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Podcast: North Star with Ellin Bessner
Episode: Canada’s new antisemitism envoy Deborah Lyons urges tripling office staff to handle ‘moment of crisis’
Description: On Oct. 16, 2023, Deborah Lyons was officially named Canada’s new special envoy on Holocaust remembrance and combating antisemitism. She takes over from the inaugural envoy, Irwin Cotler, at a time when Jews in Canada are facing frightening waves of antisemitism on the streets of this country, stemming from Hamas’s attack on Israel on Oct. 7 and the subsequent war.
Lyons, 73, is not Jewish herself but has deep ties to Israel, and to the Canadian Jewish community, having served as Canada’s ambassador to Israel from 2016–2020.
She calls what is happening in this country “a moment of crisis” that calls for numerous...