When Donald Trump first won the Republican nomination many Americans joked about moving to Canada if he became president.
And so the timing was uncanny when 10 days after the historic U.S. presidential election, the liberal-leaning UnOrthodox, the weekly American podcast held a live show at Beth Tzedec Congregation. Some 300 people, many of them millennials, attended.
Talk about the election was still fresh as was the kibbitzing about Canada as an optional refuge for Americans wanting to escape the Trump presidency.
UnOrthodox is an off-shoot of Tablet, an online Jewish magazine based in New York City. The podcast, which has been running for about a year, is on Slate magazine’s podcast network, Panoply, and can be downloaded from iTunes on Thursdays.
Editor-at-large Mark Oppenheimer hosts UnOrthodox, which also features Tablet deputy editor, Stephanie Butnick and senior writer, Liel Leibovitz. However, Leibovitz was unable to be in Toronto and so the show’s producer, Elissa Goldstein, did double duty by participating on the panel as well.
The playful riffing between Oppenheimer, Butnick and Goldstein touched on American politics, Jewish trivia and Canada – “Is it really true that Drake went to Jewish day school? … I love Toronto, does anybody have a spare room?”
The format reflects the panel’s tongue-in-cheek-humour and the show’s irreverence with such regular segments as guest interviews with “a Jew and a gentile of the week.”
For the Toronto podcast, Latvian-born filmmaker and award-winning author David Bezmozgis filled the Jew-of-the-week spot.
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Bezmozgis said in his present capacity as writer for the popular Canadian sci-fi TV show, Orphan Black, he’s earning 1,000 times the income he made from his literary pursuits.
The audience also learned that Bezmozgis, a father of three young girls, met his American-born wife in California in a serendipitous encounter on his birthday.
When asked how Canadians view Americans, Bezmozgis said, Canadians “envy and resent Americans at the same time.”
The gentile of the week was Julie Nesrallah, the opera singer and host of CBC Radio 2’s Tempo classical music program. For the past six years the mezzo-soprano has also produced and starred in the opera, Carmen.
Nesrallah said she’s obsessed with this opera, because she identifies with Carmen’s independent spirit.
She treated the audience to a performance of Habanera, arguably the opera’s most famous aria.
UnOrthodox also acknowledged the recent death of Canadian poet and song writer, Leonard Cohen.
The podcast concluded with Cantor Sidney Ezer leading the audience in a spirited rendition of Hallelujah, one of Cohen’s best known songs.
Afterwards, Oppenheimer, Butnick and Goldstein mingled with the audience over craft beer and gourmet popcorn.
Butnick, 29, told The CJN that UnOrthodox offers listeners a good dose of Jewish humour. “We don’t take ourselves too seriously. The vibe we have really works.”
She said the concept grew out of Tablet’s story meetings, which are so lively someone suggested they turn the banter into a weekly podcast.
“It’s a lot of fun to do” and it’s always edgy, she said, pointing out that it’s particularly animated with a live audience.
Allan Kanee, a regular listener who’s on Beth Tzedec’s adult education committee, invited the podcasters to Toronto. The timing so soon after the U.S. election was strictly coincidental, he said.
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Beth Tzedec’s senior rabbi, Baruch Frydman-Kohl, said he was thrilled to see a turnout of so many young adults.
One of them was high school English teacher, Leah Mauer, 29. An UnOrthodox fan for about a year, she said she was “really excited” when she heard the show was coming to Toronto. She also helped plan the evening.
The appeal of UnOrthodox is “its unique Jewish perspective on culture and contemporary Jewish life,” Mauer said. “It’s an opportunity to engage with Judaism. The hosts usually present both sides of the issues…A lot of my friends started listening and now they’re hooked too.
