Features
Josh Morry – outstanding young University of Manitoba alumnus: Becoming a change agent who inspires a new dialogue
Reprinted with permission from UM Today The Magazine
Seven years later, Josh Morry still remembers the unsettling phone call he answered that one day in 2013. It was from the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs.
“Things are out of control,” the man told him. “It’s time you had a bodyguard follow you around campus.”
Morry [BComm(Hons)/13, JD/16], then a 20-year-old student in the Asper School of Business, said he was already geeky and “uncool enough” without a former Mossad agent in tow. He declined their offer. He says in hindsight, he probably should have said yes.
That spring, an international movement—Students Against Israeli Apartheid—held their annual week at the University of Manitoba and at universities across Canada. Criticism of Israel quickly turned into anti-Semitic propaganda.
“There were caricatures of Jews with hook noses and swastikas on their forehead,” Morry says. “At McGill, this group threw pennies at Jewish students because, ‘Jews like money.’ At York University, they chased Jewish students down the hallway.”
UM Jewish students signed a petition. They felt unsafe, unwelcome.
“It’s one thing to have constructive dialogue about complicated issues, but it’s another to demonize and harass Jewish students because of who they are,” says Morry.
As the commerce student representative on the council for the University of Manitoba Students’ Union (UMSU), he pushed to ban the anti-Israeli group from operating—when the motion passed, it broke ground. There had never been a successful motion to decertify the group at any university in the world and it served as a precedent for human rights groups globally to combat anti-semitism on campus.
Morry was praised by the head of the World Jewish Congress, the Jewish Federation of Winnipeg and parliamentarians.
In the aftermath, he received hate mail, but Morry and an Arab friend started the Arab-Jewish Dialogue on Campus to keep a rational conversation going.
“As university students you should engage…with issues that put you outside your comfort zone. When you end up talking, you actually agree much more than you disagree, but when you’re screaming at each other, you disagree with everything,” Morry says. “There should be a space for this on campus. You should talk about the Arab-Israeli conflict. But you should do it in a manner that…respects constructive dialogue.”
Morry also worked on the UMSU council for the rights of Indigenous and 2SLGBTQ+ groups.
A love for debate
It was no surprise he became the man of the hour when things heated up on campus. Now a tax lawyer at the Toronto firm Torys L.L.P, he has always been enthralled with debate and history—he heard Winston Churchill biographer Gilbert Martin speak and took a signed copy of his book home to read when he was 14 years old.
And he’s quick to identify the absurd, with a natural wit and his dabbling in stand-up comedy. He once took the stage with a nose cast, lobbing his first joke: I should deal with, like, the elephant in the room: This is an Armani blazer. “If they don’t laugh on the first joke, you’re screwed,” he says.
Projecting confidence: “The two suit thing”
A champion debater both in high school and university, Morry says debating culture was “weird” but it did teach him something about confidence.
He remembers a friend in high school who used to bring two suits to each tournament.
“‘Why would you bring two suits?’ I said. He answered, ‘One for the regular round and one for the finals.’ It was like, wow, that’s confidence.”
Morry started to do the “two suit thing” at business school debates.
“You have to project confidence,” he says, “It’s a sport. You gotta get in their heads.”
Lively dialogue around politics was commonplace in the Morry home in Winnipeg’s Tuxedo neighbourhood. His father, sister and aunt are all lawyers.
He was high school president of Gray Academy of Jewish Education, but says his marks were nothing exceptional. “I had B pluses and As, but I was terrible at math.”
But in the Faculty of Law at UM, Morry found his calling and was first in his class every year, ultimately winning the Gold Medal and becoming a Pitblado Scholar. He was then among the few to be accepted for a master’s of law at the University of Oxford. He joined the Oxford Union, one of the world’s most prestigious debating and private students’ societies; its members include top international debaters.
Morry says he imagined Oxford would be so different—that “everything would be Klingon”—but credits UM for “competing at a world level.”
“The best professors at Robson Hall could teach at Oxford. I felt totally prepared.”
This outspoken 28-year-old continues to reframe conversations, writing op-eds and leading discussions with policymakers. We asked Josh Morry to finish the thought for us…
If we want to build a better society…
“…we’ll need to stop seeing our political beliefs as the dogmas that define us. People on both sides of the political spectrum see disagreements over policy as personal attacks.
Unlike personal identity, political ideology is not an immutable characteristic that we must protect from others. Rather, it is a way of seeing the world that must continuously be challenged and reformed as the underlying facts grounding that ideology change.
We cannot allow our cognitive dissonance to prevent us from listening to opposing views, or we will not have a reliable mechanism to determine public opinion and craft policy to reflect or change that opinion.
We should, of course, have no patience for hate speech in the guise of political activism. However, most mainstream political disagreements are the best way to unleash Canada’s full potential. People on the left and right just disagree on the best way to do so.
I’m now working on an online platform for thought leaders on the left and right to publish long-form opinion pieces engaging with complex issues in a respectful manner.”
It’s far too easy to …
“…define the relationship between Muslims and Jews by reference to the Arab-Israeli conflict.
The conflict is very personal and painful to those in the Middle East as well as their families and friends in Canada. It therefore becomes very easy to lose hope and attribute the continuing conflict to irreconcilable differences between the two groups.
These disagreements are only amplified on university campuses when professional agitators acting in the name of social justice seek to position Jews and Muslims against each other, thereby creating an unsafe and unproductive learning atmosphere.
But I feel a real sense of hope when I’m able to go to a restaurant with my Muslim friends and talk about sports, movies and anything other than the Arab-Israeli conflict because at the end of the day, we’re not defined by our differences.
It may sound naive, but I honestly believe that the respectful learning environment we created and fostered at the University of Manitoba can serve as a powerful example to students around the world.
I saw this firsthand when I was one of Canada’s representatives to the World Jewish Congress in Budapest, where leaders from around the world approached me about setting up Arab Jewish Dialogues in their countries, based on the University of Manitoba’s model.”
UM Today the Magazine can be accessed at: https://news.umanitoba.ca/magazine/
and the video with David Asper and Josh:
https://news.umanitoba.ca/watch-daa-interviews/#josh-morry.
Features
5 Ways to Carve Out Gym Time in Your Life
From rewriting your brain and sticking to a disciplined workout regime, find the top 5 ways to carve out adequate gym time in your daily routine.
A Brief Introduction
It can be a hassle to find the time to work out if you are busy with everyday responsibilities. By incorporating a few practical strategies into your daily life, you can start being consistent with your gym routine.
- Remember Your Motivation to Prioritize
If you’re trying to be consistent, you need to know why you started out. People may have different reasons to commit their time to the gym. Be it to build muscles, lose weight, deal with stress, or improve overall health, having a clear vision of your goal will help you stick to it. With your reason to start always on your mind, you will now have a reason to keep showing up, day in and day out. This helps cut out excuses and prioritize your wellbeing.
- Reduce Your Barrier to Start
The more hurdles you keep on your way to start, the harder it will be to continue with your habit. The easy solution is to cut down on the effort it takes to get started. Pick an accessible gym over a fancier one that you would need to go out of your way to visit. By picking a gym along the route of your daily routine, you can seamlessly incorporate working out as part of your day. Be it near your workplace or your home, the location makes hitting the gym convenient.
It also helps if you plan ahead. Be it your preworkout, your protein shake, or other health supplements from flexpharma.is, make sure you are restocking before you run out. Anabolic steroids are possibly one of the most popular items that have methandrostenolone. Injectables, fat burners, and fusion steroids are some of the trending fitness products that have been creating a buzz across the world.
Keep your gym bag ready to go and lay out your workout gear ahead of time so that you are left with no excuses.
- Get a Gym Buddy for Accountability
Nothing helps drive athletes more than having a sense of community and camaraderie. People interested in weight training already know about the importance of a spotter. Having a friend, a partner, or a peer in the gym will help keep you on track to consistency. This also provides a sense of community, making it more rewarding to attend workout sessions regularly and push each other towards breaking new personal records.
- Incorporate Workouts in Your Daily Activities
It is impossible to make it to the gym every day without fail, be it due to work, family, or other responsibilities. For those days, make it a habit to not skip your workouts. There are many home workout videos and apps available that offer a range of exercise options with little to no equipment. You can start with mini-workouts like planks or squats during short breaks. It can even be as simple as going for a quick stroll for five minutes while stuck at work if you are pressed for time. The easiest way to increase your fitness and stamina is through Sermorelin, Semaglutide, and other cutting-edge peptides to start with.
- Rewire Your Brain
Science talks about neuroplasticity and the power of the positive feedback loop. Without having to learn more about cognitive sciences, you can still make use of these hacks to trick your brain into enjoying training. For every achievement, celebrate yourself. Be it a happy shout of victory on breaking a personal record or getting a new flavor of protein bar, with every celebratory action, you reinforce the positive effect of being consistent at the gym. By creating a positive experience, you make it easier for your brain to stay engaged and consistent at the gym.
Conclusion
It takes careful planning to commit to gym life. While hard work is always rewarded in the gym, in order to get to the gym day in and day out, you also need to work smart. By removing the common hurdles and being dedicated, you can make sure you reach your personal wellness goal.
Features
When will we most likely see an NFL expansion team from Canada?
It’s currently the middle of August, meaning that the biggest sporting show in North America doesn’t start for another three weeks. On September 5, the curtain will come down on the new NFL season as the reigning Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs hosts Baltimore Ravens at Arrowfield Stadium.
It’s not just Americans that love football though, the game and in particular the NFL is hugely popular north of the border here in Canada. Every week millions of Canadians tune in to cheer on their favourite teams and keep refresh their phones to find out the latest NFL standings.
What though, are the chances of Canadian NFL fans checking their phones to see how a Canadian team is doing in the standings? Read on to find out.
The History of NFL Expansion into Canada
Broadly there are two camps in Canada when it comes to NFL expansion. Those on one side of the debate claim that they don’t need an NFL team and that having one would cause harm to their own domestic competition.
On the other side of the battlefield are those who claim that the NFL is more popular in Canada than its own domestic league and that it is baffling that millions of Canadians are forced to support American teams when they could be supporting one of their own in the NFL.
Traditionally the second camp has been winning the argument, but only just. Which explains why many attempts for an NFL expansion into the country have failed, as the physical barriers to overcome have been, at times, overshadowed by the ideological ones.
From around 1975 to 2015, there have been numerous attempts to set up a franchise in Canada – particularly in Toronto – but none have taken hold. The closest that we have gotten to NFL action north of the border was when the Buffalo Bills played six regular season games at the Rogers Centre between 2008 to 2013.
(The fans might have loved the Toronto series, but it’s safe to say the Bill’s players didn’t particularly enjoy it.)
What’s Stopping Expansion?
Currently the argument for expansion is gaining momentum, but despite that there are still substantial obstacles to overcome. The key one is that there is no current suitable venue that the NFL see as being able to sustain a franchise.
In terms of supporter numbers, Toronto is the only feasible location for an NFL franchise. With a metropolitan population in excess of 6 million and an estimated football viewing audience of just under a million, it is by far and away the standout contender to host an NFL team.
Unfortunately, The Rogers Centre has since been turned into an exclusively baseball venue since being used as a temporary home for the Bills back in 2013. The next alternative in Toronto is BMO Field, the home of MLS side Toronto FC.
Whilst the 31,000 seater stadium is perfectly serviceable for MLS, its capacity puts it at below half of the average capacity of an NFL stadium (70,000).
What the Future Holds for Canadian NFL Expansion
There are three possibilities for a Canadian NFL expansion. The first is that the 18,000 seat expansion to BMO field for the 2026 FIFA World Cup satisfies the NFL. That would bring the total capacity at the stadium to just under 50,000, which would still make it the smallest stadium in the NFL but only by around 10,000 seats.
Or, that the stadium can be further expanded to bring it into line with other NFL venues and thus remove one huge obstacle to expansion. The other alternative is that work begins on a purpose built venue with the backing of local businessman and American entrepreneurs who are keen to see NFL played regularly in Canada.
Potential Timeframes
If the first two stadium possibilities are possible then we could see a Toronto based NFL team at the end of the decade. That’s a best case scenario. The most likely however is that BMO Field is deemed unsuitable for the NFL, leaving another venue to be found.
Unfortunately, 70,000 seater stadiums aren’t cheap and finding someone to finance a project of that size without the guarantee of an NFL franchise is highly unlikely. Until then, it looks like we’ll have to continue backing our own domestic league and enjoying the NFL from afar…
Features
Common Online Casino Mistakes To Avoid
Online casino games can be a brilliant way to bring excitement to life in your spare time. These games have become hugely popular in recent years, but you will find that people often make the same mistakes. These mistakes can lead to financial losses, cybercrime, and an inferior experience, so it is important to be aware of what these mistakes are so that they can be avoided. This post will outline a few of the most common mistakes people make when playing online casino games and explain how to avoid falling into the same trap. Interested? Keep reading to find out more.
Ignoring Terms & Conditions
One of the biggest mistakes players make with online casino games is ignoring the terms and conditions. You should always take the time to read through these, paying close attention to things like the conditions of bonuses and restrictions in withdrawals. This will help you avoid any nasty surprises when playing games.
Not Researching Casinos
Another common mistake people make is not researching casinos. There are endless options for online casinos, but not all are equal, and there are even many that are unlicensed. Therefore, you need to research casinos and find one that is fully licensed and has positive reviews. The best casinos will have a massive selection of games to choose from, including blackjack online. A wide selection of games means it is hard to get bored, and you can always find something to play.
Chasing Losses
One of the most dangerous mistakes people make is chasing losses. This is where players will attempt to win back the money they have lost, which often means betting larger sums. This is a dangerous tactic and a slippery slope, so it is important to be aware of it and take measures to protect against it. The best way to avoid chasing losses is to set a budget before each session – if you spend that amount, you need to be able to walk away.
Not Understanding Games
It is always important to have a strong understanding of the game that you are playing. This will boost your chances of winning and your gaming experience. Therefore, you should always read the instructions when playing a game for the first time. For strategic games like poker, there is a lot of information online that will help you get to grips with the basics and learn strategies to use.
Weak Passwords
Cybersecurity needs to be a top priority when it comes to online casino games. The top casinos will have strong cybersecurity measures in place, but you also have a role to play. It is important to use strong passwords and multi-factor authentication to prevent hackers. It is also smart to avoid having large sums held in your online account in case someone hacks your account.
These are the most common mistakes that you will want to avoid when it comes to online casino games. By avoiding these mistakes, you can improve your experience and enjoy the excitement that these games can bring.
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