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situation in Canada ? )
This report came from Jewish Tribal Review
what IS the National Post? Who controls it? And why would it have such a special interest in attacking a poor Jewish professor of philosophy? Anyone say "Jewish power?" The man who controls the National Post, Israel Asper, owns the media conglommerate CanWest Global. He seems like a caricature of a man who single-handedly wants to prove as fact the much disreputed Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the Russian-based "forgery" that claimed that Jews wanted to take over the world.
How so?
Israel Asper has been slowly gobbling up much of the Canadian print media (and other media). He caused enormous outrage in Canadian journalist circles in 2001. He was condemned everywhere for his censorial dictates to the editorial pages of all his newspapers, particularly regarding Israel.
Before we get to the evidence (citations below) about Asper, what is the world view of Mr. Asper? Asper still pays homage to a form of Zionism that has been called -- quite literally, even by fellow Jews -- fascistic. (Also, here's some more background to Mr. Asper and to profound Jewish influence in the CANADIAN mass media network, generally).
Now, the indicting evidence:
Canada: CanWest 'muzzles' staff. Corporate Censorship. CanWest-owned papers across Canada have pulled and censored not only any articles which criticise the corporation, but also those that simply fail to toe its line, the principal tenets of which are support for Israel and for the government of Prime Minister Jean Chrétien,
Index on Censorship, April 2002
"Canadian Journalists for Free Expression (CJFE) published a report on 15 April giving a balanced but firm view of the controversy surrounding allegations of corporate censorship in the CanWest Global media conglomerate. The report made it clear that 'freedom of expression includes the right of proprietors of news organisations to publish what they want in the media they own', but condemned CanWest for trying to 'muzzle its employees'. Since absorbing Hollinger, in the largest media take-over deal in Canadian history, the corporation, run by the Asper family, owns over 130 newspapers in Canada, including 14 major metropolitan dailies and a 50% stake in one of the country's largest national papers, the National Post. CanWest Global also has a television network in Canada and media interests in Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. CanWest-owned papers across Canada have pulled and censored not only any articles which criticise the corporation, but also those that simply fail to toe its line, the principal tenets of which are support for Israel and for the government of Prime Minister Jean Chrétien. CanWest's contempt for editorial independence was formally expressed in December 2001, when it introduced a policy of imposing three centrally-produced editorials a week on all its major publications, through its subsidiary, Southam newspapers ...In January, Halifax Daily News columnist Stephen Kimber resigned (after fifteen years on the paper) when his column criticising CanWest was spiked. Two colleagues followed suit after they were not permitted to report on the resignation. Bill Marsden, an investigative reporter for the Montreal Gazette, has been monitoring CanWest's interference and directives: 'They do not want to see any criticism of Israel. We do not run in our newspaper op-ed pieces that express criticism of Israel and what it is doing in the Middle East. We even had an incident where a fellow, a professor wrote an op-ed piece for us criticising the anti-terrorism law and elements of civil rights. Now that professor happens to be a Muslim and happens to have an Arab name. We got a call from headquarters demanding to know why we had printed this.' Various international Press organisation have condemned CanWest's behaviour. According to Robert Cribb, president of the Canadian Association of Journalists, there have been many other cases of journalists on CanWest papers getting into trouble. He warned though that the real worry is the self-censorship that ensues: 'It's not the four or five we've heard about, it's about the dozens of journalists who self-censor as a result of this very public policy.' The management of CanWest remained defiant. 'I can say to our critics and to the bleeding hearts of the journalist community that it's the end of the world as they know it, and I feel fine,' declared David Asper, publications committee chairman, gleefully misquoting the REM song. The CJFE report said that media companies should defend freedom of expression because they are among its chief beneficiaries, and urged CanWest to cancel all pending disciplinary action against its employees, and to invite those who have left their posts to return to them. It also called for an Independent government enquiry look into the potential impact on free expression of media ownership concentration." [The Canadian Journalists for Free Expression Report about Asper and CanWest is here.Canadian Media Giant Censures Editorials Deemed Critical of Israel,
Arizona Daily Star, December 29, 2001
"Canadian newspaper readers are being warned not to expect a balanced opinion from their dailies after executive orders from the country's largest media corporation were given to run a select number of national editorials and homogenize remaining editorials across the country so as not to, among other things, reflect negatively on Israel's occupation of Arab land. Recently, media giant CanWest Global Communications Corp., owned by Israel (Izzy) Asper and family, announced that beginning Dec. 12 one, but eventually three, editorials a week would be written at corporate headquarters in Winnipeg and imposed on 14 dailies, which include the Vancouver Sun and Province, the Calgary Herald and the Montreal Gazette. CanWest also owns 50 percent of the nationally distributed National Post, which will be subject to the new directives as well. Furthermore, in addition to the imposed editorials themselves, all locally produced editorial column pieces will be forced to conform to reflect the viewpoints of the CanWest Global corporation. CanWest last year became Canada's dominant newspaper chain when it purchased Southam News Inc. from Conrad Black's holding company, Hollinger Inc., for a reported $3.2 billion Can. ($2 billion) The deal transferred ownership of the 14 metropolitan dailies and 128 local newspapers across the country."Canadian Publisher Raises Hackles, Washington Post, January 27, 2002
"Late last year, columnist Stephen Kimber says, the editing of his writing became more and more inexplicable. It wasn't so much dropped commas or the introduction of errors. Sometimes he would open the newspaper, the Halifax Daily News, and find that his opinions had been removed. 'I put up with that for a while, then I began to censor myself,' said Kimber. 'I would remember, 'No, I'm not supposed to write about that.' Kimber had been writing his column without such concerns for 15 years. But things changed, he said, after CanWest Global Communications took over his newspaper and 135 others last summer. In December, the company announced that all 14 of its big-city newspapers would run the same national editorial each week, issued from headquarters in Winnipeg, and sometimes written at CanWest papers around the country. Any unsigned editorials written locally at the 14 papers, the company said, should not contradict the national editorials, which covered such subjects as military spending, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and property rights. The decision provoked immediate complaints from journalists across Canada, who say its effect goes far beyond the editorials, imposing control on columnists and reporters as well. In the United States, the National Conference of Editorial Writers, whose members include Canadians, joined in, saying the decision was 'likely to backfire with readers who are accustomed to editorials on national and international subjects that take account of the diversity of views in their communities.' Many journalists say the company is breaking age-old traditions that keep reporters and columnists independent of the publications' owners. CanWest and its owners, the [Jewish] Asper family, deny that the policy restricts freedom of expression in this way. All they are doing, they say, is exercising the legitimate prerogative of owners to influence a limited part of their publications, the editorials ... CanWest controls a major newspaper in every major city outside of Toronto."[Montreal] Gazette Reporters Protest National Editorials,
Straight Goods, December 14, 2001
"For two days last week, many reporters at The Gazette in Montreal removed their names from the articles they wrote. It was a protest against the decision by Southam News to force all of its 12 major metropolitan newspapers to run 'national editorials' written at the Winnipeg corporate headquarters of parent company CanWest Global Communications Corp. The first was published last week. Another is to run next Thursday. Credibility is the most precious asset a newspaper possesses. When the power of the press is abused, that credibility dies. We believe this is an attempt to centralize opinion to serve the corporate interests of CanWest. Far from offering additional content to Canadians, this will practically vacate the power of the editorial boards of Southam newspapers and thereby reduce the diversity of opinions and the breadth of debate that to date has been offered readers across Canada. CanWest's intention is initially to publish one national editorial a week in all major Southam newspapers. This will eventually become three a week. More important, each editorial will set the policy for that topic in such a way as to constrain the editorial boards of each newspaper to follow this policy. Essentially, CanWest will be imposing editorial policy on its papers on all issues of national significance. Without question, this decision will undermine the independence and diversity of each newspaper's editorial board and thereby give Canadians a greatly reduced variety of opinion, debate and editorial discussion. Editorial boards at each newspaper exist to debate public policy issues, reach a consensus and then present the reasoning to the public. They are designed to be largely free of corporate interests. This crucial process of journalistic debate is undermined by editorials dictated by corporate headquarters. We believe this centralizing process will weaken the credibility of every Southam paper. Last week's first editorial, for example, calls on the federal government to reduce and eventually to abolish capital-gains taxes for private foundations. Who would blame a reader for thinking the editorial simply serves the interests of the foundation run by the Asper family, owners of CanWest and Southam?"The CanWorld Chill: 'We Do Not Run in Our Newspaper Op Ed Pieces that Expression Criticism of Israel,' Electronic Intifada, December 11, 2001
"The 7 December 2001 broadcast of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's As It Happens [online link included] uncovered a disturbing example of corporate and political interference in freedom of the press. The program reported on a new editorial policy directive from CanWest Global, a leading Canadian media conglomerate, that impairs readers' ability to make up their own minds about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, among other issues. As It Happens reported that over two dozen journalists at the Montreal Gazette have pulled their bylines to protest a new policy imposed by the newspaper's owners, Southam Newspapers Inc, which is owned by CanWest Global. The new policy requires the company's main local newspapers to run editorials written at headquarters in Winnipeg by Southam Editor-in-Chief Murdoch Davis. Bill Marsden, an investigative reporter at the Montreal Gazette, noted that up to 156 times a year -- about three times a week -- the editorial would be imposed and that the remainder of locally-written editorials would be required to reflect the viewpoints and stances taken by the paper's corporate headquarters ... ...[O]n July 31, CanWest announced its acquisition of all of the major Canadian newspaper and Internet assets of Hollinger Inc., including the metropolitan daily newspapers in nearly every large city across Canada and a 50% partnership interest in the National Post." [The owner of CanWest Global, which owns a huge percentage of Canadian newspapers, and the second largest Canadian TV network (as well as some media venues in Ireland, New Zealand, and other countries), is avid Zionist Israel Asper].Robert Fisk: Journalists are under fire for telling the truth,
by Robert Fisk, The Independent (UK), December18, 2002
"Let us forget, for a moment, that Fox News's Jerusalem bureau chief is Uri Dan, a friend of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and the author of the preface of the new edition of Sharon's autobiography, which includes a revolting account of the Sabra and Chatila massacre of 1,700 Palestinian civilians and Sharon's innocence in this slaughter. Then Ted Koppel [also Jewish], one of America's leading news anchormen, announced that it may be a journalist's duty not to reveal events until the military want them revealed in a new war against Iraq. Can we go any further in journalistic cowardice? Oh yes, we can. ABC television announced, a little while ago, that it knew all about the killing of four al-Qa'ida members by an unmanned 'Predator' plane in Yemen but delayed broadcasting the news for four days 'at the request of the Pentagon.' So now at least we know for whom ABC works ... In Canada, the situation is even worse. Canwest, owned by Israel Asper, owns over 130 newspapers in Canada, including 14 city dailies and one of the country's largest papers, the National Post. His 'journalists' have attacked colleagues who have deviated from Mr Asper's pro-Israel editorials. As Index on Censorship reported, Bill Marsden, an investigative reporter for the Montreal Gazette has been monitoring Canwest's interference with its own papers. 'They do not want any criticism of Israel,' he wrote. 'We do not run in our newspaper op-ed pieces that express criticism of Israel and what it is doing in the Middle East...' But now, 'Izzy' Asper has written a gutless and repulsive editorial in the Post in which he attacks his own journalists, falsely accusing reporters of "lazy, sloppy or stupid" journalism and being 'biased or anti-Semitic'. These vile slanders are familiar to any reporter trying to do his work on the ground in the Middle East. They are made even more revolting by inaccuracies. Mr Asper, for example, claims that my colleague Phil Reeves compared the Israeli killings in Jenin earlier this year – which included a goodly few war crimes (the crushing to death of a man in a wheelchair, for example) – to the 'killing fields of Pol Pot'. Now Mr Reeves has never mentioned Pol Pot. But Mr Asper wrongly claims that he did. It gets worse. Mr Asper, whose 'lazy, sloppy or stupid' allegations against journalists in reality apply to himself, states – in the address to an Israel Bonds Gala Dinner in Montreal, which formed the basis of his preposterous article – that "in 1917, Britain and the League of Nations declared, with world approval, that a Jewish state would be established in Palestine". Now hold on a moment. The Balfour Declaration of 1917 did not say that a Jewish state would be established ... At no point, of course, does Mr Asper tell us about Israeli occupation or the building of Jewish settlements, for Jews and Jews only, upon Arab land. He talks about 'alleged Palestinian refugees' – about as wrongheaded a remark as you can get – and then claims that the corrupt and foolish Yasser Arafat is 'one of the world's cruel and most vicious terrorists for the past 30 years'. He concluded his speech to Israel's supporters in Montreal with the dangerous request that 'you, the public, must take action against the media wrongdoers'. Wrongdoers? Is this far from President Bush's 'evildoers'? What in the hell is going on here? I will tell you. Journalists are being attacked for telling the truth, for trying to tell it how it is. American journalists especially. I urge them to read a remarkable new book published by the New York University Press and edited by John Collins and Ross Glover. It's called Collateral Language and is, in its own words, intended to expose "the tyranny of political rhetoric."Rumours of war Conflict in the Middle East has come to Canada, with Izzy Asper's National Post criticizing the CBC's coverage of the battle between Israelis and Palestinians,
Ottawa Sun, January 12, 2003
"The relentless Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a deep quagmire, and Canadians fear it. A recent polling of readers by the Globe and Mail [in Toronto] named Israel, not Iraq or North Korea, the world's most dangerous hot spot by a goodly margin. Such an apprehension helps explain the federal government's reluctance to discuss it, much less deal with it: Why jump into bottomless antagonism? But the Liberal government, and the other political parties, may be dragged into it if the Asper media empire has its way. In a recent, frank epistle in his National Post, Canwest Global chairman Israel Asper wrote of his love for his namesake. To him, Israel is a moral beacon to the world. So it is not surprising that since he took control of the Post from Conrad Black the paper has taken an ever-tougher line against Israel's enemies and, accordingly, the CBC [Canadian Broadcasting Company] has become one of them. The Post now regularly harries the CBC for its 'biased' Middle East reporting. Leading the charge is Norman Spector, a former chief of staff to Brian Mulroney who was rewarded for this service with Canada's ambassadorship to Israel. Spector's attachment to the Jewish state seems every bit as strong as his employer's, and if his columns are a guide, the Asper campaign against the corporation will continue to escalate. Last Wednesday Spector implied the CBC coverage fuelled anti-Semitism of the sort voiced by David Ahenakew, the former First Nations chief. Asper, Spector, and the Post accuse the CBC of mollycoddling terrorists by refusing to use that word to describe the organizations which back attacks on Israelis ... Asper has previously called for the Chretien government to rein in the CBC, arguing the PM himself was being treated unfairly by the Mother Corp. The Post has just been in front of a successful campaign to have the government ban Hezbollah, the Lebanon-based radical party that sponsors attacks on Israel. If the CBC does not back down, can a demand for Ottawa to make it do so be far behind? ... While Asper is a lifelong Liberal, his agitating on this issue is far from welcome. Hezbollah had few friends here, yet the government was reluctant to act. Why? Because it feared the issue might generate a national concern over the rights and wrongs of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, with who knows what consequences for our vaunted multicultural diversity. Support for Israel in Canada seems to have been slipping in the last few years as its military might, including nukes, and televised images from the intifada -- slingshots vs. tanks -- have undermined the notion Israel is simply a noble little nation surrounded by relentless, powerful enemies. Those who accuse the CBC are further undermined by their very staunch support for the Bush administration's plans to topple Saddam Hussein -- which Canadians seem to favour less and less. And it seems to me the notion that Canada must support Israel because it is the front lines of the global war on terror is being more and more rejected in Canada as simplistic, and bullying. Finally, and vitally, the CBC, unlike Hezbollah, has many friends. The anger voiced and pressed by Asper and Spector is no sham. For them the issue truly is black and white. In taking on the CBC and insisting theirs is the only legitimate interpretation in line with history and democratic values, they seem to be overreaching. And it may rebound on them and on Israel."Canadian Media Giants Announce Landmark Convergence Deal,
Canada Newswire, July 2000
"[Israel Asper's] CanWest Global Communications Corp. today announced the largest transaction in the history of the Canadian media industry. CanWest, owners of Canada's most popular national television network, Global Television, has agreed to acquire 100% of the principal metropolitan operations of the successful Hollinger newspaper chain in Canada, together with all of its Canadian Internet properties, its magazine group, most of the community publishing operations and a 50% interest in the National Post. The merged company will have complete and unparalleled national and local coverage in both electronic and print media, plus the canada.com network, a leading group of national and local Internet sites ... With the addition of the Hollinger properties and the 50% stake in the National Post, CanWest will become Canada's most comprehensive multiple platform media company, with a strong national and local profile in news, publishing, conventional and specialty television and the Internet, as well as in the production and international distribution of television entertainment programming and feature films. - CanWest will have the largest electronic and print information and news gathering capacity in Canada, with more journalists, editors and news gathering personnel than any other media operation in the country."Dateline Winnipeg, Economist, March 15, 2002
"[Izzy Asper is] Canada's most powerful media mogul ... Mr Asper controls the country's most profitable television network and a chain of more than 100 newspapers across the country, which he bought 18 months ago from Conrad Black. But he has resisted moving the headquarters of his company, CanWest Global Communications, to Toronto, Canada's media capital. The company remains in Winnipeg, 2,100km (1,300 miles) to the west. As a result, Mr Asper has brought jobs to the city, as well as being a generous donor to local causes. But there is a more controversial aspect to Mr Asper's devotion to making Winnipeg great again. All of his family's papers, from British Columbia to Newfoundland, are now obliged to print company editorials, on national and international issues, written in Winnipeg. No subsequent deviation from the line they set is allowed in the local papers, which include the market leaders in most of Canada's big cities. This has provoked howls of protest, and not just because the papers concerned were used to substantial editorial independence before the Aspers took control. Canada is a country of several distinct regions. But ownership of its media is now highly concentrated. And nobody has as much control over what Canadians read and watch as the Aspers. Mr Asper has strong opinions. He is a former leader of the Liberal Party in Manitoba, and a friend both of Jean Chrétien, Canada's prime minister, and of Israel. Journalists fear that there is now no room for dissenting views: one columnist has been fired, another suspended and several stories killed because they expressed points of view the Aspers disagreed with."
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Is Asper alone is in his grab for power? More about the increasing Jewish dominance of the mass media: here (online citations list) and here (WHEN VICTIMS RULE chapter about Jewish prominence in the mass media.)
We, at the Jewish Tribal Review, are ethical. Israel Asper, the National Post, and the web of Judeocentric intrigue that leads us all to world war, is NOT. We invite any reader to investigate our web site's evidence against the claims of any Judeocentric propaganda organ.
For Mr. Neumann's part, the eminent teacher and philosophy professor is falling deeper and deeper into quicksand, learning something even a grade-school kid knows: one lie leads to another in order to cover up the earlier ones. In his desperate defense, Neumann now calls this web site both "ingenius" and "insidious." (He also, in a panic, alludes to it as being "racist." Anyone is free to inspect this website. The only thing having to do with "racism" at the Jewish Tribal Review is the scholarly examination of JEWISH racism). It would be in everyone's best interests (including the Palestinian's) if he stopped his squirming dissimulation before the Jewish Tribunal and just named what's REALLY insidious: the "Jewish Power" circle (from Asper to the Canadian Jewish Congress) that seeks to destroy him -- in the name of racist Israel -- as a Jewish blasphemer.
A fable for our times? Organized Jewry even eats its own to protect its veiled supremacy, racism, and ethnocentrism.
From: WHEN VICTIMS RULE. A CRITIQUE OF JEWISH PRE-EMINENCE IN AMERICA (mass media chapter)
What about the mass media situation in Canada (aside from the already mentioned Hollinger dynasty)? "Jews," notes Morton Weinfeld, "have been statistically over represented in both the financial and the creative aspects of the entertainment business. It is a short step from that observation to the vicious canard that the Jews, in some collective, conspiratorial sense, control Hollywood. One could also possibly construct a similar argument for the Canadian scene. People such as Izzy Asper, Garth Drabinsky, Harold Greenberg, Robert Lantos, Ed Mirvish, and Moses Znaimer are just a few of the Canadian Jews who have played innovative roles in the popular entertainment industry in Canada." [WEINFELD, p. 10]
In that country, Israel "Izzy" Asper controls CanWest Global. He is the chief officer of the company that by the mid-1990s was "already the largest private sector television broadcaster in the country." [CHISHOLM, p. 36] CanWest is also the country's "most profitable broadcaster" and has media outlets in every Canadian major markets except Montreal and Alberta. [TELEVISION BUS. INT'L] Asper also controls TV 3 in New Zealand (68% of its stock) and founded TV 4, as well as FM radio network MORE, in the same country. In Australia, CanWest has a 76% stake in Network Ten, the second-most profitable TV station in that country. In Ireland, Asper is the largest investor in TV3, and his firms also have a financial stake in Ulster TV. [SCOTLAND, Business, p. 4]
A TV colleague calls Asper "the most aggressive businessman I know. The guy is a Machiavellian genius." [CHISHOLM, p. 36] MacLean's notes that:
"Asper's lock on [CanWorld's] multiple voting shares -- he holds all 26 million -- has also made him one of the country's richest corporate players.... By the time he is through, he wants to carve a global broadcasting force. He does not say that he will build a dynasty, but his three offspring [including Leonard, CanWorld's vice president for corporate development; David, the vice president for programming; and Gail, another executive] have taken on key corporate roles, and they will accede to ownership, so there is that too." [WELLS, p. 40]
Asper blatantly uses his ownership powers to melodramatically propagandize on behalf of the state of Israel, as he did in the National Post (a newspaper he controls) in 2001:
"Israel, after 53 years of statehood, remains the only isolated island of democracy, human rights and rule of law -- a lonely outpost of Western civilization and its values in a sea of terrorism, corruption, dictatorship and human enslavement.
Countries like Canada should therefore be in the vanguard of its support, for mutual economic, military and ethical reasons ... It is therefore a dismaying sight for knowledgeable Canadians to watch our Foreign Affairs minister, John Manley, either a prisoner of naievete, or political opportunism, embracing this war criminal, [Yassar] Arafat, on Mr. Manley's recent visit to the Middle East." [ASPER, I. H., 6-19-01] [See chapter on Israel for the details of Israel's "democracy."]
Other important Jewish executives at CanWorld have recently included president Steve Gross, and David Mintz, the head of programming.
Also in Canada, the wealthy Greenberg family began moving into the mass media in the 1990s, controlling Astral, Canada's largest pay-per-view and specialty TV company. The chairman of Astral, Andre Bureau, is also the former chairman of the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission. Astral Home Entertainment is the largest wholesaler of video cassettes in Canada. Harold Greenberg's original co-partners in his ventures were Phyllis Switzer, Ed Cowan, and Jerry Grafstein. Barbara Frum host Canada's prominent TV news program, The Journal.
In Montreal, another Jewish mogul, Moses Znaimer, is president and executive producer of CITY-TV, Much Music, Musique Plus, and the Bravo Network. His sister, Libby, is CITY-TV's news program money specialist. [HUSTAK, GAZETTE, p. C7] Much Music's (an MTV clone) video host is also Jewish -- Erica Ehm. Znaimer started out in the media business by putting soft pornography on public TV -- fellow Jewish media mogul Robert Lantos sold him the rights to some films from the New York Erotic Film Festival early in both their careers, "start[ing] Robert Lantos in business.'" [ZNAIMER, 9-21-98] A London newspaper headlined Znaimer as "the King of Me-TV, Znaimer's Influence on Canadian Culture -- and on Television Worldwide -- Is Difficult to Overstate ... Znaimer Has Shaped An Entire Generation's Self-Perception." [FRASER, p. F3] Toronto Life described him as "shirt-buttoned to the collar [with] large, tinted glasses that evoked a 1970s porn-magnate." [FRASER, M.]
In 1998 a Canadian magazine called Robert Lantos, head of Alliance Communications, and later Serendipity Point Films, "one of the original architects of what we have now [in the Canadian mass media]." [GROSS, P., 9-21-98] The Toronto Star noted Lantos and Garth Drabinsky (eventually caught in a financing scandal) as "Canadian's two most emblematic, brash, creative and -- according to some -- egocentric entertainment figures." [ADILMAN, 8-29-98, p. M4] Drabinsky founded (with Myron Gottleib) Livent, America's largest theatre production company, and Cineplex Odeon, by the 1980s one of North America's largest movie theatre chains. Until recent scandals, Livent owned the $43 million Ford Center for the Performing Arts in New York City, the Pantages Theatre in Chicago, and the Center for Performing Arts in Chicago, among other holdings.
In his autobiography, Drabinsky notes the influence upon him of Canadian Jewish mogul Nat Taylor:
"He was big, the biggest, a legend in the movie business in Canada, the nearest thing Canada had to a Hollywood mogul. He had been an exhibitor, a distributor, a producer, and a TV-station shareholder. He was partners with Famous Players, the dominant exhibition chain in Canada. He owned the coutnry's largest movie-production studio, Toronto International Studios, in Kleinberg, Ontario. He was the man who opened the first Canadian movie-house for foreign and art films. He was the guy who came
up with the idea of multiple theatres." [DRABINSKY, G., 1995, p. 56]Taylor also owned the influential trade journal, Canadian Film Digest, and hired Drabinsky -- in his early years -- to edit it. [DRABINSKY, G., 1995, p. 58]
Another noteworthy Jewish cinema/theatre mogul in the early years was Nathan Nathanson who "built the Panteges [theatre] in 1920 ... Even more significantly, Nathanson started not only the Famous Players theatre circuit in Canada but also Canadian Odeon ... He was single-handedly responsible for the two chains that formed the duopoly that dominated Canadian exhbition for so long." [DRABINSKY, G. 1995, p. 64] Then there is Allen Karp, "chairman and chief executive of the Toronto-based Cineplex Odeon Corporation, Canada's largest film exhibitor." [KIRSHNER, S., 1-7-99]
Also in Canada, Jewish mogul Paul Godfrey is the 1990s chairman of the Toronto Sun Publishing Company/ Sun Media Group and was the 1998 winner of the B'nai B'rith Award of Merit. Five families own TorStar, the parent company of the Toronto Star, the largest newspaper in Canada. One of the familiess is Jewish : the Thalls. "Their original name was Rosenthal. [Burnett] Thall says he lopped off the first two syllables to overcome the anti-Semitism of 1940s Toronto and improve his job prospects." [REGULY, E., 10-26-01] In 1992, a baptized Jew, Peter Herrnsdorf, became the CEO and chairman of TV Ontario, replacing Bernard Ostry. (For a decade Herrnsdorf had been the publisher of Toronto Life magazine. "Among those who championed Herrnsdorf's installation at TVO," notes Toronto Life, "was Howard Bernstein, a senior producer who had worked for Herrnsdorf at CBC," where Herrnsdorf had also been an executive). [CANADIAN BUSINESS AND CURRENT AFFAIRS, JULY 1996, p. 56-6; DINOFF, D., 7-26-99, p. 4]Yet another Jewish media head, Jacques Bensimon, member of the "self-help Sephardic Network," stepped down in 2000 as the Managing Director of TFO, the French language division of TV Ontario. "He is widely considered," notes the Canadian Jewish News, "to be the father of TFO ... By Bensimon's estimation, his Jewish sensibility helped enormously, sensitizing him to the perspectives and needs of his French minority audience." Bensimon left TFO to become an executive at the Banff Television Festival. Bensimon had earlier served as a director at the Film Board of Canada. [KIRSCHNER, S., 7-13-2000]
Sandra Kolber, also Jewish, became a member of the board of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) in 1991. [SINGER/SELDIN, 1992, p. 34] The very powerful president and CEO of CBC at the turn of the millennium is Richard Rabinovitch. (He "spent more than a decade as chief operating officer of Claridge Inc., [Jewish alcohol and media mogul] Charles Bronfman's private holding company in Montreal, and was chairman of the executive committee of the Canadian Jewish Congress's Quebec region). [GORDON, S., 11-30-01]
Also in Canada, Garry Schwartz heads Phoenix Pictures and Phyllis Yaffe is the president and CEO of Showcase Television. Both, too, are Jewish. (The chairman of the Canadian Television Fund, a private/public partnership that helped fund 330 TV programs and 17 feature films in 1997-98 alone is Richard Stursberg and Tim Kotchoff was sequentially vice-president of news programming for both CBC and CTV television networks. Are these two men Jewish as well?) At the lower media tiers, a panel discussion at a Canadian Jewish Congress luncheon in 1999 included CBC TV "senior reporter" Joe Schlesinger, "broadcaster" Evan Solomon, "editorial writer for the National Post" Ezra Levant, and "associate editor of Now magazine" Susan Cole. [ROSE, B., 12-9-99, p. 3, 5] Himie Koshevoy died in 2000. He had been the "managing editor of the Vancouver Sun and subsequently the Toronto Star." [KIRSCHNER, S., 9-14-2000, p. 11]
"Humble Howard" Glassman is a prominent radio show radio host in Toronto, as is Marsha Lederman. As one Jewish ethnic paper noted about the usual Jewish subtext in their commentaries:
"Glassman has been under fire from Christian groups for a few years now, culminating in last month's 26-page complaint to the Canadian Radio-Television and and Telecommunications Commission by the Catholic Civil Rights League and the Canadian Family Action Coalition. (They sent copies to the B'nai B'rith and the Toronto Police Hate Crimes Squad). Particularly at issue was a series of bits done by Glassman and sidekick Fred Patterson regarding Jesus (including the song 'Jesus Was a Fetus') and Easter (a giveaway of chocolate Jesus candles, promising to mail their producer to a cross and holding a
Jesus-lookalike contest ... While [Lederman] has sufficient respect for her background to not try to subvert Judaism, she is constantly at odds with how much her perspective is shaped by religion. She's been accused of being anti-Catholic after addressing issues, which she finds odd, since she currently cohabitates with a Catholic." [WEISBLOT, M., 9-2001]In 1997, the Alberta Report reported about those who oversee moral issues for the Canadian television audience (the article was subtitled "Naked Lesbian Kissing Is Deemed Acceptable for Suppertime TV"):
"A recent decision by the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council suggests that if Ellen [the American lesbian-oriented TV series] were produced here, the only controversy would be whether she would be shown naked in bed with her lesbian lover ... Nudity is not yet common on Canadian sitcoms, but the diaphanously-clad
models featured on such haute couture 'news' programs as CBC Newsworld's Fashion File and the syndicated Fashion Television often resemble Salome stripped to her last veil ... Two weeks ago the industry-funded CBSC (which haearlier dismissed two previous claims against Fashion Television) dismissed this
complaint as well. The CBSC cited a response from series producer CITY-TV --owned by [Jewish mogul] Moses Znaimer, who also co-owns Alberta's ACCESS-TV --'We do not equate nudity with pornography. Fashion and photography to our mind are art' ... The unnamed complainant had argued in a January 1995 letter, 'These areprime time family viewing hours and it is highly inappropriate for such sexually explicit material to be shown on television.' Ron Cohen, CBSC national chairman, rejects this argument as irrelevant, contending that the specialized nature of the program appeals to adults only ... Jay Levine, Fashion Television's producer, adds that nudity is to
be expected from a show covering an industry where 'being sexy is to be provocative.' He adds, 'We're doing something that obviously a lot of people don't have a problem with ... a few years ago it would have been inconceivable that producer-writer Ken Finkleman could utter 'the f-word' on his hit CBC sitcom The Newsroom.'" [SILLARS, L., 4-28-97]