Canadian journalist disciplined for filming protest outside Yom Kippur service

A longtime journalist for CBC News, Neil Herland, has been disciplined and removed from air after sharing footage of a pro-Palestine protest outside a Yom Kippur service in Toronto. The incident occurred on Monday, according to a report by The Toronto Sun.

The video clip, lasting 52 seconds, showed approximately a dozen protesters gathered outside a local venue where Mark Regev, a senior advisor to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from 2020 to 2021 and former Israeli ambassador to the UK, was scheduled to speak.

Herland, who has been a journalist with CBC since 1997, stated in social media posts that he was walking by the service when he encountered the protesters. He identified himself as Jewish and described the demonstrators as attempting to "taunt and intimidate" him as he approached the building.

The footage he shared depicted protesters holding Palestinian flags and chanting phrases like "Zionist Alert." In the video, a protester can be heard yelling "You're going to hell!" at Herland through a megaphone. Another individual held a sign with an image of Regev's face appearing to be splattered with blood.

Herland, in his posts, drew a parallel between the protest and his personal experiences, mentioning that his late father was a Holocaust survivor. He also expressed concerns about rising antisemitism, stating, "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."

Following Herland's post, which garnered millions of views, CBC reportedly pulled him off the air pending an internal investigation. A disciplinary hearing was held on Thursday. Chuck Thompson, a CBC spokesperson, declined to comment on specific internal matters, citing employee privacy rights, but acknowledged that some reporting on the situation contained "errors and mischaracterizations."

Aliza Spiro, a leader of the synagogue that organized the service, corroborated Herland's account, describing the situation as "incredibly frightening" and stating that many members were too scared to attend. She characterized Herland's video as an "accurate" documentation of the event and his tweets as "journalistically accurate" and a "public service."

This incident follows a recent controversy where CBC reportedly issued guidance to staff advising them to use "extreme caution" when referring to the September 11 attacks as terrorist attacks. The broadcaster later revised this guidance to clarify that direct attribution is not required for describing 9/11 as terrorism, stating the initial memo was published "without context or explanation."