Introducing: What Is Happening Here (Official Trailer)
November 17, 2025·4 min
This is a trailer for What Is Happening Here, a new limited podcast series from Canadaland and the Canadian Jewish News, hosted by Jesse Brown. The trailer opens with audio of a generic Canadian 'shared values' voiceover, abruptly cut with recorded clips of explicit antisemitic street harassment, including threats and Hitler references directed at visibly Jewish Canadians. Brown discloses he is Jewish and notes that antisemitism has risen globally since Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack on Israel and Israel's subsequent Gaza retaliation. He argues that Canada's situation appears uniquely bad, citing Statistics Canada data that a Canadian Jew is nine times more likely to be a hate-crime victim than an American Jew, and the New York Post's characterisation of Montreal as North America's antisemitism capital. He then plays contrary voices: people arguing Jewish claims of feeling unsafe are overblown, and that pro-Israel and Zionist lobbying groups are working to conflate criticism of Israel with antisemitism. Brown frames the series around four questions: is the statistical picture accurate, who is doing the targeting, whether victims are targeted for being Jewish or for supporting Israel, and why Canada specifically seems so intense. The trailer closes with a call to follow the show wherever listeners get their podcasts.
