are not just harder to tell, but in many cases, disappearing altogether. Credits Host: Phoebe Maltz Bovy Producer and editor: Michael Fraiman 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