There is a line a responsible newspaper should never cross casually: the line between condemning a political opponent and portraying that opponent as a threat who must be dealt with. The National Post crossed that line in Yoni Goldstein’s column, “Jewish law tells us how to deal with Avi Lewis.” The problem is not that Goldstein criticizes Lewis. Political leaders are supposed to be criticized, and Lewis, like every other public figure, is subject to scrutiny over his political positions and statements. The problem is the framework Goldstein chose to use.
Goldstein places a living Canadian political figure inside Jewish legal concepts including moser and rodef. In traditional Jewish law, a rodef is a person who is actively pursuing another person with the intention of killing or causing potentially grave harm. The legal concept known as din rodef (“the law of the pursuer”) concerns the obligation of every community member to intervene to stop an immediate and serious threat.
Opinion pages are not exempt from editorial responsibility. In fact, the more incendiary an argument is, the greater the obligation of editors to consider the historical meaning and foreseeable consequences of the language they publish.
He describes Lewis as a “clear and present danger to the Jewish community” and then discusses the traditional response to people whom he says pose such a danger. That is not ordinary political criticism. Whatever Goldstein’s intentions, the National Post should have understood that such language carries implications far beyond an ordinary disagreement over political policy.
The newspaper may insist that the column was not a call for violence. But that is an exceedingly low standard for a mainstream national daily newspaper. Responsible journalism requires more than asking whether an author explicitly instructed someone to harm another person. It requires asking what the language communicates, what historical associations it carries, and what foreseeable meaning readers may take from it. A newspaper exercising editorial judgment should understand that rhetoric can have consequences even when it stops short of an explicit instruction to commit violence.
The history of rodef makes that responsibility particularly important. Before Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated in 1995, some religious extremists and activists characterized him as a rodef and moser because of his pursuit of the Oslo peace process. Yigal Amir, the Jewish extremist who murdered Rabin, subsequently invoked din rodef in attempting to justify the assassination. The National Post’s decision to publish the same terminology against Avi Lewis is very troubling.
Goldstein’s column begins with the biblical story of Korach, whose rebellion against Moses ends in catastrophic divine punishment, and then moves to the proposition that Jewish law requires action when a Jew threatens the community. Avi Lewis is held up as the rebel and subsequently placed into that discussion and described as a “clear and present danger to the Jewish community.” The rhetorical progression matters. This is not simply an article arguing that Avi Lewis is wrong about Israel or Zionism. It is an article that tells readers that Jewish law provides guidance for dealing with someone portrayed as a danger to the Jewish community. That is an extraordinary thing to publish about a Canadian political leader.
Lewis is himself Jewish and has publicly described himself as an anti-Zionist Jew. His political views are controversial for some, including some national Jewish organizations in Canada. The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs has sharply criticized his characterization of Zionism, while Independent Jewish Voices Canada has defended the legitimacy of anti-Zionist Jewish voices. That disagreement is precisely what democratic debate is supposed to accommodate. Jewish Canadians, like everyone else, are entitled to disagree about Israel, Zionism, Palestinian rights, and the meaning of antisemitism without having their political disagreements transformed into questions of religious legitimacy or communal danger.
Imagine, for example, if a newspaper had published an article invoking Sharia law to explain how to “deal with” Pierre Poilievre because of his political views.
That is where editorial judgment matters, particularly when the target is the leader of a political party In Canada.
The National Post is not merely the host of this argument. It chose to publish it , chose the headline, and chose to give the column the credibility and reach of an established Canadian newspaper. Opinion pages are not exempt from editorial responsibility. In fact, the more incendiary an argument is, the greater the obligation of editors to consider the historical meaning and foreseeable consequences of the language they publish. The distinction between news and opinion does not relieve a newspaper of responsibility for the material it deliberately puts before its readers.
Canadians would reasonably ask why a major newspaper was placing a political leader inside a religious framework for dealing with perceived threats.
Imagine, for example, if a newspaper had published an article invoking Sharia law to explain how to “deal with” Pierre Poilievre because of his political views. The question would not simply be whether the author had explicitly advocated violence. Canadians would reasonably ask why a major newspaper was placing a political leader inside a religious framework for dealing with perceived threats. The same standard should apply here. The principle should not change depending on which political figure is being targeted or which religious tradition is being invoked.
This is not about protecting Avi Lewis from criticism. He is a public political figure and should be held accountable for his statements and positions. It is about protecting the boundary between political disagreement and the demonization of political opponents. That boundary matters enormously in a democracy, and it matters even more when the rhetoric draws upon religious concepts with a documented history of being invoked in connection with political violence.
Then there is the question of public money.
The National Post is owned by Postmedia Network Inc., Canada’s largest media company. Postmedia is majority-owned (66 per cent) by an American hedge fund firm, Chatham Asset Management, owned by Republican megadonor Anthony Melchiorre.
Postmedia owns and operates more than 130 print and digital news titles across Canada. It received a total of $1,112,599 from the Canada Periodical Fund according to the Government of Canada’s public accounts for the 2024–2025 fiscal period (see page 32). In 2025, Postmedia received more than $900,000 in funding through the ministry of Canadian Heritage and the Canada Periodical Fund. These are public funds, and their existence makes questions about editorial standards and accountability a legitimate matter of public interest.
Public funding does not give the government a licence to dictate what a newspaper publishes. But public support does give Canadians a legitimate reason to ask whether an institution receiving that support is exercising responsible editorial judgment.
Canadians are entitled to scrutinize the standards of media organizations that benefit from public programs, particularly when those organizations publish rhetoric involving a living political figure and religious concepts carrying a painful historical association with political violence. The National Post can publish criticism of Avi Lewis. And it has. It has every right to challenge his views on Israel, Zionism, and Gaza. But there is a profound difference between saying a politician is wrong and placing that politician inside a religious framework for dealing with people portrayed as threats to the community.
A newspaper does not escape responsibility simply by putting “opinion” at the top of the page. Words matter, historical memory matters, and context matters. When a major Canadian newspaper invokes religious law while portraying a living political figure as a danger to a community and one that needs to be “dealt with,” editorial judgment matters most of all.
Avi Lewis is not the threat that needs to be “dealt with,” Postmedia is.
Samira Mohyeddin is a Toronto-based journalist and founder of On The Line Media.
