August 28, 2025 • 28 mins
In this episode of KVETCH with Jon Liedtke, I am joined by two Canadian ex-pats who decided to leave the country in search of a new home, far away from the ongoing antisemitism that Canada has been experiencing on an unrelenting basis.
Joe Roberts is the Executive Director of the Jewish Federation of Tulsa Oklahoma, USA.
Michael Sachs is a Senior Director of the Jewish Federation of Tulsa Oklahoma, USA.
Joe Roberts is the Executive Director of the Jewish Federation of Tulsa Oklahoma, USA.
Michael Sachs is a Senior Director of the Jewish Federation of Tulsa Oklahoma, USA.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, everyone, this is John lid Keith. Thank you so
much for tuning in to this conversation that I'm about
to share with you. Joined by the executive director of
the Jewish Federation Tulsa, Joe Roberts, as well as a
senior director at Federation of Tulsa, Oklahoma, Michael Sachs. Both
of the two are Canadian expats who left the country
(00:23):
due to ongoing anti Semitism and or other reasons. In
this conversation, we will share why they did leave, what Tulsa,
Oklahoma has offered them, and what their thoughts about the
future for the Jewish people and anti Semitism and Canada is.
It's a wide ranging conversation. I am so glad that
(00:43):
both of them decided to take some of their time
to speak with me about this. So, without any further ado,
let's speak with Joe Roberts and Michael Sacks of the
Jewish Federation of Tulsa, Oklahoma. Michael Sacks has a piece
that is in the National Post opinion piece that I
recommend all of you go check out that he has
written about, and you know, it resonates unfortunately so strongly.
(01:08):
I don't think there's a jew across the country who
hasn't experienced this form of anti Semitism, let alone lived
it or tried to escape it quite frankly. And Michael
found the best way to escape it, I suppose, and
so did Joe as well, down in Oklahoma, finding a
(01:30):
way to find a new community because the one that
exists wasn't what you thought it was. Michael, I'm just
gonna bring you in.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Hey.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
How you doing, Hey, John?
Speaker 3 (01:42):
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
Hey, Thanks? Yeah, Joe, how you doing?
Speaker 2 (01:47):
I'm doing great? Great? How are you?
Speaker 1 (01:50):
Do? You know? As good as me when it comes
to these conversations, Michael, it's it's tough, right, Tell me
a little bit about the piece that you just patted.
Speaker 3 (02:01):
Well, the piece is a second is a second part two,
let's say of the first piece I had, which was
about less and less than a month ago. Now, I've
only been in Tulsa for about a month, month and
month and a little bit, so there's a lot of
people from Canada who take vacations away from Canada to
Europe longer than I've been away. So I kind of
(02:22):
feel like I'm still in that area where I can
kind of speak to some of the things that are
going on in Canada, and I think that it's important
because right now we really are Canadians, are really faced
with a lot of problems. So my initial piece was
the reason why I actually chose me and my family
made the personal decision to leave anti semitism. One hundred
(02:45):
percent was on there was on that list, but there's
there are a few other major pieces that are on
the list that are you know, of importance, uh and
also part of the factor that we as a personal
as a family made when we made our calculations. The
second piece was kind of like, I wasn't even planning
a second piece, but the overwhelming amount of reach out
(03:11):
that I received, DMS, emails, text messages from Canadian Jews
being like, how did you do it? I need to
get out. And then they're sharing their experiences. They're sharing,
They're sharing being in the Union and being marginalized and
being told that they're baby killers, you know, being their
kids having anti Semitism in their classrooms. There are coworkers
(03:34):
having difficult conversations with their coworkers who are you know,
don't know anything about the nuance of what is going on,
but they're they're bearing the brunt of what's going on
in Israel, and so that was kind of what this
piece was about. There was also a little bit about
how the unfortunate situation Canada is currently in when it
(03:54):
comes to the trade war, and also the economy in Canada,
which has been you know, having a hard time anyway.
How this also just exacerbates the whole scenario of anti
Semitism because people look for skateboats and usually, unfortunately history
has shown us that it's usually the Jews.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
And so I have not done due diligence much for
the listening audience. Right now, you are a senior director
at the Tulsa Jewish Federation, and Joe you're the executive
director at the Tulsa Jewish Federation. Is that correct?
Speaker 2 (04:37):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
I did the name right. I did my best.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
You got it right.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
It's easy enough, right, you just do the city and
then you do Jewish Federation at the back end there. Hey,
so you know you did the same thing right Like
you and Michael both had a similar experience, although you know, disparate.
You both looked at what the scales were like what
things were going on in Canada, and you decided this
ain't the place for me. This ain't the place for
(05:06):
my family. And you know, I think there are probably
a lot of Jews who might listen to that and go, ah,
you're both just you're just you're hyperbolic, You're just a
bunch of Michigan Eh. No one needs to hear this,
quite frankly, but like you actually found this to be
very very very real. And you both actually you did
(05:28):
the thing. You uprooted, you left everything that you had,
and you did you did the thing that so many
of our people have done throughout our history, our ancestral history.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
Why hello, Yeah, look, John, I think we were So
we've been in Tulsa about a year and it really
came down to we. You know, we have two little kids.
Our oldest was about to start kindergarten pre K or
junior kindergarten in Canadian context, the pre K here in
(06:06):
the US context, but was about to start. You know,
we were in a small community about fifty miles east
of Toronto and knew he'd be going to public school.
And look, it was a lovely school and people were great.
So so you know, our oldest son was about to
start at public school and we thought, you know, the
school was great, The people were great, we had done
the kind of meet the teachers and all of that,
(06:27):
but looking at the at the bigger ecosystem of what
was happening in Canada, you know, the anti Semitism was
just is so virulent that we were thinking about, you know,
not necessarily that his physical safety was at risk, although
you know that's that's not a guarantee either, but just
kind of like who is our is this little boy
(06:50):
going to become if he has to shape his identity
in this place where there's so many pressures on who
he is at his core being a Jew? And you know,
I this is not what we wanted for our children.
I think we really thought about it. And when we
made the decision that we did not want that for them,
(07:11):
we said, okay, great, then then what does that mean?
And that the kind of next step was that we
have to go and we talked about making eliyah, but
you know, I understand my wife was said, look, we're
trading one set of concerns for a different set of
safety concerns.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
Do you want to go live under missile strike warnings?
Speaker 2 (07:30):
Exactly? And I think that you know, it's it's kind
of identity versus fiscal safety. You know, there's all these
different pressures. But I think this is very much part
of the Jewish experience, right, is how do we prioritize
what's the most pressing threat at this moment? And for us,
it felt like we want these guys to be proud
of who they are and to grow up with a
(07:50):
positive Jewish identity and a positive Jewish experience and not
be told, you know, because of who they are, that
they're genocide genocideairs or genocide support or you know, murders
or whatever the nonsense it's happening is. And so when
we made that decision, we said, okay, great, so we're
going to go. And we very randomly. I had been
(08:10):
in a fellowship where this guy was talking about this
program Tulsa Tomorrow, which is like a birthrate trip to Tulsa.
He kept saying, and you come and see if you
like it and check it out. And so when we
had this conversation, I said what I said to my wife,
what about Tulsa? And she said, what is that?
Speaker 3 (08:26):
Like?
Speaker 2 (08:26):
Where where is Oklahoma? But look, a couple of months
we came to visit, fell in love with it. A
couple months later, here we are well Listen.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
You might not have made Aliyah, but I would, uh,
and I understand why. I mean, listen, you don't want
to have the missile strike warnings, but I wouldn't quite
right off Kansas or Missouri, Arkansas or Colorado. Quite frankly,
you got some pretty hostile neighbors around you, guys. A joke,
jokes aside, jokes aside.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
Hey, look, I think John, there's something to be said about,
you know, Tulsa in Oklahoma in general. I mean, this
is a place where you know, there's still this is
a values based kind of place, right, People care about
their neighbors, They care about civic life here. You know.
It's sure to are their disagreements, both political and otherwise.
(09:17):
Of course there are. It's normal. It's a normal place.
But this is a place where you know, people are,
by and large people of faith. They you know, they
care deeply about each other. And I see people in
this place step up in all kinds of ways that
I have never seen before and reach out and reach
out their hand to each other in ways that I've
never seen before. And it's a way that's made us
(09:39):
feel like this is a place where we can raise
a family. This is a place where our kids can
grow up to have that that safety and who they
are and have that experience.
Speaker 3 (09:47):
So I want to add on, I want to add on.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
Yeah, please, Michael.
Speaker 3 (09:50):
Absolutely, Joe's saying exactly the similar mindset and thought process
that me, my wife and our family just went through.
It's also an affordable place, right, It's a place where
you're costure living is reasonable. It's a place where you
have all these you know, when we first came to visit,
(10:11):
and we also came on Tulsa tomorrow, we came down,
we looked at we as we're driving in the neighborhoods.
People in the neighborhoods are waving to us as we're
driving through the neighborhoods, and like, I looked at my
wife and I say, you know, this doesn't happen in Vancouver.
So Joe is from the Toronto area. I'm from the
(10:31):
Vancouver area. We're talking about two fundamentally different periods.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
Yeah, very different.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
Who would have different anti anti semitism experiences as well.
But you know, in our part and also in Toronto,
cost of living is a huge factor, right, tax is
huge factor. These are factors that you know, what are
you getting from your taxes. What what kind of healthcare
a you're receiving. I mean in BC, they're closing they
close up ers for weekends at a time. Right, Like,
(11:02):
these are factors that kind of come in hand in
hand on top of, you know, the actual anti semitism
that is being experienced across Canada and mind you in
different ways across Canaday.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
And so this is what I wanted to of course discuss,
primarily is the anti semitism that both of you experienced
and that is still ongoing here in my country. I
don't want to say your countries anymore, because both of you,
respectively have decided to leave and for you know, various reasons.
(11:38):
But Joe, Joe, we're both on this call because we
love Canada, of course, right, that's the thing.
Speaker 3 (11:47):
We may have made the decision personally for our family
to leave, but my sister in law's there, my brother
in law's there, my niece and nephew's there, my mom
is there, my wife's my father in law's there. Right,
we have both of us had strings at personal connections
to Canada that you know, even though we're out, we
(12:08):
want to we want Canada to be a better place.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
I think we all we all do, of course, And Joe,
I you know it's I'm gonna I'm gonna go to
you first, because, as you know, the executive director of
the Tulsa Jewish Federation, sorry Michael, he gets the stature
just right there, right off the bat, by all means.
And I just you know, you you left, you left
(12:36):
your community. You were an active member of your local
Jewish community in Toronto. Yeah, you looked at it, you
saw what was happening externally, and you you made a
decision the best action that I can do for me,
for my family, and I would imagine for the Jewish community.
I don't want to speak for you outside of that,
(12:56):
but I do feel comfortable speaking for you before that,
the idea that you want to take care of you
and your family. Uh, you made that decision one. It
must have been very hard to do so, to abandon
something that you had spent so many years trying to
build up. But you did so because you felt that
(13:20):
at this time it wasn't actionable to continue. Like what
was it, Joe?
Speaker 2 (13:28):
Yeah, like I said, I mean, we had been living
post October seventh. I think this, you know, the anti
Semitism had been rising and kind of reached it. I
don't want to say it's reached a Christiando, because I
don't know if that's true. I don't think. I don't
think we've seen the end of this thing. But when
it was just, when it was just me, right, and
(13:49):
I was probably was a public voice, I got a
lot of a lot of hate when it was just me.
So be it fine, That's what I signed up for, right,
But really what it came down to was I hadn't
thought about in a meaningful way what it was going
to be like when these little kids were starting school
and what that meant for them. That was the trigger
for us, right, It wasn't we had never We had
(14:10):
considered it. I mean a little bit, we had talked
about it, but it really became a necessity when that happened.
That's not to say that those who make the other
decision that they want to stay and fight and you know,
stand up for their community or be involved or making
the wrong decision. I don't. I would never say that.
I would never tell people that, you know, you've got
to go. That's a decision everybody has to make for themselves.
(14:31):
And look, we also I recognize we had the ability
to do it right. We had the ability to do it.
We were lucky in many ways. You know, I'm erginally
American able to come here, my wife's originally from the
United States. Both had both or US citizens. Made it
very easy for us to make that decision. You know,
I'll mention Tulsa tomorrow again, brings you here, helps to
(14:51):
offset costs of moving to Tulsa. There's also other programs
in Tulsa. There's a program called Tulsa Remote. If you
work remotely, they'll give you ten thousand dollars to choose
Tulsa right for a year. Yeah, I mean really quite
there's a lot of there's a lot of.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
I work, I work remotely. Can I can I move
back digitally?
Speaker 2 (15:10):
You got to apply to the tuls through Tulsa Remote.
But you know, I think, look, there's so we were
lucky in that way that we had that ability to
make this decision. That said, you know, the Canadian Jewish community,
I mean it's it's one of the large juice community
in the world. First of all, I think number four,
(15:30):
by depending what metric you look at, kind of goes
back and forth between France and and Canada. It's a
great community. There's a lot of important things happening there.
I mean, there are people who are are doing incredible
work on behalf of the Jewish community. The community is
strong and has a great ethos. I mean, you know,
I miss I missed many things about it, especially being
(15:51):
in a small Jewish community like Tulsa. Right there, there
are things that are Our data shows about seventy five
hundred Jews in the Tulsa metro area.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
Wow, okay, so you are seven times larger than the
city than I live in. So like, the joke for
me is like, well, there's like eleven.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
Of us, yeah, twelve if well, yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
Twelve if you count the new barmetswa coming in somehow
there's four synagogues and we all hate each other.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
No, but I think it's just like, you know, everybody
has to make those decisions for themselves. And you know,
I don't envy people who have to sit down other
families who sit down and have those conversations. I know
many many people are right. And that's the scary thing
is everybody is having everybody I know, at least at
the like around showbout dinner table, having like a quiet
(16:44):
conversation about is this okay? Like, where are we going
with this? What's happening to us? And what does that
mean for Jews in Canada. I think that's a fair
question to ask, and I frankly, I feel like there
are many voices outside of the Jewish community in Canada
that minimize that and say it's alarmist and hyperbolic, but
(17:06):
it is a reality for Jewish Canadian Many Jewish Canadians
are feeling that way, and that should be something that
I think Canadians written large, should have much more concern about,
is that their Jewish friends and neighbors are feeling that
kind of concern about their future in the country that
is a liberal democracy. I mean, it doesn't make sense.
Speaker 3 (17:26):
And that's also the reason I wrote my first piece.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
Yeah, yeah, they tell me all technic.
Speaker 3 (17:31):
On exactly what Jo was saying, because Joe's hitting the
nail on the head my family, I mean I as well.
I was born in the US. My family came to
Canada when I was twelve years old and I left
it forty four, right, so three quarters of my life
was in Canada. I had a US passport, but I
(17:53):
was Canadian period, full stop. Anyone from the Jewish community
of Vancouver will tell you that I was all in
answering phone calls in the middle of the night, helping
people in the community. Like it is not a reflection
on the community of either you know, respectively, Joe's or mine.
(18:14):
Where we left, It's not a reflection on them, right
at the end of the day, it's the difficult personal
decisions that we had to make. Right in Joe's very
eloquently pointed and you know, talked about the kids.
Speaker 4 (18:29):
I mean, six months before we left, my son had
twice in his school Seghile kids walking in his class
doing the Nazi salute, right, and we started really having
that serious discussion. But once again, for us as a family,
there were these other factors that we also had, right, So,
(18:50):
I think that my first.
Speaker 3 (18:51):
Piece was saying out loud what a lot of Jews
are saying around their tables, right, and they're saying to
their friends. At least my cohort was very much along
the same mindset and the same conversations were being had,
and so that is, you know, as Joe said, really, well,
that's what should be concerning Canadians, is that this community
(19:15):
that is given so much Right has punched way above
its weight class as far as contributing to Canadian society,
in the Canadian way of life and Canadian rights and
Canadian everything. Right is now feeling that Canada is is.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
Not okay it.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
Yeah, and that's that's what's the most concerning about this
is that Canada is seemingly becoming a place where so
many Jews are experiencing the things that you are describing. Joe.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
Yeah, absolutely. I mean I think you know, it's not
something you can get away from. And I think there's
are there. It's happening everywhere across the country. I mean,
it's not it's not limited especially to you know, people think, oh,
this is a Toronto problem, this is a Vancouver problem.
I don't think that's true. I think that this is
a Canadian problem that we have to think about as
(20:08):
a what is a national strategy to fight anti semitism
in Canada and make sure that Canadian Jews are safe?
Speaker 3 (20:14):
Right?
Speaker 2 (20:15):
I think that's that is something that we should expect
from our government and from our elected officials the same
way we would we expect them to have an actual
strategy on on fighting racism. Right, These are this is
a common sense thing that we should expect, especially from
a liberal government that has made those kinds of strategies
part of their governance.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
And they seemingly haven't made much moves on that. Michael,
I'd imagine that's probably one of the reasons why you
decided again to leave. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (20:43):
I mean, like we definitely lost the confidence leadership for
the country after the election, mostly because I'm an actions person.
I believe that when you want to do something, you
do it right. I don't like lip service. I don't
(21:07):
like this virtue signaling. I don't like gaslighting. I think
that these are like, if you want to help the
Jewish community, then you have to roll up your sleeves
and actually start combating anti semitism, right, And there are
amazing organizations in Canada right now, with amazing, amazing Jewish
professionals that are trying and really doing the work. The
(21:30):
problem is is that just does not seem that there
is any desire whatsoever from our organized government to actually
do it, and instead to just tweet twenty four hours
after something happens, right, something.
Speaker 1 (21:50):
Worse Quite frankly, well, yeah.
Speaker 3 (21:52):
I mean, like listen, they're they're they're calling for the
releases of hostages. Right, they're calling for a ceasefire, right,
even though I know there I'm two groups will look
at that the exact, two total different ways. But you know,
it's the most but it's the most ParvE thing you
can be doing right now, right and Canadians are looking
(22:14):
to their their leaders for leadership. They're looking to their
government for leadership. They're not looking to their government for
a tweet or or or a statement. And right now,
when you're not seeing that, you're losing confidence, right, You're
losing confidence in your in your leaders.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
Yeah, and I agree with you on that, Joe. I
would imagine you probably feel a bit the same way.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
I mean, I think you know, I don't know we
were concerned about the post October seventh. I think we were.
I was very concerned with the response to the Trudeau government,
you know, really felt like trying to have it all.
And you can't have it all, right, You can't. You
can't say, well, you know, we're going to play both
sides of this thing and and try to get an
(23:04):
outcome that we think is going to be politically best
for us. It doesn't work that way. This is a
we're in a situation where we have to be base,
we have to govern based on our values and our morals, right,
and and be principled in that and say, you know,
and and to be unwilling to kind of make a
very direct statement about anti semitism. You know, it seems
(23:27):
like there's always qualifiers with the government statements about anti Semitism.
It's like, oh, you know, we we're really worried about antimittism,
but also Islamophobia. It's like, hey, this thing can be
bad on its own, right, you can, you can, you
can say that it's bad on its own. Actually you
know what you should be saying it's bad on its oone.
There doesn't have to and Islamophobia can be bad on
its own. Also, you don't. It doesn't need to be this.
Speaker 3 (23:49):
I can't, I can't.
Speaker 1 (23:52):
I can't wait to hear like when there is a well,
I mean I'd rather not happen, of course, but like
you know, an instance of like black racism, but I
will want to hear like, and also we need to
stop anti Asian hatred.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
Well, they would never dream of do this, Like, we're
not never dream.
Speaker 1 (24:08):
Of doing it, and we be obscene to even suggest that.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
Yeah, well and I think also, you know, we live
in a time where anti semitism instead of being kind
of the racist, like racial anti semitism that it was,
you know, if you look at by Lord Jonathan Sachs
kind of said that, we're in the iteration of antimitism
where it's political. But that also makes it harder to define, right,
So we have people who say, hey, this is political speech.
(24:35):
I'm just speaking politically and it's part of our you know,
my right is a Canadian to speak politically and to
say whatever I want. And it's like, Okay, that's fine.
But it's also hatred and it's hateful to the Jewish community,
and it causes fear and concern and security concerns, right,
And those things are all real at the same time.
And I just feel that we're just not we're not
(24:56):
taking it seriously with the I mean, I think the
Jewish community very much is, but I think the Canadian
government Canadians writ large are not taking it seriously with
the level of seriousness that it deserves.
Speaker 3 (25:10):
And Canadians have a problem with what they're seeing out
of anti semitism as well. Like the majority of the
studies are showing that the Canadians are causing a problem
or sorry, excuse me, are having a problem with this
level of anti Semitism, and they're against it. The problem
is they're being very Canadian about it. They're being quiet
(25:34):
and thanks, you know, and like soft conversations and sories
where you know, this is a moment in time, at
least for the Jewish Canadian world where we really need
to see definitive actions.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
We are a deferential lot up here. That's certainly the case.
I hope that both you and Joe, having now decided
to cast aside these Canadian persuasions a little bit, become
you know, American brethren. Maybe you can tell us a
little bit about what we need to do more. And
maybe it's just about being loud. Maybe it's just about
(26:14):
being you know, Jews have always been such vocal members
of our communities, but never boastful members of our communities.
And maybe that's that's the course that needs to happen.
I don't know what it is, but it sounds like
you're saying that, you know, Jews be louder. Well, yes
(26:35):
or no.
Speaker 3 (26:35):
So I'm very mindful of the fact that, like now
I'm on the outside of the tent being in the
US right now. I did kind of prefix this with
previously by saying I have only been out for about
a month, so technically how outside of the tent is that?
I don't know, But you know, the Jewish community has
(26:57):
had to adapt Close October seventh, twenty three. It's it's
a big ship that takes a long time to change
its direction, and I think they're doing it. The best
thing that can happen is regular Canadians, And when I
say regular I'm talking about the non Jewish Canadians, allies, etc.
(27:22):
Can come together and start to stand with us and
speak up on our behalf and demand action. Because you
know what, they turn around and demand the action for
many other minority groups. Why should the Jewish community be
any different.
Speaker 1 (27:39):
I wholeheartedly agree with you on that, Michael. I really
do appreciate your time to speak with me. Joe as well,
thank you so much for your time to chat about this,
both of you. From the Jewish Federation of Tulsa. And Hey,
any Canadian Jews that are looking to go somewhere a
little bit warmer, with maybe a bit more of a
(28:01):
friendly hospitality, welcoming check out Tulsa. Hey, Thank you so much.
Early appreciate it. Thank you so much, Shen cheers,
Hello, everyone, this is John lid Keith. Thank you so
much for tuning in to this conversation that I'm about
to share with you. Joined by the executive director of
the Jewish Federation Tulsa, Joe Roberts, as well as a
senior director at Federation of Tulsa, Oklahoma, Michael Sachs. Both
of the two are Canadian expats who left the country
(00:23):
due to ongoing anti Semitism and or other reasons. In
this conversation, we will share why they did leave, what Tulsa,
Oklahoma has offered them, and what their thoughts about the
future for the Jewish people and anti Semitism and Canada is.
It's a wide ranging conversation. I am so glad that
(00:43):
both of them decided to take some of their time
to speak with me about this. So, without any further ado,
let's speak with Joe Roberts and Michael Sacks of the
Jewish Federation of Tulsa, Oklahoma. Michael Sacks has a piece
that is in the National Post opinion piece that I
recommend all of you go check out that he has
written about, and you know, it resonates unfortunately so strongly.
(01:08):
I don't think there's a jew across the country who
hasn't experienced this form of anti Semitism, let alone lived
it or tried to escape it quite frankly. And Michael
found the best way to escape it, I suppose, and
so did Joe as well, down in Oklahoma, finding a
(01:30):
way to find a new community because the one that
exists wasn't what you thought it was. Michael, I'm just
gonna bring you in.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Hey.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
How you doing, Hey, John?
Speaker 3 (01:42):
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
Hey, Thanks? Yeah, Joe, how you doing?
Speaker 2 (01:47):
I'm doing great? Great? How are you?
Speaker 1 (01:50):
Do? You know? As good as me when it comes
to these conversations, Michael, it's it's tough, right, Tell me
a little bit about the piece that you just patted.
Speaker 3 (02:01):
Well, the piece is a second is a second part two,
let's say of the first piece I had, which was
about less and less than a month ago. Now, I've
only been in Tulsa for about a month, month and
month and a little bit, so there's a lot of
people from Canada who take vacations away from Canada to
Europe longer than I've been away. So I kind of
(02:22):
feel like I'm still in that area where I can
kind of speak to some of the things that are
going on in Canada, and I think that it's important
because right now we really are Canadians, are really faced
with a lot of problems. So my initial piece was
the reason why I actually chose me and my family
made the personal decision to leave anti semitism. One hundred
(02:45):
percent was on there was on that list, but there's
there are a few other major pieces that are on
the list that are you know, of importance, uh and
also part of the factor that we as a personal
as a family made when we made our calculations. The
second piece was kind of like, I wasn't even planning
a second piece, but the overwhelming amount of reach out
(03:11):
that I received, DMS, emails, text messages from Canadian Jews
being like, how did you do it? I need to
get out. And then they're sharing their experiences. They're sharing,
They're sharing being in the Union and being marginalized and
being told that they're baby killers, you know, being their
kids having anti Semitism in their classrooms. There are coworkers
(03:34):
having difficult conversations with their coworkers who are you know,
don't know anything about the nuance of what is going on,
but they're they're bearing the brunt of what's going on
in Israel, and so that was kind of what this
piece was about. There was also a little bit about
how the unfortunate situation Canada is currently in when it
(03:54):
comes to the trade war, and also the economy in Canada,
which has been you know, having a hard time anyway.
How this also just exacerbates the whole scenario of anti
Semitism because people look for skateboats and usually, unfortunately history
has shown us that it's usually the Jews.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
And so I have not done due diligence much for
the listening audience. Right now, you are a senior director
at the Tulsa Jewish Federation, and Joe you're the executive
director at the Tulsa Jewish Federation. Is that correct?
Speaker 2 (04:37):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
I did the name right. I did my best.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
You got it right.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
It's easy enough, right, you just do the city and
then you do Jewish Federation at the back end there. Hey,
so you know you did the same thing right Like
you and Michael both had a similar experience, although you know, disparate.
You both looked at what the scales were like what
things were going on in Canada, and you decided this
ain't the place for me. This ain't the place for
(05:06):
my family. And you know, I think there are probably
a lot of Jews who might listen to that and go, ah,
you're both just you're just you're hyperbolic, You're just a
bunch of Michigan Eh. No one needs to hear this,
quite frankly, but like you actually found this to be
very very very real. And you both actually you did
(05:28):
the thing. You uprooted, you left everything that you had,
and you did you did the thing that so many
of our people have done throughout our history, our ancestral history.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
Why hello, Yeah, look, John, I think we were So
we've been in Tulsa about a year and it really
came down to we. You know, we have two little kids.
Our oldest was about to start kindergarten pre K or
junior kindergarten in Canadian context, the pre K here in
(06:06):
the US context, but was about to start. You know,
we were in a small community about fifty miles east
of Toronto and knew he'd be going to public school.
And look, it was a lovely school and people were great.
So so you know, our oldest son was about to
start at public school and we thought, you know, the
school was great, The people were great, we had done
the kind of meet the teachers and all of that,
(06:27):
but looking at the at the bigger ecosystem of what
was happening in Canada, you know, the anti Semitism was
just is so virulent that we were thinking about, you know,
not necessarily that his physical safety was at risk, although
you know that's that's not a guarantee either, but just
kind of like who is our is this little boy
(06:50):
going to become if he has to shape his identity
in this place where there's so many pressures on who
he is at his core being a Jew? And you know,
I this is not what we wanted for our children.
I think we really thought about it. And when we
made the decision that we did not want that for them,
(07:11):
we said, okay, great, then then what does that mean?
And that the kind of next step was that we
have to go and we talked about making eliyah, but
you know, I understand my wife was said, look, we're
trading one set of concerns for a different set of
safety concerns.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
Do you want to go live under missile strike warnings?
Speaker 2 (07:30):
Exactly? And I think that you know, it's it's kind
of identity versus fiscal safety. You know, there's all these
different pressures. But I think this is very much part
of the Jewish experience, right, is how do we prioritize
what's the most pressing threat at this moment? And for us,
it felt like we want these guys to be proud
of who they are and to grow up with a
(07:50):
positive Jewish identity and a positive Jewish experience and not
be told, you know, because of who they are, that
they're genocide genocideairs or genocide support or you know, murders
or whatever the nonsense it's happening is. And so when
we made that decision, we said, okay, great, so we're
going to go. And we very randomly. I had been
(08:10):
in a fellowship where this guy was talking about this
program Tulsa Tomorrow, which is like a birthrate trip to Tulsa.
He kept saying, and you come and see if you
like it and check it out. And so when we
had this conversation, I said what I said to my wife,
what about Tulsa? And she said, what is that?
Speaker 3 (08:26):
Like?
Speaker 2 (08:26):
Where where is Oklahoma? But look, a couple of months
we came to visit, fell in love with it. A
couple months later, here we are well Listen.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
You might not have made Aliyah, but I would, uh,
and I understand why. I mean, listen, you don't want
to have the missile strike warnings, but I wouldn't quite
right off Kansas or Missouri, Arkansas or Colorado. Quite frankly,
you got some pretty hostile neighbors around you, guys. A joke,
jokes aside, jokes aside.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
Hey, look, I think John, there's something to be said about,
you know, Tulsa in Oklahoma in general. I mean, this
is a place where you know, there's still this is
a values based kind of place, right, People care about
their neighbors, They care about civic life here. You know.
It's sure to are their disagreements, both political and otherwise.
(09:17):
Of course there are. It's normal. It's a normal place.
But this is a place where you know, people are,
by and large people of faith. They you know, they
care deeply about each other. And I see people in
this place step up in all kinds of ways that
I have never seen before and reach out and reach
out their hand to each other in ways that I've
never seen before. And it's a way that's made us
(09:39):
feel like this is a place where we can raise
a family. This is a place where our kids can
grow up to have that that safety and who they
are and have that experience.
Speaker 3 (09:47):
So I want to add on, I want to add on.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
Yeah, please, Michael.
Speaker 3 (09:50):
Absolutely, Joe's saying exactly the similar mindset and thought process
that me, my wife and our family just went through.
It's also an affordable place, right, It's a place where
you're costure living is reasonable. It's a place where you
have all these you know, when we first came to visit,
(10:11):
and we also came on Tulsa tomorrow, we came down,
we looked at we as we're driving in the neighborhoods.
People in the neighborhoods are waving to us as we're
driving through the neighborhoods, and like, I looked at my
wife and I say, you know, this doesn't happen in Vancouver.
So Joe is from the Toronto area. I'm from the
(10:31):
Vancouver area. We're talking about two fundamentally different periods.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
Yeah, very different.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
Who would have different anti anti semitism experiences as well.
But you know, in our part and also in Toronto,
cost of living is a huge factor, right, tax is
huge factor. These are factors that you know, what are
you getting from your taxes. What what kind of healthcare
a you're receiving. I mean in BC, they're closing they
close up ers for weekends at a time. Right, Like,
(11:02):
these are factors that kind of come in hand in
hand on top of, you know, the actual anti semitism
that is being experienced across Canada and mind you in
different ways across Canaday.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
And so this is what I wanted to of course discuss,
primarily is the anti semitism that both of you experienced
and that is still ongoing here in my country. I
don't want to say your countries anymore, because both of you,
respectively have decided to leave and for you know, various reasons.
(11:38):
But Joe, Joe, we're both on this call because we
love Canada, of course, right, that's the thing.
Speaker 3 (11:47):
We may have made the decision personally for our family
to leave, but my sister in law's there, my brother
in law's there, my niece and nephew's there, my mom
is there, my wife's my father in law's there. Right,
we have both of us had strings at personal connections
to Canada that you know, even though we're out, we
(12:08):
want to we want Canada to be a better place.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
I think we all we all do, of course, And Joe,
I you know it's I'm gonna I'm gonna go to
you first, because, as you know, the executive director of
the Tulsa Jewish Federation, sorry Michael, he gets the stature
just right there, right off the bat, by all means.
And I just you know, you you left, you left
(12:36):
your community. You were an active member of your local
Jewish community in Toronto. Yeah, you looked at it, you
saw what was happening externally, and you you made a
decision the best action that I can do for me,
for my family, and I would imagine for the Jewish community.
I don't want to speak for you outside of that,
(12:56):
but I do feel comfortable speaking for you before that,
the idea that you want to take care of you
and your family. Uh, you made that decision one. It
must have been very hard to do so, to abandon
something that you had spent so many years trying to
build up. But you did so because you felt that
(13:20):
at this time it wasn't actionable to continue. Like what
was it, Joe?
Speaker 2 (13:28):
Yeah, like I said, I mean, we had been living
post October seventh. I think this, you know, the anti
Semitism had been rising and kind of reached it. I
don't want to say it's reached a Christiando, because I
don't know if that's true. I don't think. I don't
think we've seen the end of this thing. But when
it was just, when it was just me, right, and
(13:49):
I was probably was a public voice, I got a
lot of a lot of hate when it was just me.
So be it fine, That's what I signed up for, right,
But really what it came down to was I hadn't
thought about in a meaningful way what it was going
to be like when these little kids were starting school
and what that meant for them. That was the trigger
for us, right, It wasn't we had never We had
(14:10):
considered it. I mean a little bit, we had talked
about it, but it really became a necessity when that happened.
That's not to say that those who make the other
decision that they want to stay and fight and you know,
stand up for their community or be involved or making
the wrong decision. I don't. I would never say that.
I would never tell people that, you know, you've got
to go. That's a decision everybody has to make for themselves.
(14:31):
And look, we also I recognize we had the ability
to do it right. We had the ability to do it.
We were lucky in many ways. You know, I'm erginally
American able to come here, my wife's originally from the
United States. Both had both or US citizens. Made it
very easy for us to make that decision. You know,
I'll mention Tulsa tomorrow again, brings you here, helps to
(14:51):
offset costs of moving to Tulsa. There's also other programs
in Tulsa. There's a program called Tulsa Remote. If you
work remotely, they'll give you ten thousand dollars to choose
Tulsa right for a year. Yeah, I mean really quite
there's a lot of there's a lot of.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
I work, I work remotely. Can I can I move
back digitally?
Speaker 2 (15:10):
You got to apply to the tuls through Tulsa Remote.
But you know, I think, look, there's so we were
lucky in that way that we had that ability to
make this decision. That said, you know, the Canadian Jewish community,
I mean it's it's one of the large juice community
in the world. First of all, I think number four,
(15:30):
by depending what metric you look at, kind of goes
back and forth between France and and Canada. It's a
great community. There's a lot of important things happening there.
I mean, there are people who are are doing incredible
work on behalf of the Jewish community. The community is
strong and has a great ethos. I mean, you know,
I miss I missed many things about it, especially being
(15:51):
in a small Jewish community like Tulsa. Right there, there
are things that are Our data shows about seventy five
hundred Jews in the Tulsa metro area.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
Wow, okay, so you are seven times larger than the
city than I live in. So like, the joke for
me is like, well, there's like eleven.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
Of us, yeah, twelve if well, yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
Twelve if you count the new barmetswa coming in somehow
there's four synagogues and we all hate each other.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
No, but I think it's just like, you know, everybody
has to make those decisions for themselves. And you know,
I don't envy people who have to sit down other
families who sit down and have those conversations. I know
many many people are right. And that's the scary thing
is everybody is having everybody I know, at least at
the like around showbout dinner table, having like a quiet
(16:44):
conversation about is this okay? Like, where are we going
with this? What's happening to us? And what does that
mean for Jews in Canada. I think that's a fair
question to ask, and I frankly, I feel like there
are many voices outside of the Jewish community in Canada
that minimize that and say it's alarmist and hyperbolic, but
(17:06):
it is a reality for Jewish Canadian Many Jewish Canadians
are feeling that way, and that should be something that
I think Canadians written large, should have much more concern about,
is that their Jewish friends and neighbors are feeling that
kind of concern about their future in the country that
is a liberal democracy. I mean, it doesn't make sense.
Speaker 3 (17:26):
And that's also the reason I wrote my first piece.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
Yeah, yeah, they tell me all technic.
Speaker 3 (17:31):
On exactly what Jo was saying, because Joe's hitting the
nail on the head my family, I mean I as well.
I was born in the US. My family came to
Canada when I was twelve years old and I left
it forty four, right, so three quarters of my life
was in Canada. I had a US passport, but I
(17:53):
was Canadian period, full stop. Anyone from the Jewish community
of Vancouver will tell you that I was all in
answering phone calls in the middle of the night, helping
people in the community. Like it is not a reflection
on the community of either you know, respectively, Joe's or mine.
(18:14):
Where we left, It's not a reflection on them, right
at the end of the day, it's the difficult personal
decisions that we had to make. Right in Joe's very
eloquently pointed and you know, talked about the kids.
Speaker 4 (18:29):
I mean, six months before we left, my son had
twice in his school Seghile kids walking in his class
doing the Nazi salute, right, and we started really having
that serious discussion. But once again, for us as a family,
there were these other factors that we also had, right, So,
(18:50):
I think that my first.
Speaker 3 (18:51):
Piece was saying out loud what a lot of Jews
are saying around their tables, right, and they're saying to
their friends. At least my cohort was very much along
the same mindset and the same conversations were being had,
and so that is, you know, as Joe said, really, well,
that's what should be concerning Canadians, is that this community
(19:15):
that is given so much Right has punched way above
its weight class as far as contributing to Canadian society,
in the Canadian way of life and Canadian rights and
Canadian everything. Right is now feeling that Canada is is.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
Not okay it.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
Yeah, and that's that's what's the most concerning about this
is that Canada is seemingly becoming a place where so
many Jews are experiencing the things that you are describing. Joe.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
Yeah, absolutely. I mean I think you know, it's not
something you can get away from. And I think there's
are there. It's happening everywhere across the country. I mean,
it's not it's not limited especially to you know, people think, oh,
this is a Toronto problem, this is a Vancouver problem.
I don't think that's true. I think that this is
a Canadian problem that we have to think about as
(20:08):
a what is a national strategy to fight anti semitism
in Canada and make sure that Canadian Jews are safe?
Speaker 3 (20:14):
Right?
Speaker 2 (20:15):
I think that's that is something that we should expect
from our government and from our elected officials the same
way we would we expect them to have an actual
strategy on on fighting racism. Right, These are this is
a common sense thing that we should expect, especially from
a liberal government that has made those kinds of strategies
part of their governance.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
And they seemingly haven't made much moves on that. Michael,
I'd imagine that's probably one of the reasons why you
decided again to leave. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (20:43):
I mean, like we definitely lost the confidence leadership for
the country after the election, mostly because I'm an actions person.
I believe that when you want to do something, you
do it right. I don't like lip service. I don't
(21:07):
like this virtue signaling. I don't like gaslighting. I think
that these are like, if you want to help the
Jewish community, then you have to roll up your sleeves
and actually start combating anti semitism, right, And there are
amazing organizations in Canada right now, with amazing, amazing Jewish
professionals that are trying and really doing the work. The
(21:30):
problem is is that just does not seem that there
is any desire whatsoever from our organized government to actually
do it, and instead to just tweet twenty four hours
after something happens, right, something.
Speaker 1 (21:50):
Worse Quite frankly, well, yeah.
Speaker 3 (21:52):
I mean, like listen, they're they're they're calling for the
releases of hostages. Right, they're calling for a ceasefire, right,
even though I know there I'm two groups will look
at that the exact, two total different ways. But you know,
it's the most but it's the most ParvE thing you
can be doing right now, right and Canadians are looking
(22:14):
to their their leaders for leadership. They're looking to their
government for leadership. They're not looking to their government for
a tweet or or or a statement. And right now,
when you're not seeing that, you're losing confidence, right, You're
losing confidence in your in your leaders.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
Yeah, and I agree with you on that, Joe. I
would imagine you probably feel a bit the same way.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
I mean, I think you know, I don't know we
were concerned about the post October seventh. I think we were.
I was very concerned with the response to the Trudeau government,
you know, really felt like trying to have it all.
And you can't have it all, right, You can't. You
can't say, well, you know, we're going to play both
sides of this thing and and try to get an
(23:04):
outcome that we think is going to be politically best
for us. It doesn't work that way. This is a
we're in a situation where we have to be base,
we have to govern based on our values and our morals, right,
and and be principled in that and say, you know,
and and to be unwilling to kind of make a
very direct statement about anti semitism. You know, it seems
(23:27):
like there's always qualifiers with the government statements about anti Semitism.
It's like, oh, you know, we we're really worried about antimittism,
but also Islamophobia. It's like, hey, this thing can be
bad on its own, right, you can, you can, you
can say that it's bad on its own. Actually you
know what you should be saying it's bad on its oone.
There doesn't have to and Islamophobia can be bad on
its own. Also, you don't. It doesn't need to be this.
Speaker 3 (23:49):
I can't, I can't.
Speaker 1 (23:52):
I can't wait to hear like when there is a well,
I mean I'd rather not happen, of course, but like
you know, an instance of like black racism, but I
will want to hear like, and also we need to
stop anti Asian hatred.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
Well, they would never dream of do this, Like, we're
not never dream.
Speaker 1 (24:08):
Of doing it, and we be obscene to even suggest that.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
Yeah, well and I think also, you know, we live
in a time where anti semitism instead of being kind
of the racist, like racial anti semitism that it was,
you know, if you look at by Lord Jonathan Sachs
kind of said that, we're in the iteration of antimitism
where it's political. But that also makes it harder to define, right,
So we have people who say, hey, this is political speech.
(24:35):
I'm just speaking politically and it's part of our you know,
my right is a Canadian to speak politically and to
say whatever I want. And it's like, Okay, that's fine.
But it's also hatred and it's hateful to the Jewish community,
and it causes fear and concern and security concerns, right,
And those things are all real at the same time.
And I just feel that we're just not we're not
(24:56):
taking it seriously with the I mean, I think the
Jewish community very much is, but I think the Canadian
government Canadians writ large are not taking it seriously with
the level of seriousness that it deserves.
Speaker 3 (25:10):
And Canadians have a problem with what they're seeing out
of anti semitism as well. Like the majority of the
studies are showing that the Canadians are causing a problem
or sorry, excuse me, are having a problem with this
level of anti Semitism, and they're against it. The problem
is they're being very Canadian about it. They're being quiet
(25:34):
and thanks, you know, and like soft conversations and sories
where you know, this is a moment in time, at
least for the Jewish Canadian world where we really need
to see definitive actions.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
We are a deferential lot up here. That's certainly the case.
I hope that both you and Joe, having now decided
to cast aside these Canadian persuasions a little bit, become
you know, American brethren. Maybe you can tell us a
little bit about what we need to do more. And
maybe it's just about being loud. Maybe it's just about
(26:14):
being you know, Jews have always been such vocal members
of our communities, but never boastful members of our communities.
And maybe that's that's the course that needs to happen.
I don't know what it is, but it sounds like
you're saying that, you know, Jews be louder. Well, yes
(26:35):
or no.
Speaker 3 (26:35):
So I'm very mindful of the fact that, like now
I'm on the outside of the tent being in the
US right now. I did kind of prefix this with
previously by saying I have only been out for about
a month, so technically how outside of the tent is that?
I don't know, But you know, the Jewish community has
(26:57):
had to adapt Close October seventh, twenty three. It's it's
a big ship that takes a long time to change
its direction, and I think they're doing it. The best
thing that can happen is regular Canadians, And when I
say regular I'm talking about the non Jewish Canadians, allies, etc.
(27:22):
Can come together and start to stand with us and
speak up on our behalf and demand action. Because you
know what, they turn around and demand the action for
many other minority groups. Why should the Jewish community be
any different.
Speaker 1 (27:39):
I wholeheartedly agree with you on that, Michael. I really
do appreciate your time to speak with me. Joe as well,
thank you so much for your time to chat about this,
both of you. From the Jewish Federation of Tulsa. And Hey,
any Canadian Jews that are looking to go somewhere a
little bit warmer, with maybe a bit more of a
(28:01):
friendly hospitality, welcoming check out Tulsa. Hey, Thank you so much.
Early appreciate it. Thank you so much, Shen cheers,
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