BURST
Several friends and former colleagues of a Jewish CBC staffer reportedly facing “disciplinary action” after sharing a video on social media showing anti-Israel protesters outside a Yom Kippur event he was attending in Toronto last week are questioning and condemning the broadcaster’s decision.
“CBC’s own former Ombudsman said in a ruling a journalist’s lived experience can ‘rest comfortably within journalistic standards,” former CBC host Travis Dhanraj wrote on X .
“So explain this: Neil Herland attended a Yom Kippur service, he documented what he encountered. He talked about his lived experience. Now he’s under investigation, ripped off the air. The double standard is appalling.”
Herland, a veteran journalist and national newsreader, was “quietly pulled” from the airwaves after his video shot outside the Meridian Arts Centre at Yonge and Sheppard last Sunday evening piled up views on X , as reported by Toronto Sun’s Warren Kinsella .
Dhanraj, whose July 2025 departure sparked a controversy over allegations of perceived bias in news coverage, was referring to Kinsella’s reporting that a CBC Ombudsman decreed that a Muslim journalist didn’t break any rules when she put forth a personal opinion on the 2021 murder of a Muslim family in London, Ont.
Dhanraj added that “CBC has spent years plastering ‘diversity’ and ‘lived experience’ on billboards, in commercials and throughout its corporate messaging” and said it’s not a principle that can be simply turned off “when it becomes uncomfortable.”
Conservative MP Shuv Majumdar also highlighted the “lived experience” clearance
“That standard apparently does not extend to Jewish journalists,” he wrote on X.
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. 1/5 pic.twitter.com/2eH3MaC9QB
— Neil Herland (@NEWSneil) September 22, 2026
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.
“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.”
“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.
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.
“I fear that moment is approaching, here in Canada and elsewhere,” he wrote.
“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.”
Asked about the reported punishment, a CBC spokesperson told National Post it doesn’t “comment on internal matters” for privacy reasons.
“However, we are aware of reporting on this matter that contains errors and mischaracterizations,” they wrote without elaborating, citing “the privacy of the situation.”
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.
“He wasn’t working,” she wrote on X . “He posted a POV video experience entering the space his synagogue had rented for Yom Kippur.”
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.”
Carole MacNeil, a former CBC journalist who left the broadcaster in 2021, said she was “confused about the treatment of Herland.”
“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.”
“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.”
Toronto lawyer Kathryn Marshall, who’s representing Dhanraj in his human rights complaint against the public broadcaster , offered her services for free.
“If he needs a lawyer I will rep Pro Bono,” she wrote in resharing a tweet by University of Ottawa law professor Michael Geist.
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.
— Neil Herland (@NEWSneil) September 25, 2026
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