Treyf Podcast

On this episode (recorded before the US election) we spoke with Brant Rosen, co-founder of the Jewish Voice for Peace Rabbinical Council, Midwest Regional Director for the American Friends Service Committee, and the Rabbi of Tzedek Chicago, a new 'non-Zionist' synagogue he helped found last summer. We spoke about his journey from liberal Zionism to Palestine solidarity and what it means to practice a "Judaism beyond nationalism." Finally, our Shkoyachs for this week went to Indigenous land defenders across the continent. Shownotes: https://www.treyfpodcast.com/2016/11/10/23-non-zionist-synagogues/

On this week’s episode, we talked about CKUT’s funding drive (please donate if you can!), a journalist who doesn’t understand our tagline, Canadian PM Justin Trudeau’s visit to a synagogue, and that giant cross of secularism. We were joined by Annie Cohen to discuss Jewdas’ recent Yom Kippur Ball, as well as the collective’s organizing against the institutional Jewish community in the UK. Finally, we spoke with Sandy Fox of the recently-launched podcast Vaybertaytsh, to talk about Yiddish, Feminism, and podcasting. Show Notes: https://www.treyfpodcast.com/2016/10/26/yiddish_feminism/

On this episode, we focused on the new white supremacist movement calling itself the 'Alt-Right'. We called Daniel Sieradski, founder of Jewschool.com & creator of the Nazi Detector App, to talk about (((echoes))), internet Nazis, and the failures of Jewish media. We then spoke with Matthew Lyons, author of a soon-to-be-released book about the US far right, about the origins of this new movement and who it's targets are. We ended the show with our usual Shkoyach segment, Sam giving his to a meme and David awarding theirs to an unusual choice of attire. Show Notes: https://www.treyfpodcast.com/2016/10/13/alt-right/

As part of our one-year anniversary special last month, we spoke with Yoni Goldstein - editor of the Canadian Jewish News. Unfortunately the episode went long and we weren't able to fit it, so here it is! For the special occasion, we made efforts to find areas of common ground before diving into our usual disagreements. Our conversation covered the important topics of: secret caverns underneath David and Yoni's high school, Sam and Yoni's similar starts in journalism, white Jewish men trying to style their curly hair, and the reason 'leftist' voices in the CJN are only ever Zionist. Show notes: https://www.treyfpodcast.com/2016/09/28/short-cjn-editor-yoni-goldstein/

Sam returns to the studio and we reflect on some recent incidents of anti-Semitism on the left in Canada. We then speak with Spencer Sunshine, an anti-fascist activist and researcher, about Christopher Bollyn, an anti-Semitic conspiracy theorist and holocaust denier who recently gave a talk at a leftist space in New York City. Spencer was part of a protest held outside the event, and explains the context surrounding it. Show Notes: https://www.treyfpodcast.com/2016/09/21/short-anti-semitism-on-the-left-with-spencer-sunshine/

On this one-year anniversary extravaganza episode, we look back and reflect on the first year of the podcast. Over the hour, we check in with some of the people who help make the show possible: Aaron Lakoff and Tamara Filyavich (CKUT 90.3 FM), Kira Page (Treyf Social Media Consultant), Claire Hurtig (Treyf Minister of Design), and David's Mom (Sarah)! It's a long episode, but we couldn't cut out the wide range of discussions that include Roseanne Barr’s trolling of our Twitter account, the "hammy jokester" vs “straight man” personas, the growth and rising popularity of our Shkoyach segment, and how David earned the nickname "the Tofu Cucumber Kid." Show Notes: https://www.treyfpodcast.com/2016/09/07/ep-20-one-year-anniversary-extravaganza/

We spoke with Kenyon Zimmer, author of the new book 'Immigrants Against the State: Yiddish and Italian Anarchism in America.' We talked about the history of Yiddish Anarchism in America, how many people were involved, how it influenced US immigration policy, and what led to the decline of the movement. Show notes:https://www.treyfpodcast.com/2016/09/01/short-yiddish-anarchism-in-america-with-kenyon-zimmer/

While the Institutional Jewish Community condemned the Movement for Black Lives this month, Jews for Racial and Economic Justice held weekly 'Jews for Black Lives' actions across New York City. David spoke with Shoshana Brown, an organizer with JFREJ's Jews of Color Caucus, about these actions as well as the fraught media discourse surrounding the Movement for Black Lives platform. We then played a segment produced by WBAI reporter Mitchel Cohen, documenting the August 11th Jews for Black Lives march that culminated in the arrest of seven Jews of Color. Show Notes: Movement for Black Lives Platform https://policy.m4bl.org/platform/ JFREJ Jews4BlackLives Actions: http://jfrej.org/largest-ever-mobilization-of-jews-for-black-lives-matter/ Mitchel Cohen's WBAI Report: https://archive.org/details/JewsForRacialEconomicJusticeRallyAndArrestsForBlackLivesMatter20160811

For this week's short we spoke with Ariana Katz, creator of the Kaddish podcast - a new show about death, mourning, and the people who do it. (You can listen to Kaddish here: https://soundcloud.com/user-544994582 )

We spoke with M. Dove Kent, outgoing director of JFREJ, about the group's work, the direction they're headed, and how the organization has changed since it's founding 25 years ago.

On this episode, we try to crowdsource a new tagline for the podcast, kicking off the #treyftagline twitter campaign - send us your ideas! We're then joined by Hani Ghazi, organizer with Adalah NY, for a new instalment of BDS Watch Watch about NY Governor Cuomo's recent executive order to criminalize BDS. Sam introduces our first listener-submitted Shkoyach and David tries to understand a confrontation between far-right activists and Israeli tourists in the Ukraine. For the interview we're joined by Carl Rosenberg, editor of Outlook Magazine, to talk about closing the doors on Canada's last remaining leftist Jewish publication. We talk about Outlook's final issue and the legacy he hopes they leave behind. Show notes: https://www.treyfpodcast.com/2016/06/29/episode-19-the-end-of-leftist-jewish-publishing/

We spoke with Mo Martin and Michal Richardson of the Radio Free Babylonia podcast! ( http://radiofreebabylonia.org ) You can find our recent article here: https://jewschool.com/2016/06/76886/anti-semitism-canada/

We spoke to Naomi Dann, an organizer with Jewish Voice for Peace, who attended the recent anti-BDS conference held in New York City. Show notes: https://www.treyfpodcast.com/2016/06/08/bds-watch-watch/

We spoke with writer and activist Mark Tseng Putterman about his recent article for Jewschool.com, "Diversity Won't Challenge Jewry's Role in White Supremacy." Show notes: https://www.treyfpodcast.com/2016/06/02/limits-of-diversity/

It’s our ‘Chai’ episode! We started it off talking about Italian Eurocommunism and the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA). We were then joined by Josh Nathan Kazis, a staff writer at the Jewish Daily Forward, to talk about a growing scandal in New York City politics, reaching from the Mayor’s office to the orthodox communities of Borough Park and Williamsburg. This episode contained a description-free Shkoyach, featuring discussions of kosher labelling, kosher restaurant month, and the contentious subject of raisin challah. For the interview, we talked about the Jews of Color National Convening with conference organizer Leo Ferguson and Montreal activist Hirut Eyob. Finally, Aviva Stahl’s recent article for Alternet’s Grayzone Project is our recommendation for the week. Show Notes: https://www.treyfpodcast.com/2016/05/26/episode-18/ *EDIT: during this week's Shkoyach segment, David convinced Sam that COR stood for 'Council of Orthodox Rabbis.' This is incorrect. It appears that COR is not an acro

We spoke with Joseph Finlay, former deputy editor of the Jewish Quarterly and founding member of Jewdas, to try to understand the anti-semitism scandal going on right now in the UK's Labour Party. Show notes: https://www.treyfpodcast.com/2016/05/18/uk-antisemitism/

We're back after a one month hiatus! On this week’s episode, we talked with activist and journalist Jesse Myerson about his recent exchange with the Forward’s JJ Goldberg, and the Jewish media’s coverage of Bernie Sanders. We took a new approach to describing the Shkoyach segment, Sam talked about a Chassidic gang in Borough Park, and David awarded his Shkoyach to a Montreal synagogue distancing themselves from an illegal kosher wine ring. For the interview, we were joined by Michelle Weiser from the new group If Not Now to talk about their origins, their Liberation Seder actions, and their strategy of confronting the institutional Jewish community. Finally, the deadline to submit to the new issue of Jenna Brager's Doykeit Zine is rapidly approaching - we spoke with her briefly for this week's recommendation. Show notes: https://www.treyfpodcast.com/2016/05/12/chassidic-gangs/

Continuing our month off, we thought we'd share another recording we found during Pesach cleaning over at Treyf HQ. We hope you enjoy this previously-unaired attempt at reviving our favourite failed segment.

We check in with the CKUT 90.3 FM coordinators

On this week’s episode: we cleared the air on statements made about Jewish hockey players, condemned the Canadian Jewish News’ questionable news coverage, and talked about grogger’s (yet again). We spoke with +972 journalist Mairav Zonszein about what got lost in the conversations about Trump’s speech at the AIPAC conference. Shkoyakhs were given to BDS activists in Oshawa, Ontario, and to a robot who infiltrated an Open Hillel event. Sigal Samuel, the Forward’s Opinion Editor, joined us for the Interview. We talked about Mizrahi-Palestinian Solidarity, and the popularity of intersectionality in the North American Jewish press. Our recommendation goes to the Independent Jewish Voices' Statement of Support for the Blacks Students Network at McGill University. Show notes: https://www.treyfpodcast.com/2016/03/30/episode-16-mizrahi-palestinian-solidarity-with/