The Decibel - How October 7 is still haunting the Jewish diaspora

Episode Date: October 7, 2025

On October 7, 2023, members of Hamas launched attacks in Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking roughly 250 people hostage. Israel responded by launching a war in the Gaza Strip, with the aim of eliminating Hamas. Since then, more than 67,000 Palestinians have been killed, and much of Gaza has been destroyed.Two years later, reverberations of that initial attack and the ongoing war continue. The ensuing humanitarian crisis in Gaza has led to a global protest movement in support of Palestinians. At the same time, antisemitic incidents have been on the rise in the diaspora. In the years since October 7, dinner table conversations in Jewish families have increasingly centred on – do we still feel safe in our homes? And what responsibility do we feel for the destruction that is happening in another land? These are questions that have led to division – and reckoning – within Jewish communities.Globe columnist and author of October 7: Searching for the Humanitarian Middle Marsha Lederman joins Decibel producer Michal Stein for a conversation from a Canadian Jewish perspective in understanding what’s happened since October 7 and how it impacts them today.Questions? Comments? Ideas? Email us at [e-mail] Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Two years ago, members of Hamas launched a series of surprise attacks in Israel. Over 1,200 people were killed, and around 250 were taken hostage, according to Israeli authorities. Israel responded with an all-out attack on the Gaza Strip, with the stated aim of eliminating Hamas. Since then, over 67,000 people in Gaza have been killed, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health. And many parts of Gaza have been destroyed. Of the 48 remaining Israeli hostages, around 20 are thought to still be alive. We at the decibel had a discussion about how to cover this day, and we wanted to think about how to reflect what's going on in the Canadian Jewish diaspora,

because those conversations are particularly complex. A lot is happening within Jewish communities, over dinner tables, at holiday gatherings, and in family WhatsApp chats. I'm not Jewish, so the conversation I might have had would be different than the one we're bringing you. So today, decibel producer Mikhail Stein is going to be our host, and she's with me right now. Hi, Mihal.

Hi, Cheryl. Thanks for passing the mic to me today. Yeah, thank you so much for doing this. And can you just tell me why did you want to have this conversation? So I put my hand up to host this episode when we were talking about how we would cover the second anniversary of October 7th because I've been a part of shaping our coverage of the Warren in Gaza. And there's often a point in those episodes where I'm thinking about the way these conversations are playing out here in Jewish communities. that I'm a part of. And this includes people who are very supportive of Israel and very supportive of the current government. It also includes people who are very close to me who are very active

in pro-Palestine movements. So there's a lot of division in these communities. There's a lot of reckoning. There's a lot of very challenging conversations that are happening right now. And I think they are conversations worth having in the open. And I wanted to try and have that. And I'm glad that you are doing it today. So thank you so much, Mihal. And now over to you. Our guest today is Marsha Leaderman. Marcia is a staff columnist at the globe and the author of the book October 7th, searching for the humanitarian middle. Marcia and I are both Jewish and both have family ties to Israel. And we've both been grappling with what October 7th meant and how everything since has been affected by it.

I'm Mikhail Stein, and this is the decibel from the Globe and Mail. Marsha, thank you so much for taking the time to join us today. Oh, thank you so much for the invitation. I really appreciate it. And I want to acknowledge off the top that I think having this conversation in the way that we're going to have it will probably make some people upset, and that's okay. Okay. And I just want to acknowledge that. And I also, I do appreciate that. It's very, very sensitive. Everything we're going to be talking about is sensitive. I understand that people are very passionate. And it's a very difficult topic. I appreciate people listening. And I think that part of what we need to do is have more conversations and listen to each other as much as we can. So thank you for acknowledging that. And for wanting to talk to me about this.

So I wanted to start, you know, today, when everyone is listening to this, it will be October 7th, 2025. Let's start our conversation by going back to October 7th, 2023. What was that day like for you? It's one of those days that you, well, that you remember forever. You remember forever where you were when you found out. And for me, it was actually October 6th when I started to see. something was happening because I live on the West Coast in Vancouver before I checked my phone, before I went to bed. I saw that something was up in Israel, which is not an unusual event.

There are frequent rocket attacks in Israel, so I didn't think much of it. But in the morning, when I woke up, I saw that it was something extraordinary in the true definition of that term. That weekend, it was Thanksgiving weekend. My son was turning 15, so there were all these celebrations, and I know it's a privilege to have a birthday and celebrate it. There are many people who have not been able to do that for the last two years, but that's where I was. And, you know, his best friend slept over for his birthday that weekend, and I fell asleep before they did. And at some point, I heard a knock on the door. And I woke up, and I thought, immediately, I thought, they're here. And also, that was quick. That was fast. And where did that come from? My whole life, I have had nightmares about being hunted by Nazis. My parents were Holocaust survivors. And when I was watching this footage, horrific footage of what was going on on October 7th and reading accounts, I, everything I'd

been telling myself, my whole life, all these years where I've been trying to calm myself into understanding that the war was over, I was safe, no one's going to attack people because they're Jewish. That's not going to happen anymore. And then suddenly it felt like it was happening and that's how it translated to me with that knock on the door it was an immediate visceral reaction and you know that weekend was there were a lot of phone calls with friends Jewish friends for the most part who suddenly like me were plunged into this horror and I knew immediately that Israel was going to retaliate and that it was going to be very very bad. And unfortunately, I was right. I want to dig into where a lot of this reaction comes

from because I think for both of us, we're of course not coming to this conversation as disinterested third parties. We both have relationships in the Jewish community. We are both from the Jewish community, have relationships to Israel. And a lot of my very close family lives in Israel, including my grandmother. So, Marsha, you know, if we think about your reaction that day, that obviously comes from everything that has informed how you relate to the world as a Jewish person. Can you talk a bit about that, about your relationship to Judaism and to Israel? Yeah, I just want to ask if your grandmother's okay and your family. Thank you. My grandmother is, thankfully, she is okay. She is 99. She, God willing, will turn 100.

in March and hopefully I will go and visit her there. She's, you know, had many nights where she's had to stay in the safe room, which, but again, thankfully, my family all have safe rooms in their homes. And so everyone in my family, thankfully, is all okay. I'm glad to hear that. Yeah, listen, I was raised in a house that was affected in every way by the Holocaust. I had no grandparents. My grandparents were all murdered in gas chambers. Most of my aunts and uncles did not survive to become my aunts and uncles. They too were murdered. My mother and her sister and their aunt survived the war, most of it, together, in Auschwitz, and then at a different, a satellite camp of Buchenwald, and then a death march. And they were liberated together. that aunt and my mother's sister both went to Palestine after the war.

That could have been my fate too. My parents were also discussing the possibility of going to Palestine. In the end, they ended up coming to Canada. But because of that, like you, I have familial ties to Israel, family that lives there. my great aunt and her husband my great uncle are no longer alive but their kids and grandkids are and i have other relatives on my father's side and israel was very much part of our home life i mean i remember an embroidery that my mother did of an elderly jewish man with a shofar which is a rams horn yes at the western wall and this was something that

that was very prominent in our home, and there was a lot of Judaica. And Israel and Judaism were absolutely a central part of our lives. We weren't religious, but we did observe the holidays. And pork did not cross the threshold of that home either. But I was raised very much in those traditions and with the sadness of the Holocaust and with the hope that Israel symbolized for my parents. Okay, so for you and I, and I think many other Jewish people listening, the ties can be very close because circumstances of where people went after the Holocaust or in years since, there are many Jewish people from communities in the Middle East and North Africa

that were expelled from their countries after the founding of Israel, that also many of them, moved to Israel. And then, of course, just even the way that we talk about Israel within our communities has created very close ties. Why do you think that the events of October 7th had such a profound impact on the Jewish diaspora? Oh, we're, we are very connected to Israel. There's no question. I mean, I, it's like almost a rite of passage at the age of 18. I went and spent a summer in Israel. I worked on a kibbutz. I toured around. And I've been back a few times since, not since 1998, but I have been there quite a few times. But it's not just about, you know, the political state of Israel. We were just talking about going to synagogue. And when I do go basically

once a year on Yom Kippur, which was last week, I was reading through the prayer book. And I was noticing how often the prayers mention, and these are prayers that were written long before 1948, Eritz Israel, the land of Israel, or Zion, Zion, Jerusalem. So it's central not just to the culture, but to the religion. And that's not just the country, but it's also religiously, which, as I said, I'm not exactly observant, but it's there. You know, we, read these words, we sing them once a year or perhaps more often if you do go to synagogue more regularly. And it's also something that is part of our, it was a dreamy thing that happened for us that after this nightmare of the Holocaust, the state of Israel was established and Jews finally

had their homeland. That was a very powerful moment. for my family and for Jewish people around the world. There's something that you hit on there, which is that, you know, this dreamy thing happened, that finally there was this state. But it happened at a cost. And I think that's this great tension here, which is there was so much suffering,

there's so much strife in our history, and then to finally have a nation. But what does it mean to build a nation in a place, you know, in a place that was already inhabited? How do you think we grapple with that, that, you know, the place that we spent millennia writing poems about, writing prayers about, necessarily displaced another people? Yeah, it's horrifying. It was also something that I did not know about. I mean, not as an adult, but as a child growing up, I didn't go to Hebrew Day School, but I did go to Hebrew school three times a week.

and we learned about the history of Israel, but we learned it from one perspective. It was told like a story with a happy ending. We did not learn about the Arabs who were on the land and who were displaced. We did not learn about people whose homes were lost, Arabs who lost their homes and had to, and ended up in refugee camps.

we didn't learn any of that. I don't know how old I was when I first heard the word Nakba, but it was not when I was deeply learning this history at school. And so I feel that because of that, we were not told the whole story. And I think that that has had an impact for sure. So I feel sad about that. I feel a little bit robbed of the truth, but it doesn't stop me from believing that the Jews deserve a homeland and that the state of Israel has a right to exist.

It doesn't mean it came out of nothing, that it was poof, magic, here you are, no one's getting hurt. many, many people were hurt, killed, lost their homes. And so it's almost like we need a truth and reconciliation process. You know, the truth was, it was withheld from me at a time when it was not easy to access information. I grew up in the pre-internet era. And I think reconciliation needs to happen as well. I mean, we're not there yet.

We're still in a war, which hopefully is going to. and soon, but I have made it my mission to read as widely as possible about this and learn as much as I can to make up for that and to read about this history from as many perspectives as possible. I just, it's really, and it's not just something we learned, it was a thing we felt. I have a very strong recollection of seeing a video. From 1967, this is the six-day war when the occupied territories, as we now know them, were captured by Israel. The video showed Israeli soldiers, as I recall, arriving at the Western Wall for the first time, because the Western Wall, which is the most holy place in Judaism, was not accessible to Jews, to Israelis at that time. It was not before the 1967 war.

And I remember seeing this video of them getting to the wall and weeping and touching it. And that hits hard. That was something I still think about that. So it wasn't just about learning lessons. It was about the emotion of it all. I want to pick up on a thread of what you have been talking about. You use this word Nakba that you hadn't heard until you were much older. Nakba is what Palestinians call the catastrophe referring to the loss of land in 1948.

And I think that a lot of the reckoning that is happening now is kind of a result of understanding that we haven't really acknowledged that Jewish people having a homeland has come at the expense of hundreds of thousands, if not millions of other people. And that's a very tough thing to reckon with. And it's upsetting, especially because Israel was created as a safe haven for Jews after the Holocaust, which has altered the course of our family history. And I think that is extremely challenging. Listen, I wish we could go back to 1947 when the UN came up with a partition plan offering land to Jews and offering land to Arabs. The Arab countries rejected that offer.

They were offered less land than the Jewish state was, even though there were more Arabs than Jews. And I wish we could go back to a time when we seemed very close to a two-state solution, which happened with the Oslo Accords, and again, didn't work out, was rejected. I don't see any excuse for violence on any side. I am hoping that we can have a political solution to this. And to me, that is a two-state solution. That's where I believe we can offer peace and security and dignity to all people. We'll be right back. Marcia, I want to talk to you about anti-Semitism and the rise in anti-Semitism.

Semitism that we've seen over the past two years and also the ways in which anti-war protest gets mixed up in some of that. You know, as we've been talking about, a big part of the reason that there's so much attachment to the state of Israel for a lot of Jewish people is because it was created as a safe haven after the Holocaust so that nothing like the Holocaust could happen to us again. And there is something very troubling that we're seeing in the years following October 7th, which is this rise in anti-Semitic incidents, like there's this horrific incident in Manchester last week on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish calendar. We've also seen certainly many incidents in Canada. There have been firebombing incidents, bullets shot into

religious schools in Toronto. You know, the list goes on. And that is separate from the rise in anti-Israel and anti-war protests, but often those protests or protesters themselves get called anti-Semitic, which I also find interesting because many of those protests are led by Jewish people themselves, and there's a lot of tension there. And I don't think it's fair to call protests anti-Semitic. Why do you think it's so hard to untangle these things? Yeah, it's a really tough one. And I like you, I really bristle when I hear you know, a pro-Palestinian protest described as anti-Semitic or pro-Hamas, and I think you can absolutely protest the actions of the Israeli government without being anti-Semitic.

That said, these protests, which have been very passionate and unrelenting, I believe, have contributed to an atmosphere where people do feel emboldened to express. their anti-Semitism. And I will tell you, my inbox is full of people sharing stories with me about what they've experienced. And it might be something that we would consider relatively minor, like being told they're not welcome in someone's cafe. Or, you know, it might be something very blatant. And I am very disturbed by these incidents. I'm very disturbed. I'm very disturbed. by the explaining away of these incidents, feels like gaslighting to me. Listen, I can tell when I'm being targeted by something that is anti-Semitism. I will agree, however, that the term is sometimes

used to describe just a pro-Palestinian protest. But like I said, I think it's contributing to this atmosphere where I, you know, I can't open social media now without seeing things that are absolutely gobsmacking. You know, people explaining away the Manchester attack, you know, you can expect more to, to be honest, someone wrote. And, you know, I could go on and on with examples, which I'm not going to do, but I'll just tell you something personally. I have a son who was in grade 12, his last year of high school. We are in the process right now of looking at universities. Never in my life did I think that how anti-Semitic is this particular campus, that kind of question would be a factor in the decisions we're making. I mean,

we're recording this the day before October 7th, but on October 7th, there are demonstrations planned for universities with a language like, you know, we're going to honor our martyrs. these are pro-Palestinian protests, that just really hurts that on that day, of all days, you're going to label your protest, and I understand protesting more, I get it, I'm for it. But this is one of the worst days in Jewish history, certainly in modern Jewish history. This is a day to be sensitive, I think, to those. victims and those of us who mourn them and the hostages who are still in captivity and their families who are suffering. And yes, we absolutely need to be remembering and mourning the tens of thousands

of people killed in Gaza. I'm not saying that that is not legitimate. Of course it is. But I think there is a real lack of sensitivity and this dismissal that the anti-Semitism we're seeing isn't really anti-Semitism or isn't really such a big deal, we would not accept this if any other minority group was being targeted this way. Nor should we. When I think about what needs to be done, and I feel like there have been so many conversations over the last two years, how do you deal with the rise in anti-Semitism? It does sound like some of what needs to be done is a real separating between we can protest the war, but that is not permission to say or do hateful things to Jewish people in the diaspora. And I don't know how you solve that other than relationship building

is the only thing that I think of. Well, what you're saying should be obvious. You should be able to protest the war without saying Jews or baby killers or writing that on a synagogue wall. Look, I don't have the answer either. But the way, one thing I can do is to try to promote dialogue, which is what I've done with my writing. And I hope that we can do some of that, some listening to each other and talking to each other. And there's absolutely a connection between this war and the rise in anti-Semitism. That is indisputable. there is absolutely a difference between calling out Israel and being anti-Semitic. But there is a lot of bleeding that's happening.

And there are a lot of people who are taking advantage of this environment, this climate, where it's okay to bash Jews, that they control the media, they control Hollywood. They shouldn't be allowed to participate in certain things. So I think that, yeah, I do. don't know what the answer is, education, talking to people who maybe don't feel the same way as you do on an individual level. That can be really illuminating. Yeah. It's so many of the problems when we talk about people being in silos, people being in echo chambers, you have to make an effort to go out and find people that are different than you, but it sounds like that's where real dialogue

can actually happen. Yeah. And, you know, read something, read something that is not necessarily from your camp, if I can use that term. I want to talk about another element that has come up since October 7th that feels, you know, we've been talking about a lot of things that are challenging to untangle on this moment. And one of the really challenging ideas is this idea that Israel is responsible for a genocide in Gaza, which was the finding of a recent report from a UN commission inquiry, a number of human rights organizations, including Bitzel. which is an Israeli human rights organization.

And it's not up to you and I to litigate whether a genocide has occurred in Gaza. But I'm curious as your thought, especially as a child of Holocaust survivors, why you think it's so hard for so many Jewish people to even entertain the thought that a genocide could be occurring in Gaza? Well, the term genocide was literally invented to describe what happened in the Holocaust. by a Jewish lawyer named Raphael Lemkin, the state of Israel was established because of that genocide. So to contemplate that this of all countries could be guilty of that same crime that is beyond. It's very, very sensitive.

And as you say, it's a matter for the courts to litigate. And yes, many experts have weighed in and said it's a genocide. And that is extremely hurtful for many people in the Jewish community. community, many would say it's absolutely untrue. But I think when you say the term genocide, you picture what happened in the Holocaust. And there is no comparison with what's happening in Gaza and what happened during the Second World War to Jews and other victims of the Nazis. So it's not just that the term genocide is being used. It's being weaponized. So is are being compared to Nazis or called Nazis. I've been called a Nazi. You know,

Benjamin Netanyahu is being compared to Adolf Hitler. This is what's known as Holocaust inversion and it is extremely offensive to Jewish people. And if you look at the UN definition of genocide and, you know, if a court decides that Israel has ticked those boxes, and I'm sorry to use such casual language about the deaths of thousands of people, it doesn't mean that it's the same, as I say, as the genocide that happened during the Second World War. This is where people were being rounded up and sent into killing machines in order to eliminate a race in Europe. This is something else. This is a war that, I believe, is an overreaction, has that. become a genocide, we'll see what the courts decide.

But of course, genocide is a term that it's been applied to a number of other wars around the world since we can think about Darfur, we can think about Rwanda. But it does sound like there's this very painful, again, reckoning, how could it possibly be the state that was created to keep us safe that could be the ones committing a genocide feels like the very thorny issue here? Yes, it's very thorny and very thorny. sensitive. And I really hope that we will not see an outcome where Gazans are removed. Palestinians are removed from Gaza. That that will not happen. And I hope that this peace plan means that they can

stay and that it can be rebuilt and that it can be governed by their own people. So you and I are talking in October 2025. We've just come out of the high holidays. every year around this time we go through this reflection and reckoning. If we're thinking about having this conversation a year from now, what are your hopes for what the situation will be this time next year? Well, the war will be over, please God. That could happen soon, I hope, that the living hostages are recovering with the love and support of their families and communities,

that Gaza is being rebuilt, victims are recovering, There are schools for children to go to hospitals and medical clinics for people who need medical attention and that there are also psychological counseling services available because this is a people who have been traumatized, who are traumatized. And I hope that this land is governed by Palestinians with the aid of other Arab countries, not Hamas, not a terrorist group that would do. what it did on October 7th, 2023. I hope we're on our way to two states. I don't know how quickly that happens. Could it happen in a year? Maybe. But I do hope that this utter catastrophe is in the rearview mirror and we are in a recovery period. We are able to repair. And you talked about the high holidays and one of the messages that came through to me when I was observing Yom Kippur was that we should want to make the world a better place. And the world right now feels like a

terrible place. And I think it can make us all feel powerless and I feel powerless. I hope that there's something I can do and I want everyone to think about this who's listening. What can you do to help repair? Is it sending money to Gaza? Is it sponsoring a family? Is it giving money to one of the amazing groups that brings Israelis and Palestinians together. I don't know. Is it talking to a friend? I hope that a year from now, more of us are speaking to each other, and the killing has stopped. Marcia, thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us today and for being so open and really creating a dialogue that I think we all need right now. I really appreciate it. Thank you so much for the very probing questions.

I appreciate it, too. That was Marshal Ederman, staff columnist at the Globe, and the author of the book, October 7th, searching for the humanitarian middle. That's it for today. I'm Michal Stein. The Decibel is hosted by Cheryl Sutherland. I produce the show, along with Madeline White and Ali Graham.

David Crosby edits the show, and he produced this episode. Adrian Chung is our senior producer and Angela Pachenza is our executive editor. Thank you for listening and we'll talk to you tomorrow.