RSS
Montreal nightlife fixtures explain how anti-Israel sentiment has impacted their passions
The burlesque performer
Yael Perez, a.k.a. Miss Meow, is no wallflower. Shaking her feathers, her curvy silhouette strutting deftly across a stage under the gaze and leers of 100 adoring sets of eyes, she smiles, almost sneering-like, into the dark space filled with tables of hollering fans, before offering a coquettish spin, shedding her gloves to a rhythmic drumbeat.
With her curvy silhouette, black hair, and fiery red lipstick, she once captivated audiences as a popular burlesque performer in Montreal.
But after Oct. 7, 2023, her career, like parts of her elaborate costumes, fell south.
Perez started modelling a decade ago and later embraced burlesque. It was a hit—she performed every weekend, with a steady social media following. Her late parents supported her career, but it was the burlesque community that turned its back on her.
An office manager for a property management firm, she had been up late when news of the attacks broke. “I freaked out,” she recalls, and while her family in Israel was safe, she quickly realized that many of her friends were unaware of the scale of the attack. As media coverage was slow to pick up, Perez began sharing screenshots from sources she trusted.
At first the reaction was of sincere interest, “but I noticed all these people looking at my posts and not a single one messaged me to ask if I’m OK, or about my family.”
Perez isn’t alone. Jewish and Israeli artists have watched as the progressive arts community turned their back and lost the support of their friends in the industry and seen projects and bookings be cancelled.
Even Montrealers whose art might not be their day jobs, but rather side hustles and occasional gigs have seen opportunities dry up.
Social media has been a powerful force since the attacks, starting with the live-streamed atrocities and continuing efforts to spread propaganda, solidarity, or division. Perez, who uses social media “authentically” in both her personal and professional life, says, “I’ve always been clear—I’m not just a ‘pretty person’ online. I’m a whole person, and I was open about being terrified and traumatized.”
What people didn’t realize was that this wasn’t just ‘news’ to her—she was worried for her family staying in bomb shelters. The lack of support from friends and colleagues in the progressive burlesque community felt dehumanizing. “No one checked in, and I noticed something else,” she recalls, her voice betraying a surge in emotion. “Some people began sharing antisemitic content right away. On Oct. 7, they were posting about ‘liberation.’ The same goddamned day.”
Performers she’d worked with for years, with whom she’d never discussed the Middle East, began retweeting pro-Palestinian accounts that were clearly part of a coordinated narrative. “They were celebrating, saying ‘Amazing job.’ I couldn’t believe they were justifying the attacks.” She tried explaining the impact on her family, but people doubled down, saying it didn’t matter.
Colleagues, including one scheduled to perform in her show, posted increasingly extreme comments. Perez called them out gently, only to hear, “I’ve watched documentaries, I have a nuanced view. Palestinian resistance is justified.” Perez could accept opposing views, but “you’re saying what happened to my people was deserved?” She felt horrified and unsafe, questioning if she could continue working with such people.
The concert reviewer
Amir Amozig also felt a shift after Oct. 7, though more subtly. While he didn’t face direct hostility or “Free Palestine” shrieks, he noticed a change in the atmosphere while continuing his decade-long gig reviewing local bands in Montreal’s west end.
By day, the 51-year-old works in accounts receivable for a telecommunications company, but at night, he and his pen and notepad are a staple at local bars, reviewing bands with his encyclopedic knowledge of rock, blues, and pop. “I was extremely traumatized by Oct. 7,” he said. “There was a deafening silence around me.”
Some musicians did make public statements minimizing the atrocities, which outraged him, and overall, he felt isolated in an industry that leans far left, even though he considers himself liberal. His mistrust led him to consider leaving, but Israeli family and musician friends reminded him of his passion for music. “If you let life’s challenges rob you of your passions, you’re giving in to what terrorists intended from the start,” they said.
Mindful of cancel culture, Amozig navigated it with care. He was shocked to see anti-Israel propaganda in some venues, including one that seemed a “pro-Hamas shrine” post-Oct. 7. “I never set foot there again.”
Though he felt isolated, he stayed in the music scene, feeling distanced from the Jewish activist community as it shifted right, but remained committed to traditional liberal values.
#WATCH: “We have a responsibility to be a voice for all the hostage families,” says Amir Amozig, as Montrealers gathered on Sunday to honour those who were killed in Israel during the Oct. 7 Hamas attack. @swiddarassy reports.#Montreal #Quebechttps://t.co/9hiRkZ6iTI
— CityNews Montreal (@CityNewsMTL) October 6, 2024
Long before Oct. 7, he says, the arts community was strongly left-wing on issues like workers’ rights, racism, First Nations, women’s rights, the environment, and LGBTQ concerns. “The prevailing view framed the Middle East as an oppressor versus underdog conflict. While I disagree with some of their views on world events, I know many have a good heart, rooted in altruism, anti-militarism, and anti-nationalism,” which are core leftist values.
He severed ties however, with anyone justifying the events of Oct. 7, particularly those framing it in terms of oppressor and oppressed. “Some responses were reprehensible, while others came from a genuine concern for humanity.”
The flamenco dancer
Laurence Elmoznino, a 55-year-old public school teacher, was infuriated by the lack of knowledge and empathy she encountered after Oct. 7. “It was sheer stupidity,” she says, recalling the derision towards Israelis and the indifference to Jewish suffering that overshadowed one of her greatest passions.
A lifelong dancer, Elmoznino spent over a decade in ballet and has practiced flamenco for more than 20 years. Her first visit to Granada, Spain, felt like coming home, with flamenco’s connection to Jewish traditions through the shared history of persecuted Jews and Roma. “There was something very Jewish about it.”
Flamenco, with its intense footwork and lyrical expression, conveys raw emotions, from sexuality to passion, “but it’s not about being sexy,” she said. She loved the intensity and solidarity among the women she danced with.
“Flamenco here has a tight-knit community. We see the same faces everywhere—dancers from Spain for stages and shows. It’s intense with classes, practices, and performances.”
Fifteen months ago, she was performing with her group, loving every grueling moment. Then came Oct. 7. She watched the news, and “I thought my knees were going to buckle. In an instant, everything changed.”
As days passed, Elmoznino grew despondent, overwhelmed by pain for her community. “I couldn’t do anything. I didn’t want to dance. Many were still dancing, but I was in mourning.” Supported by a close-knit group of dancers and friends, she returned after weeks, receiving concern for her and her family. “But outside that small group, I’m still angry.”
After the Hamas attacks, she posted on social media about the slaughter, supporting Israel and sharing a photo from a volunteering mission. A dancer told her they could no longer be friends, saying she couldn’t support someone who “justifies terrorism.” Elmoznino was stunned. “Terrorism? Genocide? I had no idea she thought like this. I danced with her, she taught me, I saw her shows.” She responded firmly, calling her out: “How dare you? My family was in Gaza. You don’t get to lecture me about my people.”
This was coming from people she had known for 20 years, who knew her as a dedicated supporter and fundraiser for causes like helping fellow Montrealer Steve Maman working to free Yazidi women from ISIS captivity and supporting a Syrian refugee family. “I did the work—what have you done?”
She was furious and avoided classes. “I just couldn’t. It wasn’t just one teacher, but others voicing pride in seeing Tunisians shouting for resistance in Arabic or calling Gaza an open-air prison. It was too much.” This limited her dance opportunities and combined with knee injuries and the painful loss of a close friend, her flamenco career began to unravel. “I missed dancing, but my connection to Israel is deeper than anything, even flamenco. Every hostage, soldier, and family felt personal.”
It reaffirmed her deepest self-identity, with family roots in Spain as deep as her attachment to her Jewishness. In Granada, she met the late flamenco legend Mario Maya, who tapped her with his cane, asking, “Where are you from?” “Canada,” she replied. “No,” he laughed. “Where are you from?”
“When I shared my origins were in Córdoba, he said I resembled the local women, strengthening my sense of connection to the culture.” It reminded her that she was “La Sefardita.”
Yael Perez was proud of her achievements in burlesque, curating successful shows at Montreal venues like the Wiggle Room and Café Cleopatra, often selling out spaces for 100-120 people. But everything unraveled after Oct. 7.
“Burlesque isn’t a community, I always insisted. It’s a business,” she said, feeling vindicated “in a sick, painful way.”
Post-Oct. 7, many of her peers across Canada posted antisemitic content. “The worst was, ‘You deserve it.’” The idea that Israelis deserved to be pulled from their beds and slaughtered was mind-boggling. Perez had always supported causes like Black Lives Matter and Stop Asian Hate, even paying festival fees for performers of colour. “I knew some people face barriers I didn’t. I felt a responsibility to help.” Yet, among the hundreds she supported, no one publicly voiced support for her. “A few privately reached out, but within weeks, they were sharing pro-Palestinian posts and calling me a genocide supporter who should be shunned.
“I was the only Israeli. There were a few Jewish performers, but in a progressive, woke space, a couple who shared my views stayed silent to avoid what I was dealing with.”
It started with artists bailing on shows, rumours spreading that she supported genocide. Even an Arab-Jewish performer she had supported told her, “I can’t be associated with you. I have to quit all your bookings. No hard feelings.”
The final blow came that December, when dancers at Café Cleo told her that nearly all of them had been harassed for working with her. “This was after about 20 people had already quit,” almost half the talent pool.
“I shed so many tears,” she recalls. “I found out nearly every artist who worked with me was harassed. I had a breakdown backstage and cried myself to sleep. That show made me realize I couldn’t stay in this industry anymore. I couldn’t keep giving to an industry that doesn’t appreciate me.”
She began receiving harassing messages, with her social media stories prompting waves of Palestinian flags and responses of “Fuck Israel! Fuck you!” and threats to protest her shows. Anti-Israel posters were plastered backstage, and she knew people brought Palestinian flags to disrupt other events in the city. She worried about how to keep the audience safe when people were using such aggressive, threatening language.
Her last pre-booked show was in May, but her final performance came in February 2024, at Café Cleo. There, a stack of postcards urging Trudeau to stop the genocide and support Gaza sat by the bar.
It was all devastating for Perez. “It turned my life upside down. Being a performer, producer, and model was central to my identity—now it’s all gone. I lost almost all my friends—people I’d planned futures with, thrown birthday parties for. Losing my career was huge, but losing friends was worse. It felt overwhelming, but I realized I need new, more meaningful connections—especially more Jewish friends.”
Did she err by quitting? “No. It’s unfortunate and sad, and I’m still grieving that loss, but it was the right thing because nobody deserves to be treated that way, to be bullied by peers, and harassed. I had the ability to remove myself. They’re going to be assholes forever. I don’t have to be there for it.”
Pivoting their perspectives
Music reviewer Amir Amozig found his voice for advocacy attending rallies after Oct. 7. His tight-knit circle remains strong, and now when covering a band with a Jewish performer, he feels a deeper connection. “If I know a musician is Jewish or Israeli, and shares my trauma, the bond is stronger.” He mentions a recent show by Israeli saxophonist Tevet Sela in Montreal. “There’s a bond you don’t have with others, and it makes you feel safe.”
Though quieter on advocacy than some, Amozig says no musician is unaware of his stance in Israel’s war. “They know where I stand, and so far, no major backlash. But I’m always aware of stories of cancellations, that chill in the air.”
For flamenco enthusiast Laurence Elmoznino, seeing fellow dancers celebrate murder and “Free Palestine” posters appearing around a studio dulled the shine on the art form she saw as her heritage. “I can’t get away from it anywhere, not even in my feel-good place. There’s even still a lot of antisemitism in Spain, where I got comments from indoctrinated types. I had a landlord who refused to believe I was Jewish, and a Spanish teacher asked me if a Palestinian child was standing in front of me, ‘would you shoot him’?”
Back in Montreal, she’s eyeing the calendar of flamenco events. “This stage I want to take, I know some of these women will be there. So fuck them, I’m going. I’m wearing my Magen David and standing right in front of your face.” Looking at it through a rear-view mirror, she says, “Their lack of intelligence repulsed me. I couldn’t get them to donate or support anything, and now they’re out picketing and protesting, denying rapes. They’re too far gone.”
These classes and events may be “much more their space than mine, but it is still my space because of my ancestry. This very much belongs to me.”
The post Montreal nightlife fixtures explain how anti-Israel sentiment has impacted their passions appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.
RSS
Flemish Culture Minister Assembles Expert Committee to Help Tackle Claims of Nazi-Looted Art
Flemish Minister for Welfare and Culture Caroline Gennez pictured during a plenary session of the Flemish Parliament in Brussels, Wednesday 02 April 2025. Photo: BELGA via Reuters Connect
Caroline Gennez — the Flemish minister of welfare and poverty reduction, culture, and equal opportunities — is assembling a group of experts who will develop the framework for a permanent committee that will settle claims related to artwork stolen by Nazis from Jews during the Holocaust.
The six-person expert group will include specialists in law, history, and art history. It will be chaired by Bruno De Wever, a historian and emeritus professor of history specializing in World War II who is also the brother of Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever. The group will focus on establishing a permanent restitution commission to advise on claims.
The move marks the first official step by the Flemish government, which governs the northern region of Belgium, to tackle claims of Nazi-looted art from World War II. “Unlike other occupied countries such as the Netherlands or France, we have remained passive for too long,” Gennez said. “We have to catch up. Art that has been stolen or sold under duress must be returned to its rightful owners.”
The World Jewish Restitution Organization (WJRO), which addresses the restitution of Jewish property stolen during World War II, welcomed Gennez’s announcement. “This is a long-overdue and meaningful step toward justice for victims of the Holocaust and their families,” said WJRP President Gideon Taylor and WJRO COO Mark Weitzman in a joint statement on Sunday. “We commend Minister Gennez for her leadership and call on Belgium’s federal and regional governments to work together to ensure that looted cultural property is returned, and history is acknowledged. Justice delayed must not be justice denied.”
Roughly 66,000 Jews lived in Belgium before the Holocaust, but the Jewish community in the country now stands at around 29,000, with most Jews living in Brussels and Antwerp, according to the WJRO.
The post Flemish Culture Minister Assembles Expert Committee to Help Tackle Claims of Nazi-Looted Art first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Harvard University Maintains Ties to Terror Proxy Groups, Report Alleges
Demonstrators take part in an “Emergency Rally: Stand With Palestinians Under Siege in Gaza,” amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, US, Oct. 14, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Brian Snyder
Harvard University has ties to anti-Zionist nongovernmental organizations and other entities acting as proxy organizations for terrorist groups that warrant scrutiny and reproach, according to a new “preliminary” report published by nonprofit watchdog NGO Monitor.
Titled, “Advocacy NGOs in Academic Frameworks: Harvard University Case Study,” the report presents copious evidence that Harvard’s academic centers, including Harvard Law School, have come under the influence of Al-Haq and Addameer — two groups identified by the Israeli government as agents and propaganda manufacturers for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), an internationally designated terrorist organization. The NGOs, the report added, influence research and institutional culture, tilting the ideological balance of the campus toward anti-Zionism.
“The report demonstrates the major contribution from prominent advocacy NGOs to the atmosphere of propaganda and antisemitism at Harvard, particularly through frameworks claiming human rights agendas,” Professor Gerald Steinberg, who authored the report alongside Dr. Adi Schwartz, said in a statement. “The close cooperation between prominent NGOs and Harvard academic programs warrants urgent scrutiny. The blurred lines between scholarship and advocacy threaten academic integrity and risk further inflaming campus tensions.”
He added, “In this context, it is important to highlight the urgent need for transparency regarding funding for the NGOs and these Harvard academic frameworks.”
One academic center named in the report is the Harvard François-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights (FXB), which was until this year formally partnered with a higher education institution located in the West Bank. The center, it explains, farms its research from an interconnected network of anti-Zionist figures and nonprofits, such as Amnesty International. Moreover, it appears to focus less on improving health outcomes than on politics and Gaza, having devoted 40 percent of its public events to the topic.
FXB director Mary T. Bassett, is particularly problematic, the report alleges.
“A review of her publication record reflects the absence of any expertise on health issues in conflict zones, in general, or regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in particular,” Steinberg and Schwartz write. “She has consistently displayed an anti-Israeli ideological bias, which is distributed widely through the center’s website and the media. For example, a week after [Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of Israel], she published an ‘End-of-year message’ on the FXB website (since deleted), in which she wrote of ‘the potential genocide facing civilians in Gaza.’”
Another academic center, the Harvard Law School’s International Human Rights Clinic (IHRC), has cooperated in presenting research to a United Nations commission of inquiry that has been widely accused of antisemitic bias. Additionally, an instructor there once worked as a fellow for Amnesty International, a human rights organization that legal experts and Israeli officials have lambasted for pushing anti-Israel “propaganda” and “antisemitic blood libels.” The academics and clinicians there, stationed both to teach and mentor students, use the classroom to replicate their biases, accoding to NGO Monitor.
“The clinic prides itself on finding jobs for its alumni at a variety of NGOs around the globe,” the report says. “In this sense, the clinic acts as a training framework and ‘feeder’ for the NGRO ideological advocacy network.”
Steinberg and Schwartz’s research comes amid concerns that Harvard University has become a hub for antisemitism and illiberalism that is glossed with a veneer of progressive values.
“Harvard is an Anti-Semitic, Far Left Institute, as are numerous others, with students being accepted from all over the World that want to rip our Country apart,” US President Donald Trump said last month, writing on Truth Social. “The place is a Liberal mess, allowing a certain group of crazed lunatics to enter and exit the classroom and spew fake ANGER and HATE [sic]. It is truly horrific. Now, since our filings began, they act like they are all ‘American Apple Pie.’ Harvard is a threat to democracy.”
In April, the university released a long anticipated report on campus antisemitism and along with it an apology from interim president Alan Garber which acknowledged that school officials failed in key ways to address the hatred to which Jewish students were subjected following Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel.
The over 300-page document provides a complete account of antisemitic incidents which transpired on Harvard’s campus in recent years — from the Harvard Palestine Solidarity Committee’s (PSC) endorsement of the Oct. 7 terrorist atrocities to an anti-Zionist faculty group’s sharing an antisemitic cartoon which depicted Jews as murderers of people of color — and said that one source of the problem is the institution’s past refusal to afford Jews the same protections against discrimination enjoyed by other minority groups.
“I am sorry for the moments when we failed to meet the high expectations we rightfully set for our community. The grave, extensive impact of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas assault on Israel and its aftermath had serious repercussions on campus,” Garber said in the statement that accompanied the report. “Harvard cannot — and will not — abide bigotry. We will continue to provide for the safety and security of all members of our community and safeguard their freedom from harassment. We will redouble our efforts to ensure that the university is a place where ideas are welcomed, entertained, and contested in the spirt of seeking truth; where argument proceeds without sacrificing dignity; and where mutual respect is the norm.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Harvard University Maintains Ties to Terror Proxy Groups, Report Alleges first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Ritchie Torres Defends John Fetterman, Says Israel Support Cause of Attacks Over Senator’s Mental Health
US Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) gives an interview in his office in the Russell Senate Office Building in Washington, DC, Jan. 18, 2024. Photo: Rod Lamkey / CNP/Sipa USA for NY Post via Reuters Connect
Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) defended Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) amid an onslaught of attacks regarding the latter’s mental acuity, claiming that the mounting criticism against the US senator stems from his support for Israel.
“I know a hit piece when I see one. The only reason for the coordinated campaign against Senator John Fetterman is his unapologetic pro-Israel politics. Let’s call it what it is,” Torres posted on social media on Friday. “As someone who has struggled with depression my whole adult life, I can tell you that if you truly care about someone’s mental health, leaking hit pieces against them is a strange way of showing it.”
Fetterman, one of the most strident supporters of Israel in the US Congress, has been the subject of a series of articles which have called into question his mental stability. An article published in New York Magazine depicted the senator as moody, irrational, and conspiratorial. Additionally, the article took a series of swipes at Fetterman’s stance on Israel, suggesting that the senator’s vocal advocacy of the Jewish state stems from his supposedly deteriorating mental health. It also portrayed Fetterman as racially biased against Palestinians, claiming that in conversations he compared Gaza civilians to “a carton of sour milk.”
Another article published in Politico called Fetterman “increasingly alone,” noting that “few fellow Democrats have rushed to Fetterman’s defense” following the publication of the bombshell article in New York Magazine. The publication asserted that “private chatter about primary challenges” against Fetterman have started and that some Pennsylvania Democrats are suggesting he step down.
Though Fetterman campaigned as a progressive, he has surprisingly emerged as a staunch ally of Israel in the months following Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attacks across southern Israel. Fetterman has repeatedly condemned anti-Israel voices within his own party in the US Congress, as well as elite universities for tolerating what he has characterized as antisemitic and anti-Israel hate speech on their campuses.
Fetterman’s staunch support of Israel has incensed progressives and sparked an exodus of staffers from his Senate office. Last year, 16 former campaign staffers penned a letter urging the senator to “join the right side of history” by supporting a “ceasefire” between Israel and Hamas. Several of his top communications staffers have fled to join anti-Israel operations such as the Working Families Party or the office of Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson.
Three Republican senators — Dave McCormick (D-PA), Tom Cotton (R-AK), and Chuck Grassley (R-IA) — publicly defended Fetterman, arguing that the Pennsylvania lawmaker has been subjected to unfair political hit-pieces.
“It’s time to put politics aside and stop these vicious, personal attacks against Senator Fetterman, his wife, and his health,” McCormick wrote. “While we have many differences, we are both committed to working together to achieve results for the people of Pennsylvania and make their lives better.”
“John Fetterman and I have our differences, but he’s a decent and genuine guy,” he added.
“The radical left is smearing him [Fetterman] with dishonest, vicious attacks because h’’s pro-Israel and they only want reliable anti-Israel politicians. Disgraceful,” Cotton posted on X/Twitter.
“The media ought to lay off Senator Fetterman,” Grassley added.
Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (NY) also gave a vote of confidence to Fetterman, claiming the Pennsylvania lawmaker is “doing a good job, and he’s a good legislator.”
The post Ritchie Torres Defends John Fetterman, Says Israel Support Cause of Attacks Over Senator’s Mental Health first appeared on Algemeiner.com.