Episode 229 – Anti-Semitism is bad, including in Canada, and we are suffering greatly as a result
Of all the horrible sentiments expressed by humans there are none nastier, or longer-lasting, than anti-Semitism. The belief that Jews are evil, control the world and need to be eliminated – see the Holocaust as a particularly terrible example – is widespread and has been growing even more in the West, especially since the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel on October 7, 2023 and Israel’s military response to find and bring to justice (or kill) the perpetrators responsible. What is it like to be Jewish and be exposed to this hatred? Borealis talks to a Canadian Jew who left to live in Israel and the reasons she felt she needed to.
About my guest
Oriya Baraness is a young professional currently working in the private sector as a Business Continuity Manager. Prior to moving to the private sector, she served in numerous non- government and government roles relating to national security. During her last year of her undergraduate studies, was a research analyst for the Organization for the Prevention of Violence. While completing a Master’s in Infrastructure protection and international security, she worked for the Department of National Defence where she focused on contingency planning and risk assessments.” She is currently in Tel Aviv.
Canadian Intelligence Eh
In a world of multiple voices and opinions it can be very hard to know where to turn. One choice is to look to those who actually worked in counter-terrorism in the national security world.
In these half-hour podcasts, 30-year Canadian intelligence veteran Phil Gurski is joined by a fascinating array of individuals with something meaningful to say about these issues as they provide insight into what they mean and what we need to do about them.
About Phil Gurski
Phil worked as a senior strategic analyst at CSIS (Canadian Security Intelligence Service) from 2001-2015, specializing in violent Islamist-inspired homegrown terrorism and radicalisation. From 1983 to 2001 he was employed as a senior multilingual analyst at Communications Security Establishment (CSE – Canada’s signals intelligence agency), specialising in the Middle East. He also served as senior special advisor in the National Security Directorate at Public Safety Canada from 2013, focusing on community outreach and training on radicalisation to violence, until his retirement from the civil service in May 2015, and as consultant for the Ontario Provincial Police’s Anti-Terrorism Section (PATS) from May to October 2015.
He was the Director of Security and Intelligence at the SecDev Group from June 2018 to July 2019 and the Director of the National Security Programme at the University of Ottawa’s Professional Development Institute from 2020-2022. He has also taught on national security issues at George Brown College, the University of Ottawa and Georgian College. Mr. Gurski has presented on violent Islamist-inspired and other forms of terrorism and radicalisation across Canada and around the world and is actively sought by Canadian and international media on national security and intelligence issues. He has written hundreds of op-eds on these matters for several Canadian media since 2016
He writes at www.borealisthreatandrisk.com.
He is the author of The Threat from Within: Recognizing Al Qaeda-inspired Radicalization and Terrorism in the West (Rowman and Littlefield 2015) Western Foreign Fighters: The Threat to Homeland and International Security (Rowman and Littlefield 2017), The Lesser Jihads: Taking the Islamist fight to the world (Rowman and Littlefield 2017), An end to the ‘War on Terrorism (Rowman and Littlefield 2018), When Religion Kills: How Extremist Justify Violence Through Faith (Lynne Rienner 2019) and The Peaceable Kingdom? A history of terrorism in Canada from Confederation to the present (self-published: 2021, republished by Double Dagger in 2022). He regularly blogs and podcasts (Canadian Intelligence Eh!), and tweets (@borealissaves) on terrorism and intelligence matters.
