The Ben Mulroney Show - One Family's Terror on October 07, 2023

Episode Date: October 7, 2026

On today's episode of "The Ben Mulroney Show," Ben welcomes Moshe Emilio Lavi. His family's world was turned upside down on Oct 07 2023. If you enjoyed the podcast, tell a friend! For more of the Ben Mulroney Show, subscribe to the podcast! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://link.chtbl.com/bms⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Also, on youtube -- ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@BenMulroneyShow⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow Ben on Twitter/X at https://x.com/BenMulroney Insta: ⁠⁠⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠⁠⁠ Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠⁠⁠ TikTok: ⁠⁠⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠⁠⁠   Executive Producer:  Mike Drolet Reach out to Mike with story ideas or tips at [e-mail] Enjoy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Standard messaging and data rates may apply. Well, today is my anniversary, Canada. Three years ago today, I was tapped to start a new chapter in my career as a radio host. And my former boss over the course, course of a few weeks said, you know, I think this is something you could be good at, Ben. And there's a, there's a slot that opened up in our schedule on Saturdays and Sundays, from nine to noon. It was a local show here in Toronto called Toronto this weekend. And my job, I was told, was to celebrate all the wonderful things to do in a vibrant and diverse

city like Toronto, which meant bringing on people to be interviewed for the small business. that they opened or the restaurant that they opened or the charity that they were working on or the 10K that was going on in the city or the farmer's market. You get it. So on that very day, I sat in this chair from 9 a.m. to noon talking about, oh, the foliage is turning. Isn't it beautiful to be in a city like Toronto? And then we'd go right over here to the newsroom.

and I would hear of the one-day Holocaust, the one-day genocide perpetrated by Hamas on innocents in Israel, who were dancing and singing and shopping and sleeping and eating and laughing and loving and doing all the things that people do. And 1,100 plus didn't make it through that day. and 251 were taken hostage, most of whom have experienced unspeakable horrors. And so I, and we find ourselves here three years later.

And I've been trying to figure, because people ask me all the time, because I do a lot of work in the Jewish community. I do a lot of work standing up for that persecuted minority in this country. And people say, did one follow the other? Did you take up this responsibility because of that day? And I have thought really long and hard about that.

Because if that happened, it was not due to any active choice I made, but I think I figured it out. I think I figured out what happened. Because over the course of that morning, as I am hearing about some of the most gruesome, brutal, barbaric, inhuman, grotesque, disgusting acts of violence, perpetrated with glee and joy and pride on innocent civilians. I didn't know what to do. I had no idea how to use this microphone in any way that could add to the conversation,

that could add clarity, that could add calm, that could add any sense of measure. And I do not think it was by design, but it might have been. I was struck with how important this job is and can be and should be. And I was not ready for it on that day. That was not the assignment. And I don't, I think I approach my show now, now that I have the experience, like it could be that day every day. Like there could be something that could come up that requires something to be thought out. And you at home might be listening for some sense, for me to make sense of something for you in the way I do.

I'm not saying I'm thinking for you. I'm saying I would tell you what I think. And then from there you can make your own judgments. I do not show up here. I don't phone things in. I like to joke that I give a George Costanza effort every day, not showing off, not falling behind, a good B, B plus. And if I rise above that, it's been a good day.

That's a joke for me. I take this very seriously because what we do and what we say here can matter. And on that day, I was ill prepared. I was caught flat-footed, and I did not have the experience that I wish I'd had. I go back to that day. I wish. I wish I knew. I wish I had the skills then that I think I have now, where I could have begun to chronicle

what I think we've seen happen in the Middle East and then spilling out and over into our streets, our neighborhoods, and what has happened to... are friends and neighbors who happen to be Jewish. I wish I could have started on that day because I would have liked my journey of chronicling the things that I think I've seen go wrong, start that day. Because they started that day. They started that day and they continue to this day

when Israeli flags are burnt in front of a church in Mississauga. Not in Mississauga. I can't remember where that was. But at a Mississauga school, students were urge to quote, where their kaffia's on October 7th at Rick Hanson School. If I was Rick Hanson, I'd be pissed off. When we see that the Bondi Beach level bloodshed could have happened in Belleville just a few weeks ago, not for the bravery or a couple of police officers. These are the things that are happening here because we allowed them to happen.

And the catalyst for it was October 7th and the useful idiots and the people who've been indoctrinated by their echo chambers and by TikTok and by propaganda have been allowed to take over our streets and make people feel unsafe. And they have brought division and anger and misinformation to a place that used to celebrate our differences. I wished I could have been that guy on day one. And I don't think I'm going to miss the opportunity to be that guy on every day moving forward. And so that's the reason if you are asking yourself, how much attention are we paying to October 7th today? A lot. We're paying a lot. And not only because of what happened on that day and how the victims of that day deserve to be mourned.

But because of everything that's happened since and because of everything that's happened since here in this country, in North America, in the West, Hell, the leader of the biggest, most important city in the West, New York, Mayor Mom Dani, in his official tweet to signal the acknowledgement of the weight of this day. His entire tweet was 211 words. 23% of those words were devoted to the people who lost their lives at the hands of a murderous death cult. 23% 49% of the words that followed were about

the perceived crimes of Israel and America and then there was a few words at the end to say I'm going to bring us all together name one other tragedy in the world where on the day

that you mourn the dead they get less than a quarter of the words and then you make about something else. That's why we have to talk about October 7th today. That's why. Because the guy who rose to the most powerful office in the most powerful city,

in the history of the world, is one of the reasons that your Jewish neighbors and my Jewish neighbors have to hide who they are and fear for praying at their synagogue. and they fear the safety of their kids walking down the streets. Because when you talk about the victims for a quarter of the words, but almost half of them are about, well, they kind of have it coming. Every Jew needs to look behind them.

Every Jew's got to make sure they're not being followed. So we got to stay vigilant. We're going to have a great show, some really great interviews. But that's where my head's at today, Toronto and Canada. Thank you very much for sticking. with us on the Ben Mulroney show. When we come back, the commemoration and the remembering

of October 7th continues. It's so frustrating sometimes being a good, I think I'm a good faith communicator, and I will take the L when I make a mistake. But there are some people who are hell-bent on misinforming and sowing misinformation and disinformation at every turn. on everything to do with the world since October 7th, 2003.

Medi Hassan is one of them. Medi Hassan, formerly of CNBC, actually had the gall a few days ago to say that Hamas was prepared to hand back all of the hostages that they took on October 7th on October 8th. But it was the bloodthirsty Israelis that forced their hand into a protracted war. utter nonsense. And if that was even an offer, it was because they wanted every single Palestinian terrorist and criminal

that had been tried and prosecuted and convicted to be released, unacceptable in a mature democracy. But anyway, all that to say, it's easy to forget now that the hostages are home, those who had the strength and were lucky, enough to survive, that that was a hole, a gaping hole in the lives of Israelis and in the lives of Jews and in the lives of anybody, I think, with a beating heart. And so today we want to take some time to remember and talk about what that was like and what it's been like since.

And for that, we are being joined by Moshe, Emilio Lavi. He is native of Assyderat Israel and the former captain in the Israeli defense forces. And his brother-in-law, Omri Miran, was taken hostage by Hamas and was released from captivity on October 13th, 2025. And we're joined now by Moshe. Thank you very much for joining us today. Thank you for having me. So how do you feel today, you know,

it's been almost a year since your brother-in-law was returned to you? You lived probably not knowing whether he was alive, dead for a very long time. How has this year been? It's been a year of reconnecting a bit with our previous selves before October the 7th. It's hard to return to October the 6th, 2023, but there are elements that we can return to whether it's going to a football match with Omri every time I visit Israel or basketball match, having family dinners, having that occasional recall. And that's what we live for. We live for those small moments in our lives with our family, with our loved ones, with our friends. And the years since, O'Mrii returned to us, I was able to

rediscover that joy again in life. And of course, my sister and my nieces and the entire family, and most naturally Omri, who is a free man who can choose to do what he wishes to do in every single moment of his life now, after being deprived of that for two years. He was, from what I understand, he was, he worked on the land. He healed others with his hands. He was a, he was a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, he was a, a, he was a, he was, a and that's, you know, he was, he was simple and kind, is what I understood, what I understand.

How, how is he today? Um, we, um, yeah, he was a healer. Uh, in his soul and in his practice, both healing with his hands, like you said, is a shiatsu therapist. And also, what? work in the soil in his kibbutz, Kibbutz Nakhalos, which was ravaged on October the 7th. He's been recovering ever since his release, that road to recovery, to be honest. We don't know when it will end, if it will ever end. Physically, it has to go through physiotherapy, can't return to practice in Shiasu as of years. Of course, mentally it has a lot of

of a lot of struggles in that regards. But he's such a strong man, he's a stoic man as well. So I think that philosophy helped him a lot in captivity of accepting faith and also knowing that you can still make the best of that faith that was given to you, even while being a captive, a hostage of a terrorist organization. And now he's telling his story worldwide. Today, for example, we're speaking in a special event hosted by the European Union in Strasbourg, in France and he's been lecturing across Israel, sharing his story of captivity, but also what he learned about family, about his personality, and about why it's worth living. I'm so glad that you and I are talking about him in the present tense, as you said, with agency

and the ability to do whatever he wants with his life as should be the right of everyone. And I'm glad that he's able to do that. but that doesn't erase the past, and one certainly can't just flip a switch and forget the last three years, and he certainly can't forget the years that he spent in captivity. But as you were one of those families,

tirelessly reminding the world as this war was raging, that there were innocent civilians being held in underground tunnels and being kept hidden and shrouded and being used as leverage, how did how did you feel as you were doing this thing that any other human being would be doing in that situation to hear the other side of the fence shouting Israel did this the GoPro the Hamas didn't do this this was all orchestrated in order to give Israel the

pretext to go in and and kill as many Gazans as they could it must be it was it frustrating or did you tune that out I will say that during the two years of Amrera's captivity, my focus and focus of many families of hostages, and I had the privilege to represent them in the International Forum. I had the role of the sort as part of the NGO. We started of being their international envoy and organizing all of the delegations. Our focus was sharing the story of the hostages, sharing the story of the survivors, and pleading through those stories to action. proposing ideas of how action could be made to bring home the hostages.

So that was our focus. I will say that throughout that difficult time, I saw it here in New York City, in every city I went to, are hateful voices of people who rationalize, legitimize, praise Hamas, including today. There is a demonstration in New York City where demonstrators will be celebrating the martyrs. And we know what martyrs mean. We know that means terrorists. We know what resistance means.

It means the terrorism that Israelis have been suffering for decades, including on October the 7th. My rule during the war was to make sure that we, the hostages are in the front of the discussions of policymakers. Those lesser voices were less important. Now, as a person, as an independent person at times, I try and counter those narratives, of which you described at the beginning, when you describe a tweet by Medi Hassan, one of so many

in which it distorts, it distorts reality, distorts the fact. I try and counter that with what I know, with what I've experienced during my advocacy work, and also make sure that people understand that the Israelis have a voice, and that voice matters, no less than the voice of those who suffered in Gaza from the ongoing war. And that's the most frustrating thing for me being what I think, you know, I think I'm well read and I'm not, I do not think I have blinders on. And I know that nation states are imperfect and the leaders that run them are equally imperfect. But what's been so frustrating is I keep asking the question, why is it not enough for those who are in support of the Palestinian cause? Why is it not enough for us to, we could all agree that the suffering of innocence has been heartbreaking?

Why is that not enough? Why must we take the next step and impose, in certain cases, outrageous. In other cases, the most diplomatic thing I could say is controversial, disputed charges against Israel, charges against the Jewish people. Why can't we all rally around the one thing that would unite us all? which would be empathy and understanding and sadness over those who lost their lives. I can't think of a rational reason why, unless, of course, the intent is to divide us. I agree with you. I think throughout the generations, the Jewish people have suffered many smears, many campaigns against them.

And of course, those culminated in tragic events, horrific events like the Spanish Inquisition, like pogroms in Eastern Europe, and of course, the most terrible event, in my opinion of human history, the Holocaust, which was perpetrated in Europe and North Africa against Jews. I think it's part of the campaign that legitimize us as people, as people with clear identity. And again, like you said, we don't need to diminish the suffering of the Palestinians or Gazans, And I, I, as like many, also support a peace process that will bring about an independent Palestinian state that recognizes the nation state of the Jewish people. Yeah, that's got to be the starting point.

That's got to be the starting point and the end point. And anything that doesn't contain those two bookends is dead in the water with a lot of people. We're going to take a break. We're going to continue our discussion and also find out whether he's, He's been able to find peace and security in North America and how far we still have to go. Don't go anywhere. This is the Ben Mulrini show. I'm continuing my conversation with Moshe Amelio Lavi.

He is the brother-in-law of Omri Miran, who was taken hostage and was brought back to the family just shy of a year ago during the war in Gaza. And Moshe, you live in New York now, correct? Yeah, I moved to New York in September 2020, so months before the attack. Off the top of today's show, I said the reason it is incumbent upon me to spend a great deal of time on today's show on October 7th is because of what has happened to the West since October 7th. This is not just, that was the catalyst for an explosion of Jew hate that has washed over the Western world, supercharged by effective communicators who know how to leverage racial malice, anti-Semitic poison, calculated deceit. And they can take good, well-intentioned people and turn them into anti-Semites over the course of reading a few books. and taking a few courses in university.

And it is for the Jews of North America, for example, that I want to keep my eyes on the prize. Because the Jews in North America, they can have their opinions on what's happening in Israel, just like everyone does. But that doesn't mean they should be the focus of anyone's issue with the decisions of that government. How have you felt as a Jew,

as somebody with deep, deep ties to Israel, but living in America, How do you feel as a Jew living in America in 2026? I will say it has been very difficult ever since October the 7th. A day after, I saw outside time just in Times Square, very 20 minutes from where I live in Manhattan. I saw a demonstration celebrating Hamas. You know, one of the participants in that demonstration

is expected to be a congresswoman in the U.S. representing New York in a few months. And ever since that day, I realized that we are more isolated than we think. There was a period of perhaps where we felt integrated, we felt accepted. But at the same time, during that period, nefarious forces worked very hard to delegitimize the state of Israel, delegitimize a Jewish national identity, and it exploded on October the 7th. That campaign continued today, and I think it's funded by nation-state, it's funded by specific research institutes, and it's present everywhere in the West. We have to counter it with information, with messages of hope, but also being very strong and clear for who we are as Jewish people, in my cases, Israelis as well.

But it's got to be especially, I don't know if it's concerning for you, but. it's something to take note of when the duly elected mayor of the most important cultural and financial city in the history of the world puts out his official position on October 7th. And in 211 words, spends 23% of those words, quote unquote, mourning the losses and the tragedy of the terrorist attack. And then another 49% of his words are spent ascribing blame and responsibility to America and to Israel, thereby implicitly victim blaming the very people he was claiming to be mourning. If that is leadership in America today, that should be of concern.

Yes, I'm very concerned about trends I see both in the far left and the far right in the U.S. and in Canada. It's the horseshoe theory and practice. And Mary Mamdani's statement today was shocking. It is an attempt to rob us, Israelis and Jews, of a day of mourning, a day of reflection on what has happened to us, and shift their attention to their political agenda, to libels against the state of Israel, which were repeated in that statement, and has no legal groundings. And again, like you said, victim blaming in essence those who were murdered. mutilated, raped, and kidnapped that day. There's an author and essayist in the United States by the name of Darrah Horn. And she was recently on a podcast.

She's got a new book called The Final, Provocative Title. The Final Solution to the Jewish Question, a love story for the living. And in it, she essentially breaks down how anti-Semitism is not like other bigotries. Most other bigotries in the world, if anti-black bigotry, It stems from the same thing. And by and large, of the course of history, it has maintained its shape. Whereas, and you can counter bigotry with empathy and education. That's the antidote for traditional bigotry.

But when it comes to anti-Semitism that is always changing, always morphine, and as soon as it is, as soon as you cut off its head in one way, another head sprouts up and it looks just different enough. But the one constant that she says is that at its root, it is the lie that Jews are coming to take or weaken or destroy that which a particular society holds of value. So you just have to ask yourself at any given point, what does a society value?

And then you can predict who is going to come out and say the Jews are responsible for weakening that thing that you love. And that then leads to the rise of anti-Semitism. So I don't know, Moshe, if the antidote for this is communication and facts. I don't think the people who are espousing this care about the facts. They care about a weakening and demeaning and dehumanizing Jews. And if that means going by way of anti-Zionism, they will. They do not care because at their heart they have a hatred towards Jews.

And no amount of facts is going to change that. I don't know what we do about that. I think you're right, but the only way is education. The only way is to persist in standing our ground and presenting our case as coherently as possible. And it is our role, and I hope to find many allies just like you, in promoting that and never giving up. Just like we never gave up in our advocacy work for the hostages. We can't just give up to the hate. hateful campaign where you're seeing on the streets against the Jewish people against the state of Israel.

And in my opinion, it's also a hateful campaign that eventually negatively impacts the Palestinians. Because it doesn't help them. It doesn't elevate them in any way. It just focuses on the hate movements in the West, but other than on how we bring solutions to those who live in the conflict zone, whether in Israel or the Palestinian territories. I agree with you that there is. There is, There is education that can be done, but to me it's more akin to deprogramming. And I'm talking about the youth of the West. I think there has been that massive disservice that we've done in allowing our various levels of education to be corrupted by this toxic, this toxic hatred.

And we are churning out a younger generation of people with a misguided and false sense of who the Jews are, what Israel is, what the history of that place is. And if we can get them back, then the Mediasans don't have anyone to preach to and the Hassan Pikers have to go back to playing video games online. Yeah, it's pretty much that. And I think it's even broader than that. We're seeing what's happening right now in France. It's not really on the news. But those who follow closely, there are thousands, tens of thousands of schools of

school students while currently destroying schools, were harassing the police, and other authorities and are harassing people on the streets, supposedly in the name of improving their education, but that's just a pretext for other grievances that are not acceptable. This is just another example of how this deep programming needs to happen in order to bring back a sense of order, security, safety to the West and bring back values that sadly were lost in the past few years, perhaps because of such of the disinformation campaigns we see,

both on social media and more traditional channels and of course the education system as a whole. Moshe, thank you so much for spending some time with us today. And I do hope that despite the heaviness of the day, there is joy in your heart that your family has been reunited and that your brother-in-law has that opportunity to build whatever life he wants. Thank you very much. Thank you and we'll keep remembering those who were lost today.