Introducing: What Is Happening Here (Official Trailer)
November 17, 2025·4 min
This is the official trailer for What Is Happening Here, a new podcast from Canadaland and the Canadian Jewish News hosted by Jesse Brown. Brown opens with a Canadaland crowdfunding pitch, explaining that the outlet spends eleven months a year giving podcasts away free and one month asking for listener support. He offers three free months for annual memberships with perks like bonus content, early releases and ad-free listening. Brown then pivots into the trailer proper with a montage that contrasts Canadian values of openness, compassion and respect with recorded antisemitic abuse. The montage includes threats invoking Hitler, slurs like fake Jew, and shouts telling Jews to go back to Europe. Brown notes it has gotten bad in Canada for Jews and discloses that he is Jewish himself. He ties the surge to the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel and the subsequent war. He argues that while antisemitism is rising globally, Canada looks statistically worse, citing the nine-times hate crime figure and the Montreal anti-Semitism capital framing. He then airs dissenting voices who call such fears absurd, distinguish between feeling unsafe and feeling uncomfortable, and accuse the Israel lobby and Zionist groups of conflating criticism of Israel with antisemitism in venues like the BC government. Brown frames the guiding questions of the series: has a multicultural country become a bigotry capital, or are the statistics misleading. He asks whether Jews are being targeted for being Jewish or for political stances. He asks who is doing the targeting, naming the pro-Palestine movement and Israel itself as possibilities. He asks why Canada feels extra compared to elsewhere. Brown signals the show will interrogate rather than assume. He closes by announcing the series is produced with the Canadian Jewish News. He directs listeners to find it wherever they get podcasts. The trailer runs at roughly six minutes and serves as both a funding pitch and a content tease.
