Former colleagues, allies defend Jewish CBC journalist facing reprimand over video, comments about anti-Israel protest

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In Herland’s 52-second clip, he walks toward a small but vocal group of protesters outside the facility rented by The Song Shul synagogue. As he gets closer, a man’s voice is heard saying “Zionist alert” into a megaphone, prompting the journalist to pan his camera back to two individuals with a sign reading “Where’s your humanity?” The man shouts “Zionist alert” again before waving at the camera and flashing a peace sign.

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“You’re going to hell,” one protester yells repeatedly at Herland as he walks through their ranks, while another calls him a “baby killer” over the sound of blaring horns and chants of “Free Palestine.”

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“I’m a journalist. And I happen to be Jewish. On Yom Kippur I went to a synagogue service in Toronto and was met by protesters trying to taunt and intimidate me from entering the building,” he wrote in a thread on Monday.

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Herland, whose father was a Holocaust survivor from Romania, said he got an Austrian passport last year, “in case Canada becomes unsafe” for him as a Jew.

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“I fear that moment is approaching, here in Canada and elsewhere,” he wrote.

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“Jewish Canadians are living in a parallel world. Where police stand guard with guns outside synagogues. And Jewish schools, religious sites and businesses are targeted with bullets. And most Canadians have no awareness or understanding.”

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Asked about the reported punishment, a CBC spokesperson told National Post it doesn’t “comment on internal matters” for privacy reasons.

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“However, we are aware of reporting on this matter that contains errors and mischaracterizations,” they wrote without elaborating, citing “the privacy of the situation.”

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Former CBC investigative and political journalist Alison Crawford said she was “appalled at this ludicrous decision” and defended Herland, whom she counts as a friend.

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“He wasn’t working,” she wrote on X. “He posted a POV video experience entering the space his synagogue had rented for Yom Kippur.”

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Lawyer and former CBC political affairs reporter Jennifer Dundas replied to his thread: “I support Neil Herland, and condemn CBC News for taking him off the air.”

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Carole MacNeil, a former CBC journalist who left the broadcaster in 2021, said she was “confused about the treatment of Herland.”

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“Normally when a journalist witnesses a news story live they are encouraged to record it. If there was an issue with how Neil subsequently posted or framed the material, surely a simple, ‘Next time, run it past an editor,’ could suffice,” she wrote on X, noting that overcautiousness around the Israel-Palestine issue “has consequences.”

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“Too much CBC coverage of this extraordinarily important story has been light, or so carefully constructed that it ends up being neither particularly interesting nor enlightening. Or worse, distorts the actual story.”

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Herland himself has not publicly commented on the unfolding controversy, but did share a photo on X of two lit candles and a Kiddush cup used in Jewish ceremonies on Saturday, the Jewish sabbath.

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