Your Daily Spiel For July 17

A street sign pointing to the new U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem. (U.S. Embassy Jerusalem/CC BY 2.0)

A group of Americans visiting Israel on a Birthright trip left a tour of the City of David in Jerusalem to visit a Palestinian family that is facing eviction from their eastern Jerusalem home. “Birthright has refused to show us the truth about the occupation’s impact on Palestinians,” participant Hal Rose posted on Facebook.

The new U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem is going to cost nearly 100 times more than U.S. President Donald Trump estimated. Trump estimated the cost to be US$250,000, but it will actually cost US$21.2 million to design and build “compound security upgrades.”

In Sacha Baron Cohen’s new TV series Who is America?, which debuted on Sunday night, the British Jewish comedian disguises himself in order to prank the famous and not-so-famous. In the show, which Canadians can watch on Crave TV, Cohen uses the unconditional “pro-Israel” love of deeply conservative Americans to prank them.

With the help of funding from the federal government, the Montreal Holocaust Museum has launched a nationwide education campaign called Beyond the Walls of the Museum. The funding came in the form of a grant of more than $257,000 from the Department of Canadian Heritage.