Features
Both sides
Introduction: We were sent this short story by John Ginsburg, who is a Winnipeg writer. Given the constant stream of stories about students and professors being intimidated by forces championing political correctness, especially when it comes to anything having to do with Israel, we thought it timely to publish the story here.
June 2021 Mackenzie King College Walking east, past the Theatre building, the view was genuinely inspiring, especially in the bright morning sunshine.
To the right, the contemplative, Ivy-covered Arts Building and the century-old chapel. Straight ahead, the gleaming river and the lush green landscape beyond. To the south, the arching Unity Bridge. But the route to the classroom for Media Studies 32.455, Professor Latchman’s course, was somewhat less scenic. One had to walk around to the opposite side of the Theatre building, in through the small service entrance, and then down concrete stairs to the basement, arriving at a low-ceilinged, damp and windowless room. Such were the current circumstances of the Department of Media Studies, pursuing the noble heights of academic inquiry from the gloomy depths of a former workshop. Its old haunts, on the opposite side of the university, were being renovated from top to bottom.
The condensed, two-and-a-half-month course was entering its final few weeks. With the resumption of in-person lectures, the bright, doubly-vaccinated students had initially been swept in by a wave of camaraderie and intellectual enthusiasm. Reality, however, had soon intervened, an unrelenting schedule of jam-packed three-hour lectures, demanding term papers and nerve-wracking oral presentations. The dim subterranean venue only added to the hard-pressed feeling among the students.
Latchman’s course was entitled Political Correctness and Cancel Culture in the Media and the Arts. It was a senior-level honours course, requiring three term papers and two in-class presentations of each of its twenty-five earnest young scholars. They were a diverse lot, of all kinds of ethnicities and backgrounds. There they sat, in their sculpted, multi-coloured hair, with their necks, arms and legs artistically muralled with tattoos; their noses, lips, eyebrows, ears and navels sporting gaudy piercings; their epigrammed apparel and trendy jewellery on full display. At the front of the class, standing at the lectern, their middle-aged, conservatively-dressed professor was unfazed. The individual expressions of diversity and identity neither made him feel old nor out of place. It was simply the times. One moment might call for ethnic, racial and sexual identities to be completely ignored, while the next moment called for them to be pushed loudly to the front, singled out and magnified. However, for Professor Howard Latchman, it wasn’t a particularly difficult academic world to navigate.
Latchman was a full professor at Mackenzie King College, accomplished in his field, enjoying his twenty-sixth year as a faculty member. He was of medium height and build, with thin, greying hair. He had a warm and friendly manner and had always been well-regarded by his students. His annual student evaluations highlighted his high academic standards, as well as his accessibility and fairness. On the negative side, students found him rather boring at times, and his methods somewhat plodding. His non-academic interests were completely unknown to his students and would have come as an amusing surprise. From his teenage years right up to the present, Latchman had been a drummer in a number of rock and roll bands, most recently with The Heads, playing sixties and seventies songs in nearby towns and bars. Not to mention his tennis playing; he was good enough to compete in senior-level tournaments, once reaching the provincial quarter-finals.
Latchman was Jewish, but entirely secular. This was a constant sore point with his two older siblings, alienating him from them more and more over the years. Brought up in the same conventional Jewish home, he’d been expected to tow the line. Fortunately they lived halfway across the country, so their meetings were infrequent.
He was divorced, with two children in their late twenties. His area of specialty was Journalism. From a doctoral thesis on corporate bias in the western news media, his work had naturally evolved. With social media now dominating the flow of information, his methods of study had radically changed. But the same issues remained at the core: misinformation and the control of information; by large corporations and by special interest groups.
For the June 14 class, student presentations were scheduled for the entire lecture time. Each student had twenty minutes to speak, on a recent case of cancel culture, followed by ten to fifteen minutes of questions and comments from the rest of the class.
With only a few weeks remaining in the spring-session course, Latchman knew most of the twenty-five students by name and by appearance. The first speaker of the day was a Black woman named Letanya Wynn. She was a prominent figure in the class, very bright and always highly engaged, taking every opportunity to aggressively speak out, offering her own point of view on whatever was being discussed. She was very slight in stature, with closely-cropped orange and yellow hair, wearing massive hoop earrings and bright red lipstick. Latchman took a quick glance at the text message she had sent him, containing the title and summary of her talk. ‘Good morning everyone’ he said. ‘Our first speaker is Letanya Wynn. She is going to be telling us about a cartoon that was recently published, in a Seattle online magazine. A textbook case of cancel culture. We will follow the same format as previous presentations. At the conclusion of the presentation, we will entertain comments and questions. Ms. Wynn!’
Letanya Wynn made her way, a little awkwardly, from the back of the class up to the sixty-inch monitor at the front, where she inserted the small USB drive she’d been carrying. She selected the only file on the drive, a jpg file. It was a copy of a cartoon, recently published in The North West Record, a Seattle-based publication. The cartoon shows two men having sex, one Black and the other white, with their naughty parts concealed behind a chair in the centre foreground. The Black man is positioned behind the white man, who is bent over. A shirt is draped over the chair, displaying a large BLM logo. In the background, a grim-faced, white uniformed cop has entered the room, standing in a doorway. He is pointing a gun at the two men, with a talking bubble that says ”You’re supposed to be two metres apart, not two feet.” The caption underneath the cartoon says ”Basic Length Measurements”. This satirical take on the coronavirus pandemic and the BlackLivesMatter movement had been greeted with an immediate social outcry online. Its creator, a Black male cartoonist, was fired as a result, by his publisher, who was also a Black male.
Letanya Wynn’s presentation was focused and articulate, extremely well done. Latchman wasn’t surprised that she strongly supported the cartoonist’s firing, arguing that the themes represented in the cartoon were demeaning to Black people and personally offensive to her. But he was surprised by the subdued class response. Maybe it was because it was so early in the morning, he thought. Maybe non-Black students felt they didn’t belong in the conversation. Whatever the reason, only two students commented on the presentation, both Black men. They both disagreed with Letanya Wynn, instead finding the cartoon to be a clever work of satire, and seeing the cartoonist’s firing as an extreme overreaction.
Thinking further about the minimal class reaction, Latchman wondered if, compared to other recent topics, the class didn’t find the cartoon to be especially shocking or controversial. In any case, he was very impressed by the presentation. Twenty out of twenty, he thought. A great presentation.
Latchman glanced at his phone and quickly re-read the details for the second talk of the morning. It would probably be less engaging than the first talk, he thought. Less contentious.
‘Class, I would next like to introduce Mark Mazur. He is going to talk about the recent Facebook controversy. I’m sure we’ve all heard about it. Certain posts were not published at first, but then appeared later, after a reaction against the company. Mr. Mazur!’
The second speaker was evidently Jewish, and religious, wearing a kipa. He was tall and very thin, with a neatly trimmed beard and a friendly face. After being introduced, he stood up from his chair near the front of the room and walked over to the lectern, where he placed his notes. He was soft-spoken, with an easy and confident manner. ‘Good morning’ he said to the class, with a smile. ‘When I read about this recent Facebook controversy, I naturally read some of the posts that had not appeared for so-called ”technical reasons”. They were published a few days later, after people had complained that Facebook had shown an anti-Palestinian bias, by deliberately blocking the posts. Of course, this is not the first time that Facebook has faced these kinds of accusations, sometimes because they do allow certain posts. For example, when they published all the lies and distortions from Trump’s supporters, during the election campaign and after.’
‘There are three main questions here. First of all, is it just a coincidence that many of those posts – I didn’t try to read more than ten or so – promoted a completely one-sided picture of the recent war between Israel and Hamas? Secondly, does Facebook have the legal right, and perhaps the moral responsibility, to not publish whatever it deems to be inappropriate? Are Palestinian-run websites held to the same moral standards? Do we insist they publish pro-Israeli posts, balancing these with opposite points of view? Or do we think they should be free to decide which posts to publish and in what numbers? Thirdly, and what is most relevant to this course, is why did Facebook backtrack? Why did the policy change, with the posts being published after all? Was it political correctness, catering to an offended group, rather than just sticking to an otherwise reasonable and clearly defensible editorial stance?’
‘I’m Jewish, so some people might try to diminish what I have to say because of a perceived bias. Of course, such an ad hominem assumption of bias could be made against detractors as well. In any event, let me first summarize what I consider to be a truthful, balanced view of the war. To begin, the loss of life and the destruction of property, the traumatization of people, especially children, on both sides, is absolutely horrible. These are the terrible costs and results of war. However we measure the consequences, it is obvious there cannot only be a picture from one side. Hamas sent literally thousands of missiles into Israel, killing people and destroying property. The effects were greatly reduced because the Israelis were able to shoot down most of those bombs before they landed. Hamas fired those missiles with the intention of killing whomever they happened to kill, destroying whatever property they happened to strike. They were aimed more or less randomly. Consequences in return, to the population of Gaza, were horrendous. There were – ‘
At that moment, one of the other students interrupted, a woman wearing a hijab, sitting near the front of the class. She stood up, looking directly at the speaker. Speaking with an Arabic accent, her tone was fierce and accusatory. She was essentially shouting. ‘You are killing children’ she said to the speaker. ‘You are destroying hospitals. You are killing innocent people.’
Professor Latchman was somewhat caught off guard, but he quickly moved to stop the woman’s outburst. Having spoken to the woman on a few previous occasions, he knew her name was Jamila Fayad, and that she was an immigrant from Syria, having settled in the area a few years before, with her parents and siblings. She was one of four religious Muslims in the class, three female and one male. The others were seated side-by-side in the row behind her. In a class that consisted mostly of people of color, they hadn’t particularly stood out during the previous weeks of the course. As occurred to Latchman in this moment, this was likely because the course topics had centred almost completely around anti-Black racism and issues involving sexual identity.
Latchman, seated at the front of the room right beside the speaker, stood up and made a restraining gesture to the woman with his right hand. It was abundantly clear to him that the situation could easily escalate if he didn’t quickly take control. ‘Please. I must ask you to stop, Ms. Fayad. Please sit down’ he said, in a firm, resolute tone, addressing the woman as he did all of his students, using her last name. ‘You will have an opportunity to comment once the speaker has finished. Please allow the speaker to make his presentation. We have all agreed that there will be no comments until these presentations have been completed. And please, remember not to attack people personally. We can strongly disagree with what someone says, but let us challenge what has been said. No personal attacks or insinuations. That is very important. Okay. Mr. Mazur, please continue.’
‘Thank you, Professor Latchman’ said the young speaker, apparently unrattled by the outburst. ‘Justifying war and conflict and killing might be called a fool’s job’ he continued. ‘Yet, if people are not provided with an accurate historical picture of conflict, it can make the situation worse and lead to further violence and injustice. Hamas is a terrorist organization. Our country and other western countries have declared this to be the case. Their only goal in relation to Israel is quote, to drive the Jews into the sea. The idea of a peace treaty or peaceful co-existence is not even a possibility. The claims made about land can – ‘
Again Jamila Fayad stood up, confronting the speaker in the same defiant, angry way. ‘You must end the occupation’ she said. ‘You must give back our land. You are killing our people. We have the right to fight for the liberation.
Anticipating this second outburst, Latchman had already decided on his response, and he acted swiftly. He stood up and again addressed the woman. ‘That is enough’ he said, speaking somewhat forcefully while trying to retain his composure. ‘This presentation is over for now. Thank you, Mr. Mazur. I am sorry for the interruption. Class, we are going to take a fifteen minute break now, before the next talk. Would everyone please leave the room, except for Ms. Fayad. If you wouldn’t mind, Ms. Fayad, I would like to have a word with you before we continue.’
In his head, Latchman was rapidly composing a short speech he would deliver to Jamila Fayad, some careful form of admonishment. How she had attacked the speaker personally. How she hadn’t let him speak. How she had been rude and disrespectful. How she had denied him the same basic freedom of speech she would want for herself. But he never had the opportunity, as Jamila Fayad filed out of the room along with everyone else. For fifteen minutes, Latchman stood waiting for her to return, but she never did. When the students returned fifteen minutes later, she was not among them.
This was certainly not the first time a student had filed a formal complaint about some aspect of Media Studies 32.455. One of Latchman’s colleagues had faced a similar situation a few years before, when a Black student had objected to a class discussion on rap music. The professor had played a selection of songs in class, all laced with profanity and the N-word, which the student had found humiliating and demeaning. The professor had to appear before the Academic Standards Committee to answer for the material. He volunteered to meet with the student-complainant, and successfully diffused the matter. Most student-complaints never reached that stage. Though they were always taken seriously, such complaints were usually answered by no more than a polite note from the Dean’s office, thanking the student for the submission and emphasizing that it had been taken very seriously. The university was always striving to improve in its awareness of and sensitivity to student concerns, et cetera. It was virtually unheard of for any remedial or punitive action to result from such a complaint. So, when Howard Latchman was asked to meet with the Dean of Arts the following week, after a formal complaint had been filed by Jamila Fayad, he wasn’t particularly troubled by the matter.
On the day of his meeting with the Dean of Arts, Latchman came prepared, bearing a printed copy of the course outline for 32.455, as well as a detailed summary of the incident surrounding Mark Mazur’s presentation the previous week.
Like many faculty members at Mackenzie King College, Howard Latchman was mostly oblivious to administrative matters. He tried to have as little to do with meetings and committees and procedures as he could possibly get away with. For most of his years on the faculty, he would not even have been able to name the President of the university, or any of its senior administration. His focus was his teaching and his other academic work. As a full professor in his late fifties, he’d paid his dues, and he now purposefully managed his time with a minimum of aggravation and a minimum of futility. When he was escorted into his meeting with the Dean of Arts, by the administrative assistant, he was meeting the Dean for the first time.
Walking into the Dean’s inner office, carrying his documents, he was greeted by an exuberant, friendly-looking woman. ‘Hello, Professor Latchman’ she said. ‘I’m Amira Zuhar.’
Latchman only vaguely remembered the Dean’s recent hiring. People who had paid more attention would have remembered that she’d been highly touted at the time. She was a devout Muslim and well-known social activist. She’d been hired directly from the faculty ranks at the University of Toronto, with an impressive publication record in Political Studies, and with absolutely no prior administrative experience. Forty years of age, she was a shining example of Mackenzie King College’s commitment to diversity and inclusiveness at every level.
Dean Zuhar was wearing a beige hijab. She had a dazzling smile, immediately disarming Latchman. She motioned for him to sit down on one of the black leather chairs beside her oak desk, offering him water or coffee or tea, all of which he politely refused.
All of a sudden, Latchman’s situation seemed much more perilous. A hijab-wearing Dean was to pronounce on the complaint; on the confrontation between a hijab-wearing student and a male, Jewish student; a confrontation in which he, Latchman, himself Jewish, was deemed by the female student to be at fault. This might not go so well, Latchman thought to himself, nervously glancing around the spacious, well-appointed office. He decided he would wait for a moment before offering his documents to the Dean.
‘Professor Latchman’ the Dean began, flashing a quick smile, a smile Latchman was suddenly rather wary of. ‘Thank you for dropping by today. Jamila Fayad’s complaint… I’ve sent you a copy of what she’s written. I have spoken at some length with her.’ The Dean spoke evenly and quietly, maintaining direct eye-contact with Latchman. ‘Jamila says you silenced her. You stopped her from talking, from countering the pro-Israeli statements. She says you took the side of the Jewish student. Because you are Jewish. She says she can’t return to your class anymore, because you don’t give the same freedoms to all of your students.’
Latchman shuffled in his seat uneasily before offering a response. ‘Ms. Fayad stood up and interrupted the class presentation’ he said to the Dean. ‘She accused the speaker of killing children, of destroying homes. Accused him. He was not involved in the war. He’s not an Israeli; he’s a Canadian. She kept accusing him. It was horrible. She said things like ”You are killing children”; targeting her accusations directly at him. I politely asked her to stop, but she wouldn’t. She continued her personal attack. I had to stop the presentation entirely. It was embarrassing to expose my entire class to that kind of thing. I’ve prepared a detailed summary of the – ‘
The Dean cut Latchman off in mid-sentence. ‘As to the interruption and as to her point of view, she is obviously a passionate defender of the Palestinian cause. And she felt it was necessary to counter a one-sided justification of the actions of the Israelis. Her use of the personal pronoun ”you” probably has as much to do with second-language issues as anything else.’
Latchman was incensed at the Dean’s complete misreading of the incident. He struggled to remain composed. ‘No’ he said, his voice rising. ‘Her usage of ”you” cannot in any way be attributed to second-language issues. She very deliberately pointed to him, and targeted the accusations at him. There was no doubt about it at all. She is a bright student. She obviously knows the difference between ”you” and ”the Israeli army”. There were twenty-four witnesses to the incident, other than me. How many of them have you bothered to interview?’ His tone had quickly progressed to one of anger and impatience. ‘I’m guessing very few, if any. I guess I should have expected you to take her side, but what you are saying is patently ridiculous and simply wrong. All of those statements about the way things proceeded, and the accusations made about my reaction, they are all false. In fact, they’re libelous. She should examine her own behaviour. The ”Jewish student”, as she calls him, did everything he could to be even-handed, respectful and non-accusatory. The whole point was to address the political correctness involved in the matter. In Facebook’s reversing its decision to not allow certain posts that were clearly pro-Palestinian. Was it political correctness that pressured the company to reverse its position? The presenting student was admirably respectful and sensitive to the Gaza side of the conflict. He didn’t even get to fully express his thoughts on the matter. She jumped on him and fired off some very hostile, personal accusations at him.’
Dean Zuhar responded in a much sterner tone than before. ‘Professor Latchman’ she said, ‘I am very much disturbed by your implying my taking sides here. That is certainly not the case. I understand and I very much appreciate the sensitive nature of this classroom topic. Especially for both Jewish and Muslim students. But Professor Latchman, we can’t have students accusing our faculty of silencing their views. We can’t have our students saying it is impossible for them to continue their attendance in class; impossible because of their humiliation and their perceived mistreatment at the hands of their professors. This goes well beyond reasonable classroom behaviour and course management. I’m afraid I’m going to have to suspend you from any further involvement in this course. Your department chair, Professor Guilfoyle, will appoint a replacement to finish the remaining few weeks of lectures. I have spoken to him this morning. For the present, there are no further consequences to you with respect to this incident. However, there will be a full internal inquiry into the matter. I have asked Professor Nkosa, the chair of the Academic Standards Committee, to conduct a thorough review of the matter, including your role. Thank you for coming in this morning.’ Saying this, Dean Zuhar stood up to see Latchman out.
Latchman was stunned. It took him a moment to begin breathing evenly again. Getting to his feet, he was fuming mad. ‘Are you serious?’ he said to the Dean. ‘This is a travesty. There were twenty-four witnesses to the event. Did you talk to them? Does the truth matter? Do you -‘
Dean Zuhar cut him short. ‘Professor Latchman’ she said, firmly. ‘I’m very sorry. I have to interrupt you. I know you must find this very upsetting. I’m going to wish you a good day. This is a most unfortunate incident. Again, thanks for coming in.’
It was all Latchman could do, to simply walk out of the room, without lashing out at the Dean of Arts. He stormed out of the office, out of the building and onto the nearly empty quad outside, shaking his head in disbelief.
THE END
Features
Part 8 of the story of the Winnipeg con man: He promises to help an old childhood friend set up a Real Estate Investment Trust
By BERNIE BELLAN This is the eighth part of a story about a delusional Winnipegger who believes he is someone of great wealth and has spent the better part of 30 years contacting people all over the world telling them that he wants to invest in their businesses or projects. The first seven parts of this story are all available to read under the FEATURES category on this website.
Here is part 8 of my story:
To this point, while I’ve given accounts of different individuals who may have spent a great deal of time working on projects that Devlin had promised he would back financially and, while I don’t want to diminish the value of the time they all lost involving themselves in what turned out to be Devlin’s total delusion, none of them could say that they actually lost money as a result of having become involved with Devlin.
Sure, Rick spent what he says were hundreds of hours planning the expansion of his publication – based on Devlin having told him he would back him, and Dan Winthrop spent what he says were years trying to bring his aviation idea to fruition. In neither case though can they say that they put up real money to advance their ideas. Bob Anderson says he was only paid $1,000 for all the work he ended up doing for Devlin, but he admits that he has only himself to blame for having spent so much time without being compensated.
Avi did end up spending time on the phone with Devlin but again, he can’t make much of a case that it cost him financially.
Such was not the case with Jonathan Soloway. In fact, Jonathan was one of the last people to whom I spoke directly who had been a victim of Fred Devlin and that was only after Rick had cajoled him into believing that I was honestly interested in helping him – by exposing Devlin as a total fraud. I’ve already noted that Jonathan’s particular case was so well documented by him having kept copies of every email and every document that Devlin had ever sent him that I told Jonathan I thought he had a really solid case in a civil action if he were to file one – not only against Devlin, but Devlin’s wife and Devlin s parents as well.
He told me that he couldn’t possibly afford a lawyer to represent him, so I said to him that I might be able to help him with that. I told him that I knew a number of very good lawyers in Winnipeg who are experienced civil litigators and that, if he wanted, I would reach out to one or more of them to see whether they might be interested in representing Jonathan in a lawsuit against Fred.
I emailed one lawyer whom I regard quite highly and gave him a brief summary of the case that I thought Jonathan could have against Fred. That lawyer responded the same day, saying that he was currently on vacation, but that he would get back to me when he returned to work.
It was a while before I heard from that lawyer so, in the meantime I thought I would contact some other lawyers whom I thought would also be well suited to handle a lawsuit for Jonathan against Fred. One lawyer with whom I had a very amiable conversation said he couldn’t possibly take on the case because he knew the Devlin family too well. Another lawyer said he was in the process of retiring from practice and regardless, cases of this sort are so complex that it was far outside of his field of practice.
Eventually though, I heard back from the first lawyer I had contacted. He said that he had turned the matter over to the head of civil litigation in his firm and that I could expect to hear from him.
Normally, a lawyer would not discuss a matter of this sort with anyone except his or her client, but there was an extenuating circumstance in this case: I had agreed to put up a retainer for the firm if they agreed there was a solid case to be had against Fred Devlin.
When I was first writing this part of the story I didn’t know what the status of Jonathan Soloway’s putative lawsuit was. I had heard back a few times from the lawyer I had first contacted to ask whether his firm might be interested in mounting a lawsuit on behalf of Jonathan, but each time the answer was that he would have to put it to the firm as a whole to decide whether it would be worthwhile to take on the case. I had explained to the lawyer I had contacted that, if the firm thought it was a bona fide case, I was prepared to put up the retainer that is normal for a law firm to require before proceeding with a case of this sort. My thinking was that, if the firm did file a law suit and it proved successful, then I would get a percentage of the resulting award.
Jonathan had sent a detailed package of documents to the lawyer I had contacted which gave an itemized accounting of how he had been defrauded by Fred Devlin.
Here is what he had sent, on February 28, 2026:
Please find attached a PDF detailing the full employment timeline and the hours I invested in my executive role in connection with ….and the …. Group matter.
This document sets out:
• A chronological summary of my work contributions
• The estimated total hours invested at a senior executive level
• REIT structuring, financial modelling, compensation framework development, and strategic planning
• Representations made to me regarding compensation and ownership interests
• Written communications and text messages wherein Mr. … represented that …. Group would assume responsibility for my outstanding debts and that I was to refrain from paying them personally
• Statements made to me indicating that an executive in my position could not be in bankruptcy
In addition to the attached summary PDF, I am in possession of:
• Signed agreements relating to compensation and ownership
• Supporting PDF documentation
• Screenshots of text message exchanges
• Compensation modelling documentation
• Materials reflecting equity and ownership representations
Please advise how you would prefer the full evidentiary package organized and delivered for review. I am prepared to provide a consolidated, indexed digital binder or hard-copy materials as required.=
I look forward to your guidance regarding next steps.
Jonathan did hear back from the head of the law firm around the middle of March (and I was cc’d on that email). In it he was told that the matter was now in the hands of the head of litigation for the firm.
On April 1, 2026, Jonathan received the following email from the head of litigation:
It was a pleasure speaking with you today regarding your matter.
As a preliminary matter, I addressed the suggestion that this matter might form the basis of a broader claim involving multiple affected individuals. Based on the information currently available, there is no evidentiary foundation to support such an approach. Your circumstances appear to be more consistent with an individual claim arising from alleged breach of contract and misrepresentation. A broader proceeding would require evidence from multiple individuals demonstrating a pattern of conduct involving financial loss, which is not presently before me.
As for your case, I have conducted a preliminary review of the documents you provided. Below is my understanding of the facts and our discussion. Please let me know if I have misunderstood or omitted anything:
Sometime around August 2024, you entered into discussions with Mr. … and what you describe as the “…Group of Companies Worldwide Holdings Group.” Based on representations made to you, you travelled to Winnipeg for meetings, participated in discussions regarding the development of a REIT, and entered into an employment agreement.
Under the employment agreement (Note: the full employment agreement can be found beginning on page 68.) you were to receive compensation of $250,000 annually commencing June 1, 2025, as well as additional compensation on termination. You also advised that the agreement contemplated you holding a 49.5% interest in a proposed company.
You then engaged in executive-level planning and related work in reliance on those representations. You estimate that you spent approximately 1,850 hours performing work in preparation for the establishment of the REIT.
You now believe that those representations were false. You have not received any compensation for your work, including salary or other payments.
As discussed, the role of counsel at this stage is twofold. First, to determine whether you have a viable legal claim, including identifying the appropriate causes of action. Second, to assess the nature and quantum of damages that may be recoverable. To complete that assessment, it will be necessary to review the employment agreement and all supporting documentation, including evidence of the representations made to you, your reliance on those representations, and the losses you have sustained. Depending on the terms of the agreement and available evidence, your claim may proceed either in contract or tort (e.g. negligent misrepresentation, detrimental reliance, quantum meruit, and other causes of action). I suspect you do have one or more actionable causes of action. Damages are less clear. Enforcement even more tenuous.
Based on the information currently available, there is some uncertainty as to whether Mr. … has sufficient assets to satisfy any judgment. You indicated that there may be a possibility of recovery through discussions with his family in the event of a successful claim. However, that outcome is uncertain and should be considered when evaluating the cost-benefit of litigation.
As a next step, I recommend that you retain our firm to conduct this initial analysis and assessment. Subject to clearing conflicts, this would require execution of our engagement documentation and payment of an initial retainer of $5,000. You indicated that Bernie, associated with the Jewish Post and News, may be prepared to fund your legal fees and asked that I contact him to confirm. I will do so. For clarity, you have authorized me to discuss your matter and our conversation with Bernie. I have copied Bernie on this report.
If you would like to discuss any aspect of this further, I remain available.
(I should note that the reference to my association with The Jewish Post and News was wrong. The Jewish Post & News no longer exists but hey, lawyers can make mistakes.)
Jonathan didn’t send me all the documents he had sent to the lawyer whom I had first contacted, but he did send me the “Master Employment Agreement,” which Devlin signed, and which spells out in great detail everything that Fred Devlin was promising to Jonathan Soloway.
In terms of chronology, Jonathan’s experience with Devlin was quite recent – going back only a little more than a year. When I talked to Jonathan I began by reviewing what I had already learned about Devlin. I wanted Jonathan to be aware that I knew quite a bit about Devlin, but I was quite interested in speaking to someone who had actually lost money as a result of Devlin having ensnared him in his delusion, not just someone who had only spent time working on a plan that was delusional.
I said to Jonathan that Devlin has left “no prints’ on the internet. A search for his name or the Xanadu Group of Companies would turn up nothing because, as I explained to Jonathan, what I had found out was that nothing Devlin had boasted as having done or as owning when he spoke with so many other individuals was “real.”
Since writing this, however, I’ve now become aware that someone was able to retrieve the original article I had written about the person I’ve been calling Fred Devlin and has reposted that article under a different website. The person who reposted that article used something called the “Wayback Machine.” Don’t ask me what that is. All that I know is an article I had first posted on February 22, 2026, then removed two days later, is back on the internet.
To return to my conversation with Jonathan Soloway – I went on: “It didn’t take me too long to realize this guy is nuts, and that’s why I left it alone after I talked to his mother” – until I received that January 16 email.
“But,” I continued, “now that I realize that he’s a very dangerous nut, it’s a different story. “What I’d like to know is whether his parents have been involved with this? Because it’s one thing if his mother or if both his parents are paying for Fred and his wife’s car or house, whatever it is, but do they realize that, according to what I’ve been told by more than one person, their son likes to go to the Fairmont Hotel for breakfast – carrying a briefcase, and that he sort of holds court there – pretending to be a very important businessman?”
Jonathan concurred: “He walks in there like a big ‘macher’ (a Yiddish expression for someone important), like everybody knows him there. He sits down for breakfast there. But the thing I really, I find so incredible is, his wife, she has to be completely complicit here because what else does he do during the day?”
I said that’s something I’d like to find out too, adding that I had been told his wife has been present at many of Fred’s so-called “business meetings.” What has her role been in enabling Fred to carry on with his delusional behaviour, I wondered?
Jonathan said: “He thinks he’s… some sort of like, how do I say? He thinks he’s some sort of divine intervention from God that he will help you. That’s how he comes across. And he’s put on this planet to help people.
“…so if you’re someone who is destitute and you’ve got problems, then you’re someone he loves to help.
“And how he finds these people in itself is a question. I guess, being on social media and seeing who are friends of friends and maybe tapping into them.”
I said to Jonathan “I’m not going to try and find every last person that Fred Devlin has contacted because the stories are all of a pattern. He finds someone – I guess mostly through social media, finds out something about them, tells them he’d like to help them – and pretty soon he has them believing he’s some fabulously rich businessman who will help them financially.”
Jonathan then asked me about my own background: “So are you the Western Jewish News?” (That was another Jewish newspaper that my late brother and I, along with another partner, bought in 1987 – mostly to get rid of it to eliminate the competition for the paper we owned, which was The Jewish Post.)
“No,” I explained to Jonathan,”I used to be the owner of the Jewish Post & News – which used to be called the Jewish Post.”
I added that my brother, who had been the editor of the paper, died suddenly in 2009, and I took over as editor and publisher until I gave the paper away in 2024 to a non-profit Jewish service organization called the Gwen Secter Centre. I told Jonathan that I still work with the print newspaper somewhat, but I focus my attention more on my website, which is called jewishpostandnews.ca.
Jonathan said that he hadn’t paid much attention to Winnipeg’s Jewish community since he left Winnipeg in the 1990s, but he knew that his mother was a subscriber to the Jewish newspaper. I told him that I knew her name.
I also told Jonathan that I had done investigative journalism in my time, but I had never come across as crazy a story as the Fred Devlin story. I said that I knew Fred suffers from a delusional psychosis and that I wanted to do whatever I could to stop him from harming more people. That’s why, I said to Jonathan, I wanted to learn a lot more about what had happened between Fred and him because, after talking to Rob Griffin, I thought that Jonathan had the most convincing case that could lead to a successful lawsuit against Fred and his family.
Jonathan said “the one thing they’ve got to do with Fred is take away his phone – or just take him away, period. I think they got to put him in a straitjacket.”
I said, “that doesn’t happen – unfortunately, but I’m going to try and keep other people from being victimized by him.” And that’s why I wanted to help Jonathan find a lawyer who would file a lawsuit for Jonathan.
“If you can sue Fred then I can report on any of the allegations the lawyer would include in your lawsuit,” I said to him. And my simply reporting those allegations would prevent another lawyer from suing me for defamation, I added – something that I had been threatened with when I first posted something to my website about Fred – and his family.
That’s why I wanted to learn as many of the details of what had gone down between Jonathan and Fred, I explained.
I added: “And if it causes his parents great embarrassment, so be it. They should have put a stop to this years ago. And they didn’t.”
Jonathan said: “I think at the beginning, if I understand it correctly, he (Fred) did very well in business financially. But then, he lost a lot of money… it was some investor he had.
“And then, I think that’s when his parents stepped in and started to help him. All I know is he was involved with (name of business omitted). That’s all I know.”
I wanted to turn the conversation to finding out what exactly was the nature of the business deal Jonathan and Fred were supposed to have had. I had been told by Rob Griffin that it had something to do with real estate, so I asked Jonathan if his background was in real estate?
I don’t want to describe in specific terms what Jonathan’s business background was because anyone reading this who might have known him would know exactly who it is who I’m writing about and, just as I had promised everyone else whom I interviewed, I wanted to give them anonymity.
Suffice to say that Jonathan had held an extremely important position within the construction industry in Toronto for over 25 years. “At one point in my life, I was travelling about 200,000 miles a year,” he noted.
He continued, “So I travelled all over the world for almost 11 years. And I was invited by the federal government to be part of the Team Canada trade mission to China and Hong Kong.
“I left my job after 25 years. And I didn’t really know what to do. So I became a consultant. I was … group consultants for a while. And I did a couple of jobs here and there. And it was never really paying the bills properly, whatever it was.
“And I decided then to go get my real estate license because real estate here was extremely huge. It was a crazy real estate market we had here for about 18 years. And by the time I got my real estate license, that’s when everything turned.
“I went into real estate at the very worst time. I mean, the past two years, I’ve hardly made any money. I’ve been extremely struggling for that matter.
“And that’s where I stand today.”
But when did his involvement with Fred Devlin start, I wondered?
Jonathan explained: We went to school together as kids, like five, six, whatever it is. I mean, I knew him… I mean – Jewish geography when Winnipeg was small. Everybody knew everybody. I mean, I grew up with the YMHA… where almost all Jewish kids went… I knew his parents, too. I mean, I spent some time at their house. I was a childhood friend of his, but… I kind of fell out of his life for about 40 years. He reached out to me one day on Facebook out of nowhere, and we rekindled the friendship that we had missed for well over 35 years.”
I asked Jonathan: “Do you remember when that was, how long ago it was?”
He answered: I don’t remember exactly, but I’m going to say it was sometime around a year ago. I’m trying to think here…It would have been like February of last year – but wait, I might be wrong. It might have been the year before.”
I said: “But, whenever it was, it’s been quite recently.”
Jonathan: “Right. I was in Winnipeg in September of 2024. So I came back to Winnipeg to see Fred and I stayed with my mother. I was there for three days. That was the first meeting I had with Fred it, was September of 2024. So I would have met him on Facebook several months before that, in 2024.”
I said: “Okay, so just tell me what happened then.’
Before he launched into his story of what happened between him and Fred, Jonathan said he had to tell something about himself. Again – to keep his identity hidden I won’t divulge the detail of what happened, but suffice to say, he lost quite a bit of money in a failed investment. Some things happened in his personal life – aside from losing quite a bit of money in an investment, but I won’t describe that either.
In short, Jonathan’s life was falling apart. He “didn’t have a car,” he was living at his brother’s and, as he had noted earlier, the real estate business in Toronto had gone bad.
And then Fred showed up in his life. ‘When I met Fred, you know, he was like ‘the saviour. Like he’s done with everybody, he told me, he was going to help me.
“And he knew I came from the construction industry, and he wanted to set up a real estate REIT (Real Estate Investment Trust) with all his properties that he had in Winnipeg, in Cleveland, and in Toronto, and I thought that this was a great idea. He told me all about Xanadu, and about his airplanes…, that he owns Air Canada, that he owns the World Bank, that he owns, like, all this pie-in-the-sky stuff, whatever it was. It was just crazy.
“And… I believed him, mostly because he was a childhood friend of mine and I knew him. I had no reason for him to be telling me a lie, I guess is what I’m trying to say.
“Now, it didn’t cost me any money to hear his other stories, and even though I knew the other stories weren’t true, the way he put together this idea for a REIT – well, he knew all the ins and outs and he was very convincing… and we talked about putting this together, and blah, blah, blah…
“But, first and foremost, one of the things that was very strange is that every time things were going to get together, it just never got together. Like, Fred always had some sort of something, saying: ‘Jonathan, I can’t do that this week, because I’m going to Israel tomorrow, or I can’t, you know – or I’ve got to go to the hospital, or whatever that might be, he had an excuse for everything. It doesn’t matter,
“There was always a reason that it wasn’t going to happen. So fast forward to 2025 – we made a plan that I would come into town (Winnipeg) in May of 2025, and that by the time I left, that we would have a contract put in place, because the intention was, he said for sure that we’re going to put this together, and we’ll have this together on the first of September…Originally,” he said, “he wanted to try to raise capital for all this, with all the people that he knew.
“And then he decided at the very last minute, that he’ll use his own properties, which was what I always thought was going to happen, because when you’re setting up a REIT, you need these properties, but these properties, he already had. There was no reason to go search for other investors to begin with. Long and short story is, one of the first real problems I had with Fred was, we finally did a contract, and I had a legal contract written up, and it was signed on the 31st of May,” but Fred never fulfilled any of the terms of the contract.
“When I was in Winnipeg, he had mentioned to me, like, Jonathan, you know, look, there’s no reason for you to try to get a part-time job right through the summer, whatever it is, you know, I’ll make sure that you’re looked after financially, and I’ll get you paid, and whatever… And, you know, he promised me all these things, but when I got home, sure enough, he wasn’t paying me. He wasn’t going to pay me anything, and he said that he thought I had money in my bank account, but I didn’t have enough.
“He made all these excuses, saying ‘I can’t pay you right now.’ Then, every discussion I had with Fred was really very thorough. The discussions would last, like, an hour on the phone.
“You know, he was, how do I say… what’s the word I’m trying to say, I guess, if I could say it the best way, he was very grandiose…In many ways he always had an incredible story to tell you – and one that sounded really real. But, around the end of September, around Rosh Hashanah, Fred tells me that he hurt his head, and he’s got to go to the hospital, and while he’s in the hospital, he tells me that what he’s going to do is ‘If I can survive until the 3rd of January of 2026, then everything’s going to be refunded, you’re going to have all this money, because you’re an owner in this company, and blah, blah, blah.
“And I said, ‘Well, Fred, I have all this debt. I’ve got to service this debt. I don’t have a way to wait until January, otherwise I’ve got to get a job or do whatever it is. So, from the hospital, I get an email from him, I mean, a text from him, that he’s going to have Xanadu Group take over my debt, and that I’m never going to have to worry about my debt anymore. And he sent me several text messages about this, saying give me all your debt right now, and let me see what I can do. He was going to take this one thing off my back, and the company was going to look after it, and that would be that.
“And that was the best thing I’d ever heard. And fast forward until the end of October, like two months later, now I’m told that the company told him he can’t pay off my debt, but he’ll help me negotiate some sort of deal with my vendors, he’ll get on the phone with them if I have to as well, for me as well, too. So, we made a couple of calls to one or two of my creditors, he was on the phone and talked like he was like some sort of lawyer or whatever it is, but then I realized right then and there that, you know, all these kind of promises that Fred had promised to save me and to look after me, it just never worked.
“It was just a lie, the whole thing – all the promises, the contracts – they were all crap.. And I’ll say something about Rick now. Several months before I got so deeply involved with Fred, Rick reached out to me on Facebook.
“I didn’t know who he was and he just said to me, ‘I see you’re a mutual friend of Fred Devlin’s and Fred’s going to be doing some work with me as well too in California, and I have this magazine and so on.
“I never paid much attention to what Rick wrote. I just said, ‘Well that’s nice, that’s great, ‘and I even said to Fred, ‘I met a friend of yours, Rick, and I didn’t know anything about this. Fred didn’t say anything. All he said was ‘Yeah, I’m going to be doing some stuff with him,’ but what I didn’t know is that how Fred got extremely angry at Rick, that he had told told me he was going to do something with Fred.
“I didn’t realize until afterward that Fred didn’t like that I was talking to someone else he was supposedly doing a deal with.’ “(Now I understood better why Bob Anderson kept sending nondisclosure agreements to different individuals. It makes one wonder though, even though Fred was clearly delusional, somewhere in the back of his twisted mind he knew what he was doing was all one great big con. Does he wander in and out of reality, I wonder – and starts to remember the crazy things he’s told different people? Who knows?
I never had the opportunity to speak to any of the psychiatrists who must have treated him over the years. My hope is that someday, someone close to Fred is going to tell the truth about his psychosis – and why those close to him allowed him to carry on his delusional behaviour for so many years. Even as I write this, I keep receiving messages from different individuals saying Fred just contacted them recently – and threatened them if they didn’t continue to fulfill their arrangements.)
Jonathan continued: “When this all happened I got a call from Rick around the exact same time where the lid was being pulled off on all this, and that’s when I really realized that I’d gone down this rabbit hole, I’d taken three flights I’d taken to Winnipeg, and I think back at some of the things that we went through, like you know – Fred wanted to come to Toronto, but he stayed with me – at my brother’s house with me. I thought if you’re a billionaire, what the hell would you want to stay in my house when you could stay in an expensive hotel – like everything just never added up, that he never had any money.”
Jonathan went on to say that he’s a big history buff and when Fred learned that about him, he told him that he wanted Jonathan to write a story about the history of the Middle East. (Devlin’s thought processes were so confusing for me to try and follow. Each time I looked back over the transcript of a conversation I had with someone who had some sort of connection to Fred Devlin I would see crazy twists in what Devlin would talk about. Devlin’s focus would easily turn to something else totally unrelated to where a conversation first started between him and a prospective business partner.)
I asked Jonathan whether Devlin had ever mentioned someone by the name of David Simkin? You may recall that when I, myself, first met Paul Devlin, he handed me a business card for his supposed group of companies with the name David Simkin given as the CEO on the card. I still haven’t been able to establish whether there was an actual individual by the name of David Simkin – although I suppose it’s a fairly common Jewish name but, as I mentioned at the outset of this story, if there ever was anyone named David Simkin who had some sort of connection to Fred Devlin, I’ve never been able to get in touch with him.
Jonathan said that Devlin had mentioned the name “David Simkin” to him many times, adding that he, too, had been told Simkin lived in Luxembourg, where he was CEO of the Xanadu Group of Companies. Devlin told Jonathan that Simkin had come back to Winnipeg and Devlin was trying to find a place “for him to live in.” (Strange, isn’t it? Devlin has to stay with Jonathan in Jonathan brother’s house when he comes to Toronto and the CEO of a worldwide group of companies headquartered in Luxembourg has come back to Winnipeg – and he doesn’t have a place where to live.)
I told Jonathan that David Simkin was all part of Devlin’s incredibly detailed delusion. I noted that, while his entire story was crazy, at least he was consistent in describing to different people how his group of companies was so vast, that it was headquartered in Luxembourg, and that its CEO was someone by the name of David Simkin. Where he deviated from his basic story, Rick told me, was in relating to people how many companies were in the Xanadu group of companies and how much wealth Devlin had. According to Rick, the number of companies Devlin told him were part of the Xanadu group was over 3,300 – not 300, and Devlin wasn’t just a billionaire, he was a trillionaire!
Now, while you may be giving your head a shake at the absurdity of all this, there were many times when Devlin would keep his none-stretchers in check. I only talked to a few of the individuals who were conned by him – and those were all individuals who were willing to admit they had been so badly deceived by Devlin. But there were many others, I was told, who had taken meetings with Devlin – and the names I was given were of very respected businesspeople, who didn’t dismiss Devlin as some sort of nutcase.
That tells me that, despite his psychosis, he had some awareness that he had to tailor whatever story he was telling someone to that particular individual. The fact that he did obtain an MBA and did have a successful business career – at least, according to that story in the Manitoba business magazine and the subsequent mention of him in another business publication would certainly lead one to understand that, even in his fantasy that he was a brilliantly successful businessman, some vestiges of his past business experience would allow him to mount a very sophisticated facade when the occasion required it.
That goes to explain the level of complexity of the deal that Jonathan agreed to enter into with Fred.
I asked Jonathan how it was that Fred contacted him? Jonathan had said that he hadn’t had any contact with Fred since grade school – which was over 40 years previous. I wondered whether Fred had found him on Facebook, for instance?
“Did he find you on Facebook?” I asked. “Was that it?”
Jonathan answered: “I believe so. I don’t remember exactly. I’m not a big social media person, so he probably did find me on Facebook.”
I explained why I had asked that question: “Well, the reason I ask is I’m so curious about how he networks with people. He seems really adept at getting in touch with people who have some substance to them, and he sort of relies on name-dropping to cement his reputation.”
I noted that “one of the people I spoke to had actually gone to the trouble of setting up a meeting between Fred and (Israeli Prime Minister) Netanyahu.”
I asked Jonathan whether he had hear that story himself?
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Jonathan responded. “When I heard that, I said, ‘that’s incredible.’ “
I said to Jonathan: “But, of course, it was all delusion.” I went on to say that Avi (who was the fellow who had arranged that meeting acknowledged that it was “a good thing Fred. didn’t show up.” Otherwise, Avi would have been deeply embarrassed at Bart having met with Netanyahu.
But then Jonathan added a new story that, to that point, I hadn’t heard: “The other thing is, so Fred, apparently out of his own money, was working with a guy named Ari Deron, who was the former head of the Mossad in Israel.”
I said: “What? The former head of the what? The Mossad?”
Jonathan said: “Fred said he was the former head of cyber security for the Mossad.”
(I did a Google search to see whether there was ever anyone prominent in the Mossad by the name of Ari Doron. Here’s what I came up with : “Based on available records, there is no evidence of a high-profile former Mossad member named Ari Doron. The name appears to be primarily associated with a fictional character, Lt. Ari Doron, in the 2001 novel Martyrs’ Crossing by Amy Wilentz, who is an Israeli soldier, not a Mossad operative.”
I explained to Jonathan that I had spoken to someone by the name of Avi – who was the person who was going to set up the meeting between Fred and Netanyahu, but Avi never mentioned anything about a Mossad connection. It did occur to me, after hearing what Jonathan mentioned about the Mossad that, during one of my phone conversations with Rick, he had told me that Fred had told him that he was always accompanied by 20 bodyguards from the Mossad. Maybe I should have included that earlier in this story.
I asked Jonathan whether, when all was said and done, the REIT plan that Fred had contracted with Jonathan to establish, had cost Jonathan a lot of money?
His answer was: “No, I didn’t lose a lot of money with Fred. I lost a lot of time with Fred.”
I said: “You lost a lot of time. That’s the story with everyone. People wasted their time.”
Jonathan continued: “Immense amounts of time. Immense amounts of time. I mean, the quantified dollars, I mean, three flights to Winnipeg.
“As I said, I stayed with my mother. You know, a couple of drinks that we went out to that I paid, you know, that he didn’t. I didn’t lose hundreds of thousands of dollars with him, but I lost an immense amount of time here.
“And the contract that he wrote with me, he was going to pay me $250,000 a year. And if he didn’t exercise the contract in a certain amount of time over the two years, he’d have to pay me $1.5 million. Yeah.
“And this is what we wrote in the contract. And again, like I’ve had some employment lawyers here who told me that the contract’s pretty solid, but it means shit if he has no money.”
“What I do believe, and again, this is just my thought here is that his parents, his mother in particular, are aiding and abetting him here. She did agree that they paid for his house and she said, it’s a lower class house in Winnipeg.
“And one thing I’ve never understood is, Fred’s wife – where is she in this equation? People say that she’s complicit in what Fred has been doing…and I would have to think she is. The one thing I knew about Fred is he is completely inept when it comes to technology.
“Like, he didn’t know how to print anything, how to write anything, how to sign anything. Like it was just – very strange. I used to say ‘Fred, why don’t you even have an assistant that would do all these things? Like, when I had to sign the contract, I have to send it to his wife as a PDF document have her print it off, have him sign it and have her scan it back to me because he didn’t know how to do any of those things… the simplest things, but he didn’t know any of that.
“Yeah. It was very, very strange. He didn’t know anything to do with technology whatsoever.
“What really fascinates me about it all is what you said about his being totally delusional. When I think of Fred I think that he is living some sort of a life that he doesn’t even know he’s living in.”
But, as both Jonathan and I learned – to out chagrin, after having heard from the head of litigation of the law firm that had looked at Jonathan’s case, there was no point in suing someone who had no apparent assets – no matter how much it was evident that he was being supported by his parents – who have substantial assets.
As for the criminal investigation to which I referred in an earlier chapter, Jonathan hasn’t heard back from any police authority – neither the Winnipeg Police Service, nor the RCMP, so the only conclusion that can be drawn is that there is no interest on the part of any police service in pursuing a fraud investigation of Fred Devlin.
At a certain point, however, I was no longer simply writing about events – I was now an active participant in trying to bring some sort of justice for everyone who had been a victim of Fred Devlin’s delusions. I suppose some might consider the degree to which I’ve involved myself in a story that began with an email somewhat surprising, but it was when I began communicating with the person whose story will be told next that I was moved to go beyond simply writing about what Fred Devlin had done. I actually sent a fair bit of money to help one victim of Devlin’s elaborate con who, I was quite afraid, was on the verge of committing suicide.
Coming next: Charlie’s story and Fred’s promise to help fund a charitable foundation in Africa
Features
BOOK REVIEW: “Fighting the Hate: A Handbook for Jews Under Siege”
Reviewed by MURRAY BENDER “Thinking on your feet”—quickly defending a position in a coherent, persuasive manner—is a situation that many people find challenging and stressful. “If only I had said this.” or “Why didn’t I say that?” Hindsight is always 20-20.
Following the Hamas atrocities of October 7, 2023, it has become increasingly necessary for diaspora Jews to “think on their feet” as they unwittingly face a barrage of tough, sometimes hateful, questions about Jews and their Israeli homeland.
Why is Israel committing genocide in Gaza? Why doesn’t Israel return the land it has stolen from Palestinians? Why are Israeli settlers attacking Palestinian farmers? How is Israel different from apartheid South Africa? Why can’t I criticize Israel without being called antisemitic? Is it true that Jews control the world? The list of potential questions is nearly endless.
Engage or hide? This is the difficult choice that confronts Jews as they look to deal with anti-Jewish and anti-Israeli behaviour. Fortunately, author and journalist Melanie Phillips comes to the rescue with her practical and insightful book, Fighting the Hate: A Handbook for Jews Under Siege.
According to Phillips, the dilemma has no single answer. “People need to decide how to behave in accordance not just with the specific circumstances but also with their own attributes and limitations.”
Some regard engagement with their opponents as a sacred duty. “They believe it is a betrayal of the Jewish people not to uphold Israel’s case.” Ohers may be uncomfortable with such a direct approach, but “those who decide to keep their heads down and avoid any altercation may well find that this leaves them with a permanent sense of regret and even failure,” she says.
As a result, it’s probably a good idea to adopt some sort of balance. And that’s where Phillips’ 150-page handbook comes in.
She starts by providing context around the “crisis of legitimacy and acceptance” from which Jews are reeling post-October 7. On the basis of extensive conversations with Jews from across the U.S., Britain and Australia, the author found that many “were near stupefied by the terrifying hatred and irrationality that was unfolding around them.” Again and again, they asked: “What should we do? What can we do?”
In response, Phillips offers a pragmatic approach to help prepare for the inevitable conversations, including a number of key principles:
- Get smart rather than emotional
- Stop playing defence
- Find common ground
- Be positive and confident
- Keep physically safe
Based on these overarching criteria, she provides an extensive list of quick and clever retorts to a range of different situations, emphasizing that “it’s our duty to our children and grandchildren to fight for truth and justice.”
So, the next time it is necessary to “think on their feet,” diaspora Jews will be able to respond quickly and confidently to those difficult questions about themselves and Israel. And they can thank Melanie Phillips for coming to the rescue.
Fighting the Hate: A Handbook for Jews Under Siege by Melanie Phillips is available online from Amazon and Indigo.
Features
ESports Meets Casinos: Overview of Bet Sport Gaming
ESports has become part of the interactive entertainment of online casinos. In fact, many fans already have the opportunity to use Dragonia Casino Bet Sport options while watching the matches of their favorite teams. The hybrid entertainment model opens up many possibilities and increases audience engagement. When video games intersect with betting, it creates a unique collaboration where participants have the opportunity to get a completely new experience right in their own home. At the same time, you can continue to enjoy the usual viewing of familiar tournaments and competitions.
How ESports and Casinos Interconnect
ESports has become a multi-billion-dollar industry that attracts spectators. Traditional casinos are focused on luck. But now they are introducing additional methods of encouraging their customers. Among such options, eSports events deserve special attention. Such bet sport offers combine the usual excitement with an element of competition. The structure of the casino entertainment provides participants with the opportunity to test their skills and reveal their own hidden talents. There are several forms of integration of eSports mechanics into the structure of a classic online casino:
- Competitive betting. Online casinos provide the opportunity to bet on eSports tournaments, which is similar to the usual sports betting. In addition, the possibilities are significantly expanded compared to simple viewing platforms.
- Skill-based casino games. Games inspired by eSports encourage players to actively participate in what is happening on the screen. The games reward the player’s results with certain prizes.
- Interactive arenas. Some casinos broadcast eSports events in real time. This allows players to follow the games directly online, which creates a feeling of real participation in familiar entertainment.
- Cross-platform interaction. Online casinos are introducing eSports-style leaderboards and achievements to attract more participants.
Such innovations appeal to new participants. Cultural changes are part of the development of the infrastructure of the classic casino, and eSports fans find a new environment for entertainment and communication.
Growth of ESports Betting
Global eSports revenue in 2025 exceeded $1.5 billion. Each bet sport option has made a significant contribution to the development. Surveys show that over 60% of players will express interest in betting on eSports, which reflects the demand and the need to develop an updated infrastructure for participation.
ESports events attract 15-20% more new participants compared to conventional casinos. The eSports betting market will exceed $20 billion by 2027, according to analysts’ forecasts, which encourages new participants to more actively watch tournaments and participate in various types of activity.
Why Fans Choose ESports
Bet sport gambling is gaining popularity. This is due to several reasons. For example, large casinos in Las Vegas and Macau now host full-fledged eSports tournaments alongside traditional entertainment. Venues are also experimenting with separate fan zones where sports betting and classic gambling are available.
Some of the most popular eSports disciplines are League of Legends and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. Some online casinos even introduce eSports mechanics into slots so that players can try something new.
In short, the intersection of eSports and casinos is a natural development of the industry. Competitive play and an optimized betting system create a comfortable environment for true fans who want to diversify their leisure time.