Features
Former Liberal candidate Lesley Hughes pens her version of what happened to her in 2008 when she was accused of being an antisemite
By BERNIE BELLAN How many times are we going to revisit a story that has already received more than ample coverage within the pages of this newspaper – especially a story which one might have thought had been put to rest long ago?
The answer, in the case of Lesley Hughes, who achieved a level of notoriety in 2008 when she was unceremoniously turfed as the Liberal candidate in the federal riding of Kildonan-St. Paul during that year’s election, is: at least one more time.
The reason is that Hughes has just recently published a short book, titled “The Dead Candidate’s Report”, in which she offers her version of the events surrounding her forced exit as the federal Liberal candidate for the riding of Kildonan-St. Paul during the 2008 election, and the ensuing damage, both to her career as a journalist and her personal life as a result of that forced exit.
Looking back over our past coverage of the Hughes story, I see that we’ve run three previous articles about what happened: In July 1, 2009, we ran a story by Myron Love which I titled “Hughes Sues Jews”, in which Myron reported that “Last fall, Federal Liberal hopeful Lesley Hughes generated national headlines when it was revealed that she wrote an article in the Winnipeg Sun on May 5, 2002, alleging that the Israeli, American, German and Russian intelligence agencies all had advance warning of the Al Qaeda attack on the World Trade Centre on September 11, 2001.”
(Ed. note: Hughes’ exact words, with reference to advance Israeli knowledge of the attacks, were: “Israeli businesses, which had offices in the Towers, vacated the premises a week before the attacks, breaking their lease to do it. About 3,000 Americans working there were not so lucky.”
In that article, Hughes indicated she was quoting internet journalist Mike Ruppert who, she notes in her recently published book, “The Dead Candidate’s Report”, “claimed to have two independent sources about the move” but whose “sources were sealed forever when he allegedly committed suicide in 2014.”
In her book, Hughes admits that “a later explanation for the move was that the existing firm had decided to leave months earlier, breaking their lease as a routine cost of business.”)
Myron’s 2009 article went on to note that Hughes “also posted the article on a United Church of Canada website.
“As a result of the revelation, the former CBC broadcaster (she co-hosted the CBC Winnipeg morning show for a number of years) was forced to step down as the Liberal candidate for Kildonan-St. Paul. (She ran as an independent in the October election and finished a distant third.)
“Now Hughes is back in the news with a lawsuit she has filed against federal cabinet minister Peter Kent, the Canadian Jewish Congress and B’nai Brith Canada, as well as Frank Dimant, BBC’s executive vice-president, CJC co-presidents Rabbi Reuven Bulka and Sylvain Abitbol, and Bernie Farber, the CJC’s former CEO.
“Hughes filed the suit in Manitoba Court of Queen’s Bench on June 16. She alleges that the defendants ‘made untrue and defamatory accusations’ that she is anti-Semitic. She charges that senior members of B’nai Brith and the CJC went to see then Liberal leader Stephane Dion on September 25, with her 2002 article and persuaded Dion to drop her as a candidate on the grounds that she was anti-Semitic and ‘unfit to hold public office.
“In her lawsuit, she quotes a press release issued on September 27 by B’nai Brith’s Dimant in which he charges that Hughes has a ‘record of anti-Semitism’.”
In February 2013 Myron reported on a settlement reached between Hughes and the defendants to her lawsuit:
“This past week it was revealed that Hughes reached out-of-court settlements with the parties to her lawsuits.
“Following is an excerpt from a publication of joint statement issued by the parties concerned:
“ ‘Journalist Lesley Hughes, Canadian Jewish Congress, B’nai Brith Canada and Peter Kent MP (Thornhill) wish to clarify comments that each made during the 2008 Federal Election campaign regarding an article written by Lesley Hughes in 2002, in which she re-published statements that made presumptions of an anti-Semitic nature in connection with the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Centre.
‘Ms. Hughes was dismissed as a Liberal candidate in the election after the 2002 article was raised in the media.
‘During the election Canadian Jewish Congress, B’nai Brith Canada and Peter Kent each raised concerns about statements in the 2002 article which repeated false allegations that Israel or Israeli tenants were forewarned of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and did not warn others. Comments made by Canadian Jewish Congress, B’nai Brith Canada and Peter Kent were published in the media and Ms. Hughes filed a defamation claim in respect of the comments.
‘Canadian Jewish Congress, B’nai Brith Canada, and Peter Kent accept that Ms. Hughes does not condone the use of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories by racist groups to support anti-Semitism of any nature. They therefore acknowledge and agree that Ms. Hughes is not an anti-Semite. In fact, Ms. Hughes has been an advocate of human rights through three decades as a journalist and teacher.
‘Ms. Hughes confirms that she has and will continue to be a strong supporter of the work of any individual or group who exposes false public statements that might do harm to the Jewish community, and more specifically that are anti-Semitic and racist.
‘Ms. Hughes joins with Canadian Jewish Congress, B’nai Brith Canada, and Peter Kent in strongly condemning anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. They find anti-Semitism and all forms of racism, to be deeply contemptible behavior.’ “
Then, in December 2015, in that year’s Chanukah issue we reprinted an excerpt from a forthcoming book by Hughes, in which she offered further background to the story. Hughes had contacted us, asking whether we would run the story verbatim, including this headline: “An Enemy of the Jews”. We agreed to that and ran the story in its entirety (It ran over five different pages. You can still read the entire story on our website. Simply enter the names “Lesley Hughes” in our search engine and you will find the entire December 9, 2015 issue in which Hughes’ piece appears.)
Now, all this may seem like quite a long preamble to a book review, but I thought it necessary to put what follows into a certain context. Given that Lesley Hughes has been adamant in protesting her innocence over the charge that she was anti-Semitic – and I have no doubt of the unfairness of that charge, given the fact that we have bent over backwards to treat her fairly within this newspaper, I wonder if there really is any further need to comment on a story that has gone on for so long.
But, when we ran a story in our last issue about another defamation lawsuit that had also been settled and in which B’nai Brith had been named as a defendant, I thought the juxtaposition of the two cases reflects poorly on B’nai Brith Canada – and its occasional willingness to engage in over the top criticism.
The most recent case had to do with an article B’nai Brith had published about former Green Party candidate (and more recently, a contestant for the party’s leadership), Dimitri Lascaris.
(I should also note that in September 2018 I did an interview with Dimitri Lascaris which can still be accessed on Youtube, although I admit it’s not easy to find. As much as Lascaris is decidedly critical of Israeli policies toward Palestinians, by no means would I describe him as “an advocate on behalf of terrorists”, which is what B’nai Brith did.)
The reason I thought it important to note that B’nai Brith has now settled lawsuits with two different individuals who had filed libel lawsuits against the organization is that it illustrates the danger involved in labeling someone either “anti-Semitic”, as was B’nai Brith’s allegation about Hughes, or “an advocate on behalf of terrorists”, as was the case with B’nai Brith’s allegation about Lascaris.
Regardless what one may have thought about what Lesley Hughes had written in the particular article which ended up causing her so much grief, or what Dimitri Lascaris’s record is with regard to criticizing Israel, one should be very careful when it comes to accusing individuals either of being “anti-Semitic” or “advocates on behalf of terrorists”, especially when those individuals are Canadian citizens and have recourse to the courts here.
With all that in mind, is there anything new in Lesley Hughes’ recently published book,
“The Dead Candidate’s Report”, which is a very short read at only 107 pages (including appendices)?
On the website for her book, Hughes describes it as “a memoir of my 2008 run for parliament, my defamation as an anti-semite and conspiracy monger, and the lawsuit that cleared me of all accusations”. Unfortunately, due to the terms of the settlement agreement reached between Hughes and the defendants to her lawsuit, she is not allowed to discuss the terms of settlement.
What she does discuss, at great length, is the devastating consequences that her being forced to withdraw as the Liberal candidate for Kildonan-St. Paul had, both on her personal life and career – when she was shunned by many of her former colleagues in the media, along with many other individuals with whom she had developed relationships over her many years as a commentator and radio host, including many Jewish friends.
Leaving aside the mistake Hughes may have made in repeating a since debunked claim that Israelis had prior knowledge of the attack on the World Trade Centre, what followed was certainly devastating for Hughes.
Even when she was vindicated in a court of law and the defendants to her lawsuit apologized for having labeled her an antisemite, as she was about to discover, news of the defendants’ apologies and retractions of the charge was generally ignored within the mainstream media.
As Hughes writes, “When confronted by personal and professional devastation in 2008, at least I was able to turn to an overpriced, self-serving legal system. I have won back my reputation, by way of a lawsuit, but there is no remedy for the unyielding non-coverage of my vindication. No consequences. No accountability. No more action to be taken.”
For Lesley Hughes, at least, while the lessons she may have learned about the dangers inherent in taking any sort of a controversial position in public may have been salutary indeed, what does her experience have to say about anyone else who may be contemplating entering into politics – or who may already be involved in politics?
I certainly wouldn’t be the first to point out the dangers that exist for just about anyone who may have ever tweeted or posted to Facebook anything the least bit controversial. In 2016 this paper itself played an instrumental role in raising awareness of overtly anti-Semitic tweets that had been posted by a doctor by the name of Hussam Azzam, and which had been scrubbed from his Twitter feed – but not before someone who had been monitoring Azzam’s tweets had taken screenshots of them – and ended up giving me those screenshots.
Subsequently Assam was fired as the Chief Medical Officer at St. Boniface Hospital.
So, I’m well aware of the power even a small newspaper such as this can have in affecting the careers – and ultimately the lives, of individuals. In Lesley Hughes’ case, the likelihood is that her controversial columns about 9/11 conspiracies might well have gone ignored for the most part (although she does acknowledge that a column which she wrote for two Winnipeg weekly newspapers in 2002 about 9/11 in which she suggested that the United States brought about the attacks upon itself by its past behaviour did elicit some very angry responses from a great many readers of those papers), had she not inserted a suggestion that Israelis had foreknowledge of the attacks on the World Trade Centre, she would probably have been allowed to remain a Liberal candidate in 2008.
It was only because a blogger (whom she doesn’t identify in her book, but whom we identified as “The Black Rod”, a very well known blogger here who has a record of important scoops over the years) decided, in 2008, to publicize an article Hughes had written in 2002, that Hughes’ was cast into political and personal purgatory.
And, as we have just seen in the most recent federal election, it doesn’t take all that much to have candidates forced to remove themselves as candidates for political office. I think in particular of an NDP candidate by the name of Dan Osborne who, as a teenager tweeted at Oprah Winfrey (of all people), “was Auschwitz a real place?”
Who knows what the context was for that seemingly silly question, but let’s be honest: Is asking that question, especially by a young person who may simply be ignorant, in and of itself anti-Semitic or is it perhaps simply an indication of ignorance on the questioner’s part? But, as I’m sure Lesley Hughes can explain to Mr. Osborne: You can’t be too careful these days in posting anything that might potentially be used some day to cause great embarrassment to you. And, once you’ve been shamed in public, there’s no getting back your reputation, no matter all the apologies and retractions you might end up receiving.
Features
Part 5 of my story of the delusional con man: The plan to buy jets in Israel and convert them to planes that could fight forest fires
By BERNIE BELLAN This is the fifth 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 other three parts have been posted here at: Part 1: “The delusional Winnipeg con man who actually believed his own elaborate con and led one victim in Africa to consider committing suicide”; Part 2: “Meeting the con man for the first time in 2021; Part 3: “An explosive email arrives in my inbox on January 16.”; and Part 4: Someone in LA figures out who everyone else was that was conned
Just as Rick had blown hot and cold in responding to my questions – which I found so difficult to understand since he was the one who had initiated contact with me, a lot of the others with whom I was to come to speak over the ensuing days were also extremely ambivalent about speaking with me. Some of them expressed distrust of journalists, others said that what Devlin had done to them had so harmed them psychologically that they didn’t want to speak about it.
I thought it was all so strange. Here we had a group of individuals who had all been victimized by one man. Granted, I could understand their being somewhat embarrassed to talk about what had happened to them, but didn’t they want to retaliate at Devlin by having their stories told? I wondered. Further, in one particular instance, as I’ve noted, I went so far as to put one individual who had lost a great deal of money as a result of Devlin’s manipulation in touch with a very prominent Winnipeg lawyer who agreed to have his firm consider filing a lawsuit against Devlin.
The first person with whom I spoke over the phone was Dan Winthrop. Dan had a background in an aviation-related industry that gave him some common background with Devlin who, as I previously noted, also had business experience in the aviation industry. It was that commonality that had apparently led Devlin to reach out to Dan many years ago – with a proposal that became so detailed and complex that it led to Dan’s devoting many years of his life in pursuit of making that proposal come to fruition. Dan’s story was my first exposure to a plan which Devlin developed which was so intricate that Devlin himself must have devoted many hours to, at the very least, studying it – as well as leading Dan to think that it was going to be brought to fruition.
In the process, as I was to discover subsequently, Devlin involved many others in the plan, including a lawyer who wrote contracts for various parties. Of perhaps more importance, as I was to come to learn, that same lawyer also prepared non disclosure agreements in every instance where Devlin entered into plans with individuals. Devlin did not want anyone with whom he was in contact to discuss their dealings with anyone else. In hindsight, that should have been an indication that Devlin had some awareness that what he was doing was all invented nonsense, but it is also possible that he was also putting into practice his previous business experience, which might have taught him that obtaining non disclosure agreements before discussing detailed business plans was a very necessary and important step to take in every instance.
Following is part of my conversation with Dan Winthrop. I should note that, although Dan went off the record when it came to discussing a specific project that Fred Devlin had told him he would help promote – and I won’t mention that specific project in my writing about my conversation with Winthrop, it was when I had a subsequent conversation with an Israeli now living in the US that I was able to learn more about that project, which involved converting jets purchased from Israel Aerosapce Industries into water bombers of some sort.
Me: “Dan, you said that you first encountered Fred Devlin about 16 years ago, is that right?”
Dan: “Yes, I think it was either 2008, 2010, you know, I can’t remember.”
Me: “And how did you come to meet him? What was the background? Did he contact you? “
Dan: “Okay, my friend (we’ll call him Reg) was at a cafe at Confusion Corner, of course you know where that is. And he was sitting at a table next to Fred, and my friend was a social butterfly, and Fred, his modus operandi, as he’s trying to pick his next victim, he talks to anybody who’s around him.
“So he starts talking to Reg and giving him his story, that he has some aviation holdings, and that he’s a business man, and Reg was a really, really nice guy – he was First Nations, a wonderful person. And so Reg phoned me up after that, and said, oh yeah, I met this guy, Fred Devlin, and you know, I’d like you to meet him. So there was a period of time between when Reg met him, and then when I met Fred.
Me: “So, you met – did you come to Winnipeg to meet him?”
Dan: “Yes, I go to Winnipeg on a semi-regular basis because one of my kids lives there, and then one day, I met Fred.” (At that point though, Dan went off the record, saying he didn’t want to say what it was that he did for a living, saying “that’s going to open up a breadcrumb trail that I don’t want to happen.”)
Me: “All right, so you meet him, and then what happens?”
Dan: “So, we’re sitting there and Fred has this story, and he shows me his pictures… you know, some early pictures of him running around in limousines, and he also told me about his background doing his master’s degree at the University of Manitoba, and that he first started out doing some renovations or buying property on Corydon Avenue, and that’s where he made his first million or whatever, and he also uses options – real estate options.
“That’s his big thing. He really likes to have options on that stuff, and he was dressed rather street level, very casual, and told me that due to his his prominence in the business world and all the rest of that stuff, that he just decided that he was less of a target if he dressed in street clothes. So, anyway, he has his briefcase.
“He shows all of his stuff, and then we get in Reg’s car – some sort of red Japanese car, and we drove him (Devlin) back to his quote “penthouse,” which was on the Assiniboine or Red River – I always get those rivers mixed up and we dropped him off there, and, off he went, but he said that that day, he had purchased 201 Portage, the TD building, and he was just coming from that. So, he gives a (copy of) a story that I think it’s the one story that’s out there on Manitoba Business or something.” (That would be the story which was reproduced earlier in this story.) “And he says something about knowing Izzy Asper.”
Dan went on to explain how important the Izzy Asper connection was to Devlin’s “back story,” saying “he never would have made what he made, and he wouldn’t have his stories unless somehow he got involved with, Izzy Asper. And, I’ve got to go very slow as I think through all this stuff, okay?
“He said that he owns Harvard. Harvard is the company that owns 201 Portage Avenue, and I think the Hill family is behind that.
“And I remember, and this is part of the thing that’s weird about Fred is that he said about 201 Portage, he’s leasing out a lot of space to the Royal Bank. And then a couple months later, I see the Royal Bank sign on top of the TD building there.
“And so Fred steals other businesses’ ideas on what they’re doing, and he incorporates them into his back story. So when you’re looking around, and you’re listening to Fred mentioning Shindico and Sam Katz and you know, he’s actually stealing the identity of these people and weaving it into his own blanket of fantasy.
“And what else did we discuss that day? It was many, many years ago, but he talked about his ties to Israel and, you know, his financial relationships with Israel. And he’s a big supporter of Israel, even in his fantasy world.
“Um, that’s, that’s one of the core structures of how he operates – his dedication to the state of Israel, which comes up in all of his legal stuff and everything else. So, that’s how I met him. And then, you know – nothing happened.
“We just sort of kept in contact for maybe 12 years… just sort of talking on the phone. Occasionally, I would go out for coffee with him. One time, he talks about West Hawk Lake. He says he owns the marina there.”
At that point Dan went off the record again when he talked about his own career.
But Dan said he did have a project idea that involved doing something with a company in Israel. He broached that idea to Fred. At that point in the conversation Fred really began to ramble. The following excerpt is highly edited:
Fred came in and said, you know what? I really like what you’re doing. In 2021 I put down all my thoughts and I did a good analysis.
It’s actually very, very good stuff. I’m surprised even to read it today. And then Fred said, “Oh, I like that idea. I’m going to finance that.” And previous to this, you know, I heard lots of stuff about Fred and Xanadu capital and whoever that dude is in Luxembourg.
“So Fred can’t think of an idea. What he does is he’s parasitic. So he goes on other people’s ideas and then he contributes his financial fallacies to say ‘I can help this project move along”’and stuff like that.
“He preys on innocent people that he meets.
“That’s number one. He finds out what their hopes and dreams are and then tries to connect that way to finance them. So if you were going to build, you know, a gigantic physical publishing house, like they got in Steinbach, you know, Fred would say, ‘well, I can finance that for you.’
“And the other thing Fred does is that in order to infect like COVID other people, he goes for your connections. So that is his modus operandi. He can use your connections, talk to them, and then infect them also with his financial stuff.”
At that point the conversation took a totally different twist as Dan began to tell a story about going to a country that had been torn apart by civil war. As the story went on, he described meeting a “colonel” in that country who had just discovered “158 warehouses” full of weapons. Apparently the “colonel” was terrified by what he had discovered and he was afraid for his life over what he had uncovered.
I had no idea what the point of the story was and how it related to Fred – until Dan explained that Devlin had told him he had a very strong connection to Israel and that if Dan “ever saw anything that could affect the state of Israel, the security, to let him know. So I phoned him up and left a message. I said, I need two airplanes out of Malta now.
“The bottom line was that this could have been used against the States or Israel…
“So you’re never going to believe any of it, but I did see that. I did see that happen, but Fred never supplied me with the planes to get this colonel out so they could flip and deal with this stuff…
“But my thing was that, you know, Fred said he’s connected.
“I said, ‘give me some planes,’ which he didn’t. As a matter of fact, he said ‘don’t phone me ever again, because you terrified my wife…right? Because I left her a message. So that was my story.”
It was on another trip to Winnipeg that Dan said he had an opportunity to watch Devlin in action – doing his networking.
Dan described the scene: “Fred’s wandering around talking to all the executives with his briefcase.
“I’m talking to my buddies and he’s picked out all these people. And so he’s living, you know, the life of whatever his fantasy is in front of real people, telling them his story. So I’m watching this, you know, and he’s having these long conversations with people from head offices, stuff like that.
“And it looked to me that, you know, he’s doing his thing, making his connections. So, you know, he really thoroughly lives this kind of life and it’s you know, suspect I thought maybe he’s a little bit eccentric, like Howard Hughes.”
The conversation went on for some time, but not much else of interest emerged, As I’ve noted several times, Devlin’s background in aviation stood him in good stead when it came to trying to persuade various individuals that he was seriously interested in working with Israel Aerospace Industries. Dan Winthrop, especially, invested a great deal of time in a project that would have seen Israel Aerospace Industries convert jets for use as water bombers, spraying chemical retardants on forest fires.
I talk to an Israeli living in the US who was willing to help facilitate the plan to convert Israeli jets into jets that could fight forest fires
But, when it came to actually negotiating with someone who had ties to Israel Aerospace Industries it was someone I’ll call Avi who was ready to play a key role in the project.
When I spoke with Avi I promised him I wouldn’t disclose where he lived, what he did for a living, or who it was that he was going to connect to Devlin. Avi was deeply embarrassed at how much he believed Devlin story – and the extent to which he was prepared to help Devlin’s supposed plan through to fruition.
What he did disclose though, was that he had “a personal friend who works for the Israeli aviation and space industry.” He went so far as to say that “she’s in charge of the non-combat aviation side of it, and she’s in charge of North America.” (Bob Anderson referenced receiving an email from this woman, whom I’ve called Dalit Galon.)
Avi said “So, she contacted me and said she has a client who sent, I believe that his name is Dan, who sent his associates to Israel to meet with her and to purchase airplanes.”
I asked: “That would be Dan Winthrop – right?”
Avi: “Correct…And Dan flew and met with her, and he was under the impression that he’s dealing with a serious guy who wants to do good to the world as a foundation, and he is going to use those planes to fight fires – all over the world.”
I was a little confused as to the timeline when all this occurred because when I had spoken with Dan Winthrop, he had mentioned broaching an idea to Devlin in 2021 that Devlin said he really liked and wanted to put up money to see that idea go forward. But, when I spoke to Dan he said he didn’t want to get into specifics about that idea, beyond saying that Devlin steals other people’s ideas.
Now, however, after listening to Avi, I was beginning to understand just what Dan’s idea had been, so I said to Avi: “Let’s just go back. When is all this happening? What year are we talking about?”
Avi answered: “Everything is the last two years.” That would mean that it took some time for Dan to find someone in the Israeli aerospace industry who would give serious consideration to his proposal.
As Avi reiterated, “So she called me and says, this guy came, he’s representing a serious guy who has the means and wants to do good for the world, and wants to purchase those planes to fight those fires. That’s it.”
The woman Avi was talking to then asked her whether he could give Avi’s number to Devlin, noting that “he (Devlin) said he loves Israel like you, and would it be okay if I give him your number?” (I should note at this point that Avi is very well connected, both to Israeli businesspeople – and to people in the government, including some very high placed politicians.)
Devlin did call Avi, as Avi explained: “He would be calling me. I didn’t call him. He would call me twice a week, three times a week and just ask me personal questions, talk to me. And then he mentioned, if there’s anything that I can do to help Israel or to help something with Israel, let me know.”
At that point Avi said the conversations with Devlin shifted to discussing a documentary movie someone wanted to make about Jews helping Israel. He said he told Devlin about that idea for a movie and Devlin said he wanted to be involved in that, too.
Eventually, we returned to discussing Devlin’s plan to convert Israeli jets so that they could be used for firefighting. Avi told Devlin that he would help to set up some meetings for him with important Israeli officials, but at that point he asked me to stop recording.
Although he asked me to stop recording Avi didn’t say that he wanted to go off the record. What he said next really floored me. He said that he had actually gone so far as to set up a meeting between Devlin and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu. To Avi’s great relief, however, Devlin bowed out of flying to Israel to meet the prime minister, so the meeting was cancelled long before it was supposed to take place. He added that he would have been terribly embarrassed had Netanyahu actually shown up for a meeting, only to find that Devlin hadn’t come.
Avi admitted that it was only quite recently that he realized Fred Devlin was totally delusional, but unlike some of the others whose stories I’ve related thus far, he didn’t spend nearly as much time talking to Devlin as others had. Or course, he realizes now that whatever time he did spend was totally wasted but, as you’re about to read, someone else was directly involved in aiding and abetting Devlin’s delusion by using his skills as a lawyer to help further the notion that Devlin was a quite legitimate businessman.
Coming next: The former lawyer who now deeply regrets the work he did for the con man
Features
Israeli Government Report Ranks World’s 10 Most Influential Antisemites
Israel’s Ministry of Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism published this week its official ranking of the 10 most influential antisemitic figures in the world in 2025, and the No. 1 spot was given to social media influencer Dan Bilzerian, who is running for US Congress in Florida.
The Armenian-American entrepreneur and US military veteran is a prominent critic of Israel and Judaism who has promoted antisemitic conspiracy theories and Holocaust denial. He has said he wants to “kill Israelis” and thinks Judaism is “terrible.” He recently claimed antisemitism is a “made-up term” and there is a “big Jewish supremacy problem” in the United States. He formally filed paperwork earlier this month to run as a Republican and unseat incumbent Jewish Rep. Randy Fine in Florida’s 6th Congressional District.
Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg is the world’s second most influential antisemite, according to Israel’s Ministry of Diaspora Affairs, which highlighted her use of terms such as “genocide,” “siege,” and “mass starvation” in reference to Israel’s military actions in the Gaza Strip.
Third place was given to Egyptian comedian and former television host Bassem Youssef, followed by far-right American political commentator Candace Owens in fourth place and Palestinian-British journalist and editor Abdel Bari Atwan in fifth.
The list includes American imam Omar Suleiman, Denmark-based doctor Anastasia Maria Loupis – who has shared online conspiracy theories about Jews and Israel – far-right commentator and white nationalist Nick Fuentes, and conspiracist Ian Carroll.
Rounding out the top 10 is far-right podcaster and former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who regularly promotes antisemitic conspiracy theories about Jewish influence.
Israel said the 10 most “prominent influencers in the global antisemitic and anti-Zionist arena in 2025” were selected based on “both the severity of their actions/statements and the scope of their influence” related to their activities last year. “Each of them has expressed antisemitic views or promoted false information related to Jews, Israel, or both,” the ministry explained. The list does not include individuals with formal political or government positions.
Each individual was ranked based on their influence on social media, but also other factors such as their repeated appearances on news channels, “perceived influence on public opinion, and prominence in certain communities.” The ministry also took into consideration each person’s “level of impact and risk,” which includes how often they upload antisemitic and anti-Israeli posts on social media. The report was released ahead of Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Day, known in Hebrew as Yom HaShoah.
In a separate section of the report dedicated to antisemitic and anti-Israel influencers in the US, Israel’s Ministry of Diaspora Affairs singled out YouTuber and children’s educator Ms. Rachel, who has “increasingly used her social media accounts to amplify pro-Palestinian messages and criticize Israel.”
“Her posts have been interpreted by pro-Israel organizations as one-sided and hostile to Israel, and organizations such as StopAntisemitism have accused her of spreading anti-Israel or pro-Hamas propaganda and called for an examination of her activities,” the ministry stated.
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4000 Quarters for my Uncle Lew – a new story by David Topper
Introduction: David Topper has been featured on this website many times. His stories about Albert Einstein have drawn huge audiences, but David’s interests range far beyond writing about science. Most recently, we have featured stories about “Jews in strange places.”
If you want to find all of David Topper’s stories that have appeared on this site, just enter his name in our search engine (the magnifying glass). Here’s David’s latest story – but be warned: As David told me, it’s a “story”:
I adored my Uncle Lew. He was one of many uncles in the large extended family on my mother’s side. Of course, this means that there were many aunts too. But there were not many cousins – at least, none my age. And I was an only child; so I guess you could call me an “only cousin” too. At least when I was very young – say, from ages 6 through 12 or so – until many cousins were eventually born. In all, it seems that I was alone, in those early years.
But I’m digressing already, and I just want to tell you about my grandmother’s brother, my Uncle Lew. You see, he lived in the same city when I was very young, and he came to visit a lot – especially on Sundays, when there was a large gathering of the extended family at my grandmother’s home, with lots of food. He came with his wife, Aunt Lil. But it was Lew who was especially nice to me. He always came with jokes; jokes that the adults laughed at – and I did too, but often not really knowing what was funny.
Most importantly, for me, sometime during the visit, Uncle Lew would sneak up behind me and put his hand in the right side-pocket of my trousers. I knew what was happening, and so I’d just walk away to a quiet part of the house, reach inside my pocket, and pull out a shiny quarter. Rubbing it in my hands, thinking about what I might buy, and putting it back in my pocket – I was happy, and set for the week to come. You must realize that this was sometime in the late 1940s and into the 1950s – and a quarter was worth a lot to a kid. These were the days when a penny could buy a nice treat at the candy store nearby where I lived. And, well you do the math: a quarter was worth 25 pennies. Yes, I adored Uncle Lew, although I’m not sure I would have used that word at the time.
Speaking of money. I remember that the family, especially the men, talked a lot about money. I’m not sure that many of them had a lot of it, since most were of the working class. Maybe that’s why they talked about it. Although I suspect that rich people spend a lot of time talking about money too. Yet, what do I know?
I mention this because, at some point – I don’t remember the date or my age – but Uncle Lew and Aunt Lil moved to another city. Thus: no more shiny quarters in my pocket at the Sunday dinners. Instead, I listened to the talk, mainly among the men, about Uncle Lew. And as best I could surmise: Uncle Lew owed people money that he didn’t have, and so he had to skedaddle to save his skin. It made me think about my quarters, and if I had put them in the bank, maybe I could have helped Uncle Lew pay back his debts. But now it was too late. Uncle Lew was gone and I spent all the quarters on myself – my selfish self, I thought sadly.
But Uncle Lew was not completely out of my life. A few years later he came to town for a short visit. He came for a weekend; and had Sunday dinner with the family. I guess he thought it was safe enough. And nothing happened. So, he did it again, a few months later. And so it went. Thus, Uncle Lew was not out of my life completely. And yes, a quarter was deposited in my pocket on the Sunday dinners. As well, by now, I had a bank account; and I occasionally put Uncle Lew’s quarters in the bank – just in case he might need a loan someday, I thought.
Oh, I forgot to mention: he now came alone. From the talk of the adults, I figured out that he and Aunt Lil were divorced – something my mother later explained to me, because in those days it was not a common occurrence. And people were often embarrassed to talk about it.
Now fast forward several years to the late 1950s, when I was in High School. One day Uncle Lew appeared out of nowhere, carrying all that he owned in a few suitcases. I don’t know why, but he stayed with us. Being an only child, I had a room of my own and so the family got a cot from the basement and they put it in my room. I was okay with this, since I always liked Uncle Lew and was glad to know that he was safe with us.
Our first night together – I in my bed and he a few feet away in the cot – was memorable. Because, in the middle of the night, I woke up and saw a spark of light moving around the room near Uncle Lew’s cot. I guess I forgot to tell you that Uncle Lew was a smoker. Of course, smoking was common in those days, so it was no big thing that he smoked. In fact, if you watch any movie from that period, every time people walk into a room and sit down to talk, someone takes out a pack of cigarettes and they all light up. But I digress, again. Anyway, as you may have surmised, the spark of light moving around in the dead of night was Uncle Lew having a smoke. He was so addicted to cigarettes that he couldn’t get through a night’s sleep without one. And so it went: night after night.
Also, at the time he moved in with me, I was working on building a model airplane out of balsa wood. I usually worked on this in the evenings, after I did all my homework. The parts were strewn across a table in my room, and Uncle Lew often watched me assemble the plane – saying he hoped to see the plane actually fly someday. He said he enjoyed watching me put the thing together (since he seemed to have nothing else to do), and I enjoyed the conversations. I glued pieces of balsa wood together and he smoked cigarettes, depositing the ashes in a tray on my table.
In a short time, I came to understand why Uncle Lew was here. When I was at school during the day, my relatives were taking turns driving Uncle Lew to the hospital for treatments. In those days, people didn’t talk about some things directly. Especially cancer, which was a word that was often spoken in a hushed voice. So that was it; he had lung cancer.
At the same time, Uncle Lew was seeing a dentist for the pain he was having with a tooth in the right side of his mouth. He showed it to me one day, while I was working on my airplane. He was sure that the dentist knew what he was doing, and Uncle Lew was looking forward to getting it removed and replaced with a new tooth. We didn’t talk about the cancer, but looking back on this I can only surmise that Uncle Lew was in denial – or he was overly optimistic about the cancer treatments.
In a short time, the tooth was removed and replaced by the false one. Uncle Lew was elated, and told me that it was the best $1000 he ever spent. Yes, $1000 for the tooth. I don’t know where he got the money. And I’m afraid to ask, for obvious reasons. But I now also question the ethics of that dentist, allowing a patient undergoing cancer treatments to spend so much money. But maybe the dentist didn’t know. Then again, where were my relatives in all this? I am only thinking of this now. As for all things in life while growing up: what is, is reality for that time, and you just go with the flow. Only later, looking back, do you see the quirks and foibles of the past.
Indeed, did I think of helping Uncle Lew with his dental bill? I had a bank account. And some of that money was from deposits of Uncle Lew’s quarters. I don’t know. What I do remember is that not long after the new tooth was planted in his mouth, relieving him of that pain, the cancer got worse – and he spent the rest of his days in the hospital. And that’s where he died.
At the funeral I wanted to mourn. To grieve at the loss of this beloved uncle, who lived with me in the last stage of his life.
But I kept thinking about that tooth – that damned $1000 tooth. While saying the prayer for the dead, the Kaddish, I wanted to concentrate on the meaning of the prayer – even though I couldn’t read Hebrew. But that costly tooth kept flashing in front of me – like the spark of Uncle Lew’s cigarette in the middle of the night.
Even when the body was lowered into the grave, and I took my turn throwing several shovels of dirt over Uncle Lew’s plain wooden coffin – in my mind, I was doing the math: how many quarters are there in $1000?
In a way, on that day, and in my mind, I really buried a tooth – and it just so happened that a body came along with it.
My one consolation in all this is that about a few weeks after the funeral, I finished building my airplane; and I took it out to an empty ball-field near where I lived. Just me and my airplane.
The propeller was attached to a rubber band, and so I wound it up and gave it a push. It took off, rising up, almost as high as the trees beyond the outfield. Then it banked a bit toward the left; and, after heading back towards me, it moved in a circle – almost overhead. It continued circling – rather as if it were caught in a tornado – moving down and down.
When it crashed into a heap of shards of balsa wood right next to me standing on the pitcher’s mound … I laughed, a deep laugh – a laugh that turned into crying. A deep cry – a cry I sorely needed.
Sitting in that empty field next to my shattered airplane – looking up and beyond the trees – I screamed to the sky. “There are 4000 quarters in $1000.”
I walked home, and went to my room. Sitting at my empty table, I said to myself out loud. “I guess I should build another airplane. What do you think Uncle Lew? Let’s go to the store and use some of those quarters to buy another model airplane. Maybe this one won’t be jinxed. What do you think?”
But before leaving the house – and for the first time since Uncle Lew died – I was able to fold up that cot and put it back in the basement.