Meet the Canadian entrepreneur putting Jewish athletes on matzah boxes
February 13, 2026
Originally Published for The Canadian Jewish News HERE
In 2024, the image of Jake Retzlaff—the only Jewish quarterback ever to play for Brigham Young University’s football team—adorned special editions of Manischewitz matzah boxes. That brand deal, to showcase a promising Jewish pro-football prospect, was the inspiration for a company co-founded by former Montrealer Jeremy Moses.
His sports-marketing company is called Tribe NIL. (NIL stands for Name, Image and Likeness, a new monetization route for college athletes to make money off their work.) The company aims to boost the careers of hundreds of talented Jewish college athletes, including more than a half-dozen Canadians playing for U.S. college football, baseball, hockey, basketball and swim teams, among others.
Moses was raised in Montreal. He’s the middle son of retired Montreal Rabbi Lionel Moses and Yiddish scholar and editor Joyce Rappaport. His brother, Zev Moses, is the founder and executive director of the Museum of Jewish Montreal.
Jeremy Moses moved to Brooklyn where he’s worked in the sports and entertainment field. He and business partner, the comedian Eitan Levine, founded Tribe NIL last spring. This year, they’re doubling down on the Manischewitz campaign, looking for one male and one female Jewish athlete to reward with $10,000 in prize money each, a “L’Cheisman Trophy” and international fame as this year’s faces of Manischewitz matzah.
On today’s episode of The CJN’s flagship podcast North Star, Jeremy Moses joins host Ellin Bessner to share more about his campaign—plus they get into the myriad Jewish sporting news of the week, including Jewish Olympians and Robert Kraft’s controversial Super Bowl antisemitism ad.
Transcript
Eitan Levine
I don’t know if there’s anything cooler if you’re a Jewish athlete than getting on a Manischewitz box. This is the final four in the men’s division. From Stanford University, from the basketball team, Benny Gealer, everyone. Shout out Mazel tov. Shkoyach! Minyan.
Ellin Bessner
That’s some of the hoopla announcing Manischewitz’s new campaign to showcase the best Jewish college athletes.
The 2 chosen winners, one male and one female, will be announced in March, selected by votes from among the hundreds, maybe even 1,000, talented Jewish athletes who play at U.S. college teams, known as the NCAA. It’s not unlike the marketing campaigns of athletes’ images that we’re seeing now on cereal boxes with Canadian sports heroes who are competing in the Winter Olympics over in Italy.
But instead of a gold medal, the two Manischewitz athletes of the year will win $10,000, a trophy cheekily dubbed the L’Cheisman Trophy, a play on the NCAA’s prestigious Heisman Trophy for college football’s most outstanding player, recognition at the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame, and a distinctly Jewish honour: their image imprinted on limited editions of Manischewitz matzah boxes. (Not the Passover kind, the ones you can buy year-round.)
And behind this contest is Montreal native Jeremy Moses and his sports marketing company called, fittingly enough, Tribe NIL. NIL means name, image, and likeness. And Tribe, well, its goal is to help Jewish college athletes capitalize on their brand and their Jewish identity to score endorsements, more fans, of course, and open doors for them to find careers when their playing days are done within the Jewish community.
Until a few years ago, U.S. college players were banned from accepting endorsements and money, even though college football and to some extent college basketball teams in the are followed by millions and earn their teams millions too every season. Now though, since 2021, NCAA athletes can capitalize on their NILs.
TRIBE aims to do that and serve as a support system for the Jewish athletes who have to navigate all the antisemitism on American college campuses since October 7th, while also representing their team where they may be one of the few athletes of Jewish faith in the locker room.
Jeremy Moses
And that just creates more heroes, more heroes, more heroes. And that’s just what we’re trying to do. And then 20 years from now, these athletes are on the boards of Jewish groups, and because they realized that the Jewish community took care of them then, it got them involved. Now they’re on a young adults committee at CJA or UJA Toronto, and then 20 years later, who knows what’s happening, and then they’re helping fund TRIBE NIL for the next generation of athletes.
Ellin Bessner
I’m Ellin Bessner, and this is what Jewish Canada sounds like for Friday, February 13th, 2026. Welcome to North Star, the flagship podcast of The Canadian Jewish News, made possible thanks to the generous support of the Ira Gluskin and Maxine Granovsky Gluskin Charitable Foundation.
Tribe NIL co-founder Jeremy Moses was born in the U.S. and raised in Canada, where his father, Rabbi Lionel Moses, was spiritual leader at a Montreal synagogue for years and retired there. A brother, Zev Moses, co-founded the Museum of Jewish Montreal, where he remains the director.
Jeremy moved to the New York area and worked in entertainment and sports, which is where he met American comedian Eitan Levine.
Levine’s first major Manischewitz deal was in 2024, putting Jewish quarterback Jake Retzlaff on the matzah box. Retzlaff was the first Jew in history to quarterback the BYU football team, Brigham Young University, a Mormon school,
and that brand deal led to the founding of Tribe NIL last spring. Today, the company has a roster of nearly 250 Jewish college athletes, mostly Americans, but some Israelis and a half dozen from Canada as well.
Jeremy Moses thinks Most Jewish sports fans will get behind his players the way many of us now cheer for the former Jewish college athletes competing in the Winter Olympics in Milan, like Quinn Hughes, for example, and goalie Jeremy Swayman, (even if they are on Team USA’s men’s hockey team), and of course the Israeli bobsled team.
Jeremy Moses joins me now to talk Jews in sports, that anti-Semitism Super Bowl ad, which his company is tangentially connected to, and some Canadian college athletes to watch. Welcome to the CJN.
Jeremy Moses
Thank you so much. I’m excited to chat. I’ve been listening to the CJN, I’ve been reading the CJN since I was a little kid, so I’m excited to be on.
Ellin Bessner
Now you’ve really made it big, right?
Jeremy Moses
I mean, I’ve done some press over the last few months, but I’ve never as quickly texted my parents and brothers that I was doing something than I’m on The CJN podcast.
Ellin Bessner
But they’ll say, “Jeremy, you couldn’t have put on a nicer shirt?”
Jeremy Moses
It’s so cold.
Ellin Bessner
So before we start about the Jewish side, tell me about the whole ecosystem for people like myself, who my husband watches college sports, my kids watch college sports, I know a little bit about it, but what is the sort of the landscape? How does it work?
Jeremy Moses
So, the NCAA, forever has never paid athletes, right? And in the past, if you got paid for something else, if you got paid, you could lose your eligibility status, right? So if you were the quarterback at a big football team and you signed an autograph and got $500 for it, you technically could have lost your eligibility, right?
And so you hear these stories of, you know, these guys are making their teams millions and billions of dollars, but they can’t even afford rent, right? Or it was leading to just under the table, just guys getting paid. paid in cash or in cars and just kind of shady. It was, which all leads to shady people getting involved and people being taken advantage of. And these kids are 18, 19 years old. They don’t really know what’s going on.
And a few years ago, a couple of athletes sued the NCAA. It went to the Supreme Court. Supreme Court ruled that while the NCAA, they can’t force the NCAA to pay athletes. Ultimately, these kids are volunteering. They are opting in to playing for these teams. They don’t have to.
What they didn’t, what they disagreed on was that they can’t bar athletes from, quote, profiting off of their name, image, and likeness. So that has just created this huge wave where now money is allowed to be spent on athletes for everything except them playing on the field. Right?
I think there’s the top basketball player at BYU this year is making close to $7 million. Bbut he’s not getting paid directly from the school. He’s getting paid by an NIL collective. And many athletes don’t even know that they can make a dollar, right?
There’s 500,000 college athletes, and I don’t think people realize that. That between Division I, II, and III from every sport, when you think about it, a football team has 60, 70, 80 guys, and there’s hundreds of schools, but then you start thinking about track and field and field hockey and gymnastics and water polo, and it starts adding up. And all of those athletes are now eligible for name, image, and likeness opportunities, but none of them are getting it because they’re just, no one’s figured out the system to get them any money.
To me, there’s a larger issue of: most of these athletes are not going to become professional athletes. But the question is, how do you profit off of your name, image, and likeness? What does profit mean? And to me, it’s getting ahead in life, figuring out ‘How can I utilize my time as an athlete now to get to where I want to be 10 years from now when I’m not playing sports?”.
Ellin Bessner
Now, for Jews in that landscape, you said there’s 500,000 athletes. How many would you think are Jewish? And how did you find out?
Jeremy Moses
I don’t have a direct answer. I would guess somewhere around 1,000, even more. I currently, just within Tribe NIL, have 240 athletes. But those are athletes that have reached out to me. I have stopped reaching out to athletes. I haven’t reached out to an athlete since last May when we started this and we kind of first launched.
Ellin Bessner
We’ve seen a couple of examples at Brigham Young University, Jake Retlaff, one of your big successes. being the only Jew probably in the Mormon, in the entire Mormon environment there. Also Ryan Turrell doing basketball. What are the challenges that these athletes face?
Jeremy Moses
It’s mostly, I will say that it’s actually almost all a very positive experience. But I will say that they’re, just because it’s a positive experience doesn’t mean that they aren’t taking on extra responsibilities that none of their teammates have.
So, for example, let’s talk about the Orthodox kids. The fact that I have six or seven Orthodox athletes in the NCAA is unbelievable, because forget the YU team for a second, which they schedule their games around Shabbos. But I have an athlete, Ze’ev Remer, he’s the team captain at Cal Lutheran for their basketball team, right? Wears a kippa, went to Shalhevet in LA. His teammate from high school, Avi Halpert, plays for Hawaii Pacific. They are both the only Jews on their campus. Avi’s in Honolulu, can’t even get kosher meet.
I asked Zev, how do you compete on Shabbos? And he say, “Saturday mornings, we have practice, so I take a Razor scooter And then my teammates bought me an air mattress that they put in the locker room”. I was like, “Okay, but what about away games?” And he goes, “Well, first off, it’s a lot of deli meat, eating alone in the hotel room” because they have team meal Friday night and he doesn’t go.
And they gave an example. He’s in Division III March Madness last year. They played their first round match on a Friday night in Houston. They lost. His season was over. His coach and one of his teammates walked him back three miles to the hotel. right? So that’s incredible, right?
And so when you hear those stories, it’s like, “Why wouldn’t I want to support that athlete, right?” Let’s get him opportunities, whether that’s a brand opportunity or get helping him get an internship or a job, because just who cares what his stats are? I mean, he’s the team captain and he’s a starter, so I don’t have to complain about his stats. But who cares? Even if he never stepped on the court, what I just told you is very impressive.
But now, even let’s like, most of our athletes are not Orthodox. I think the big thing that they face is social. Jewish code switching is very real. And one of our Manischewitz finalists, Lev BenAvram, who’s on Team USA Fencing, and is at Brandeis, which, you know, I think Brandeis is less Jewish than people think, but it’s still pretty Jewish school. But he told me, “Yeah, I go to Brandeis, but I’m the only Jewish guy on the fencing team, and the only people I have time to hang out with are the fencing team. So my experience at Brandeis is not Jewish at all.”
Now, we have some athletes that are involved in Chabad and Hillel and the fact that they have time to do that is amazing, but I think the very first thing that they have is that they’re just kind of alone, whether they are at a school that has lots of Jews like Lev, or there’s athletes that take an athletic opportunity and all of a sudden…
Your a kid, like Ben Shtolzberg, whose parents are Israeli from Los Angeles, and he plays basketball at Murray State in Murray, Kentucky, and there isn’t a Jew within 100 miles of him. Those are the sacrifices that he makes. And I think people are concerned about antisemitism.
Ellin Bessner
I was going to say, on campus, you know, being outwardly proudly Israel-supporting or even Jewish is dangerous and risky. How have your athletes told you what they need from you in terms of support and how this company is helping them?
Jeremy Moses
They represent those schools. They’re put in an awkward position where, you know, I had an athlete tell me that his coach would make Gaza jokes to him. What are you supposed to do in that situation? The coach doesn’t think he’s…He thinks he’s just playing around. The athlete is like, “I can’t complain because this guy determines if I start or not”. Right?
So I think people are rightfully very concerned about antisemitism on campus, but I think people forget about how antisemitism can manifest itself. And it comes back to what I said before about these kids are the only Jew on their team. And antisemitism is more than just Israel. It’s stereotypes in general. And sometimes antisemitism isn’t hateful, it’s just ignorance, right?
So I had an athlete tell me, that he was, he’s the only baseball player, he was the only Jewish guy on his baseball team. Everyone was from central Pennsylvania and he said they’d never met a Jew before. And he said, During training camp the first week, someone walked up to me and asked me why I don’t have a beard”. And it wasn’t a mean question, he just didn’t know why he didn’t. And what I said to that kid is, “A), that’s, I mean, it’s offensive, even if it didn’t mean to be offensive, but also, you’re an 18-year-old kid, you should not have to be an expert on 18th century Hasidism to be a Jew on campus, right?”
So he doesn’t know the answer to that question, but is put in situations where these kids, they become the representative of Jews for their team and their coaches, and it’s just an extra responsibility.
Or, you know, I had, there’s an athlete, he comes from a mixed-race family, and he’s a basketball player and told me he’s now a senior, but when he was a freshman was when the Kyrie Irving stuff happened a few years ago. And his teammates were telling him some pretty Effed up things about Jews. And he had to be like, “Actually, I’m Jewish”.
Or even, and I’ll give one last example. I have an athlete who goes to the school in the South, had a very good school, at a top 25 ranked team, and she told me that her team goes to Bible study twice a week. And it’s not that she’s not invited, they love her, she’s part of the team, but she says that she’s ostracized because she doesn’t get to go to that and it’s a social event. So, these are the things what these kids are missing. It’s not just the overt antisemitism, it’s the social ostracization that they don’t have the opportunity, even if they wanted to go to Hillel or be involved in AEPI or something, they don’t have that opportunity.
Ellin Bessner
So you’re using you’re channeling your rabbinic type of counseling skills in a way as well as helping them go forward in their business careers.
Jeremy Moses
The major thing that all Jewish kids have on their team that none of their other teammates have is the Jewish community supporting them behind. You know, we’re the first ever identity-based NIL collective. Now, the issue is, if you only look at NIL through brand deals, I don’t have 240 brand deals that are worth anything to athletes of different levels of fame on Instagram, but what we do have is… athletes that either can get local brand deals, and we can talk about some Toronto athletes, and we can talk about the complications of Canadian athletes, but they don’t necessarily need to be nationally famous to figure out their angle in their community to get people to start rooting for them, right?
So, what does that mean is, yeah, we can get them brand deals, but also it’s… “Hey, this kid wants to work on Bay Street. Let’s get him.” He still has to earn it, right? We’re not here to just give handouts of free jobs to people. But what’s impressive about an athlete is, again, isn’t their stats, it’s that they’re able to maintain a full-time work schedule and class schedule, right?
I joke with these athletes, I’m like, “Unless you’re on the Alabama football team, you are in a situation where your professors don’t care that you have practice and your coaches don’t care that you have class.”
And if I’m hiring someone and I’m looking at a” just out of college” resume, they don’t have anything on their resume. So what I’m looking for is tangible skills. And so if I can show that someone had maintained a full-time job as a college athlete and they are just looking for connections, well, that’s what the Jewish community would have done anyways. So why don’t we just highlight these athletes and get them those opportunities?
Ellin Bessner
Now, I know your company did a big deal with Manischevitz. How does helping these student athletes capitalize on their talent and their image, help Jewish pride in younger generations?
Jeremy Moses
I tell these athletes all the time, they are in a strange point in their life where they probably think of themselves as kids, but kids think of them as adults, right?
I give an example. The starting point guard at Harvard is a kid named Ben Eisendrath. Ben Eisendrath told me, he’s from Los Angeles. Ben Eisendrath went to a JCC basketball camp when he was 12 years old, met a Jewish guy named Spencer Freedman who played on the Harvard basketball team. That night, Ben went to his dad and said, “I want to go play for Harvard.” And now he does. Right? Now, that’s not going to happen all the time. That is an outlier story. But that is a big deal. The fact that you were able to name who Ryan Turrell is, a D3 basketball player from three years ago, is impressive, right?
Ellin Bessner
But I look for all Jewish athletes because that’s what one does. If you’re Jewish, you root for (even if you don’t like their team or you hate their team, like the American hockey team), Whatever! We won’t talk about them!
Jeremy Moses
So our theory is there’s way more Jews playing sports than people realize. So what if we took that pride that we have in Ryan Turrell or Deni Avdija or…
Ellin Bessner
And also the Quinn brothers, the Israeli bobsled team. Everybody’s rooting for them, even if they’re, you know…a strange sport.
Jeremy Moses
So what if we told people that you could root for athletes all year round on the college level, locally?
e post on our Instagram every day, all of our athletes schedules, which if you have ESPN Plus in America, you can watch the Division One games, which I do. I’ve watched more college sports, more random college sports this year than you can imagine. For example, the very first game I watched this year, I have an athlete, Madeline Maricco. She plays for Fairleigh Dickinson in Teaneck, New Jersey’s soccer team. Their very first game of the year was against Boston College. It was an away game at Boston College. Boston College’s soccer field is in Newton, Massachusetts, which is like the most Jewish area ever.
Ellin Bessner
So is Teaneck!
Jeremy Moses
Yeah. So if you knew a week in advance that on Sunday at 1 p.m. there was a Jewish girl from Fairleigh Dickinson going to play Boston College and you live in Newton, let’s take the three kids. I have friends who have tons of young kids. All they do is tell me that they’re trying to figure out activities for their kids. Well, these are great opportunities. Most of these games are free.
It’s just these kids don’t feel famous, but I can guarantee you that if you went up to them after the game and asked for a picture and took an autograph, they would be so excited. They talk about that when they go to J.C.C Maccabi, or like when they go play it at the Maccabiah games, all these Israeli kids coming up to them and asking them for autographs after.
It’s like a life-changing experience for them. So if we can create that just fun experiences for them, it creates pride for kids. But then you mentioned Ryan Turrell. You know, I’m working right now with different levels of Team Israel to bring Americans and Canadians to Israel to get their dual citizenship so they can compete nationally.
Ellin Bessner
So they’d have a better chance of making the national teams, you think, in Israel than in Canada, like Israel Baseball, for example?
Jeremy Moses
Correct. But then also there’s pro teams in Israel. It’s a great job just out of college. it pays you pretty well. You get to keep doing your thing. They give you an apartment, they give you a car. You’re not going to become a millionaire, but while you figure out your stuff and you figure out what’s next, you get to play basketball in the first division, second division, third division, or women’s volleyball. They’re recruiting all these, there’s not enough Jewish volleyball players in Israel, so they’re recruiting a bunch of American Jews to come play in Israel. There’s going to be flag football in the Olympics in 2028. If Israel got a bunch of Jewish American guys to go play football, I bet you they can compete, right? Like, I don’t know, they’re not going to beat the Americans, obviously. They probably won’t beat the Canadians, but they could. I think after that, there’s a drop off, just like the, you know, the skeleton team right now or the bobsled team. I think they can compete. And that just creates more heroes, more heroes, more heroes. And that’s just what we’re trying to do. And then 20 years from now, these athletes are on the boards of Jewish groups, and because they realized that the Jewish community took care of them then, it got them involved. Now they’re on a young adults committee at CJA or UJA Toronto, and then 20 years later, who knows what’s happening, and then they’re helping fund Tribe NIL for the next generation of athletes.
Ellin Bessner
Can you explain what the differences between what Canadian college athletes can get or are allowed to do versus U.S. ? And then how many of your 250 are from here?
Jeremy Moses
Yeah, so it’s not just Canadians, it’s all international athletes. We actually deal with the same issue with Israeli athletes. We have some Argentinian athletes. The issue isn’t that they are Canadian. The issue is their visa. They are on student visas, not work visas.
Canadians, for the most part, do not have visas, so they cannot accept NIL money. So the great thing about Canadians is we’re just across the border. I mean, I literally have an athlete from Windsor who is a gymnast at Western Michigan. She’s probably an hour and a half drive from her parents’ house. So the ability for her to get NIL deals is complicated, but promoting them?
Ellin Bessner:
So it’s not impossible?
Jeremy Moses:
It’s not impossible, but it’s also promoting them is fine, right? It’s just paying them, right? So that girl, Amy Robbins, who’s the Western Michigan gymnast, she was on Maccabi Canada. Maccabi Canada posts about her all the time. We repost all of her stuff.
We post Amy’s videos all the time because we’re allowed to promote her. We just can’t physically pay her money through her visa. But let’s say a Canadian brand wanted to support these college athletes. They can get paid in Canada as long as they do the work in Canada. So let’s say, some Canadian brand, I’m not even going to name it, some local law firm, wants to support a Jewish athlete from Richmond Hill. Let’s say part of the deal, they have to post three times on their Instagram about that law firm. They have to do those postings while they’re in Canada. So there are complications, but obviously there’s winter breaks, they go home for the weekend sometimes, there’s ways to do it.
Ellin Bessner
So you have 250. Of those, what,10, 15, 20 are Canadian?
Jeremy Moses
I’d say we have seven that grew up in Canada. One, she’s from New York, has Canadian parents, and has competed in the Canadian Swimming Olympic Trials. And so she continues to Canada. So her name is Neala Klein. She races, she swims at Duke, and she swam in the Canadian Olympic Trials.
We have Sadie Goldin, who is from Toronto and is a swimmer at North Texas. We have Oren Shtrom, who is from Dollard, in Montreal, and is a hockey player at Alaska Anchorage. Tyler Crystal’s from Vancouver. His brother was drafted by the Capitals, I believe.
Ellin Bessner
Andrew, we did a whole interview with him when that happened.
Jeremy Moses
Now, Tyler plays at St. Lawrence, which is actually not that far from Toronto. It’s in the middle of nowhere in upstate New York, but it’s one of those top, you know, it’s one of those schools that is mostly Division III except hockey, and they have a very serious hockey program.
Ele Ohayan, she’s a Yeshiva University volleyball player. She’s from Hamilton. She went to CHAT. Neala Klein, I mentioned to you before from Duke. Max Wollnick, also a Maccabi Canada basketball player, Max Rolnick, plays at Elms College in Massachusetts. And then I just actually spoke a few weeks ago with Dustin Coldrey, who just graduated. He just got his high school degree in December in from Ottawa. He’s playing for Merrimack College football. He’s an offensive lineman. I think he’s like 300 and something pounds.
Ellin Bessner
So you mentioned the matzah box. Can you tell us about your collab with Manischewicz this year for who’s going to make it?
Jeremy Moses
So the athletes, the two winners get three things. They get their likeness on a matzah box. They get $10,000 each. And they’re going to be honoured this this June at the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame ceremonies for being the L’Cheisman winner. So it’s a big honour.
And last year, for example, we had Jake Retzlaff on the box. (So this is what it looks like). And it says, Matzah of Champs, skip the energy drinks. Manischewitz matzah is the ultimate fuel for athletes. Light, crunchy, and packed with tradition to power your game. Schmear with friends.
I don’t think they did this on purpose, but their colours, their new colour scheme looks just exactly like a Wheaties box. So what if we made a Jewish Wheaties box is kind of the answer.
Ellin Bessner
Do you already know who’s chosen, or is it still open to choose the Jewish Athlete of the Year?
Jeremy Moses
I do know the answer. I can’t tell you. The selection committee selected our male and female Lechaisman winners, as we call them, last night, so they are aware, but we have not.
Ellin Bessner
And when is that going to be announced?
Jeremy Moses
I don’t know exactly when we’re going to publicly announce it. We’re going to be filming a commercial with both of them, so we have to travel to their schools. It will come out in the spring.
Ellin Bessner
So, does Pesach have their pictures on the boxes?
Jeremy Moses
So, they are selling limited edition, online-only matzah boxes. I actually believe they are not, I don’t quote me on this, I actually don’t think they’re kosher for Pesach boxes. It’s one of those year-round boxes.
Ellin Bessner
It’s year-round matzah, got it.
Jeremy Moses
But what Manischewitz was really looking for was people that could really mix athletic achievement with Menschlchkeit, right? And really they want people that can talk about being a Jew. Whatever that is for them, right? Whatever level of, whatever that pride level is, we want to meet them where they are.
And that’s kind of what I tell my athletes everywhere is like, “You’re an adult. You can be Jewish the way you want to be Jewish. Like the fact that you’re proud of it, let’s lean into that. Because there’s probably a 12-year-old that’s just like you that thinks the exact same way as you. Let’s not try to make you something different. Let’s just make you you.”
Ellin Bessner
You mentioned quarterbacks. During the Super Bowl, the Blue Square campaign, which was Robert Kraft, the Patriots’ owner. I saw it on the coach’s sweater. What was your involvement with the Blue Square and your Jewish athletes that you represent?
Jeremy Moses
It’s their campaign, basically. So Kraft is just like Manischewitz. It’s a client. They were looking to do some type of campaign that fights antisemitism through Jewish pride. And that’s what we really pushed on them is just Jewish positivity.
So last May when we did the first round of it, we found eight of our athletes and we shot two videos each, one about their Jewish identity and one about their athletic achievement. Just again, because we wanted to make that balance.
I can’t speak for the Kraft Foundation. I can only speak for myself. I think the best way to fight antisemitism is through pride and through positive stories. And I think there’s a large portion of people on the internet who are exhausted by people yelling at each other all the time, whether they agree with them or not, right? I see the people who I agree with politically that I’m exhausted by. And I think people just want a break.
And what I love about sports is it’s just that the one times Democrats and Republicans, and we could do the same thing for the Liberals and the Conservatives, but one time Democrats and Republicans sit together is at an Alabama football game. Right?
Ellin Bessner
They have separate halftime shows. We won’t talk about that.
Jeremy Moses
Exactly. But no, but you, it’s the one thing they all are.
Ellin Bessner
And Bad Bunny did a positive thing instead of a negative thing. And so that’s kind of the idea that you have in mind for the blue square. But let’s talk a bit about that commercial. Can you talk about?
Jeremy Moses
I wasn’t involved. I can give you my personal thoughts.
Ellin Bessner
A lot of people criticize it saying “It showed Jews as victims and we’re tired of this, Jewish pride is more important”. Where do you weigh in on this commercial?
Jeremy Moses
My personal thoughts are, the truth is I think it comes back to the internet, right? Like I think the internet is just at 9 on 10 at all times and people just get triggered by everything. I think if you ask people who are Jews, who actually watched that commercial for the first time without any context, didn’t give it two thoughts.
I don’t think it was a particularly successful commercial either way, but I also just don’t think, I think that it’s part of it is just part of the Jewish internet that is just like, “We have to solve every issue right now”.
It’s a Super Bowl commercial, guys. It’s fine. Everything’s going to be okay. That being said, I don’t think that the message is something that I would be making. Again, I think that message is, I think some people got stuck on that word dirty Jew. And is that something that Jews are?
Ellin Bessner
Sticky notes. People were like, “No one talks about that”
Jeremy Moses
Is this a real experience? I don’t think it’s a real experience in the sense that, but I do think that Jews are starting to realize that they took being Jewish for granted for a very long time and that maybe their world experience is different than the people that they’re around. And creating niche communities where you find leaders in those communities creates pride in those communities.
So what we want to do with the Manischewitz commercial is just show that we have two incredible athletes and you can take multiple things away from that. You could either be like, I want to eat matzah. That should be the first take away, is maybe I’m going to go buy some matzah. But the second take should be, oh, that’s really cool. And the third take is, oh, that is, if you really want to get into it, oh, I wish I saw more positive stories. But I’m just trying to do it naturally, because that’s how I am. I’m rooting for people already. Let’s just highlight it so other people can highlight.
Ellin Bessner
So you’re interested in expanding into Canada in terms of your, in terms of your clients as well ?
Jeremy Moses
We’ve had some conversations with some people involved with Maccabi Canada about providing opportunities, not just for Jewish college athletes, but just Canadian athletes in general too, right? Like this is not just a problem for those eight athletes I mentioned to you, but there’s probably a couple, if there’s 1000 Jews in the NCAA, I bet you there’s a couple 1000 Canadians in the NCAA, and none of them get NIL money. So here’s an idea that’s ripe for the picking is what I would say.
Ellin Bessner
Really appreciate you giving me all this time, extended interview with us here on The CJN. Good luck and yeah, Go Canada for the Olympics! I know you’re like a dual citizen, so who do you cheer for? Israel, Canada, USA, who do you cheer for?
Jeremy Moses
I am an underdog fan. I’m A Sacramento Kings fan. I’m a Montreal Canadiens fan that moved in 1995, so I’ve never even seen them win a Stanley Cup. So I’ve never won anything. So I’ve always joked that I always feel more American in Canada and more Canadian in the States. And so when it comes to the Olympics, of course I root for Canada. Come on! What are we talking about?
Ellin Bessner
Yeah, well, and women’s hockey for sure now, but we’ll see.
Jeremy Moses
The score yesterday, I was like, “Oh, thank God I didn’t watch”, because I wouldn’t have been. And of course the Israeli guys. I watched the opening ceremonies until Israel walked through, and then I turned it off because it was too long.
Ellin Bessner
But they got booed and that was hard!
Jeremy Moses
I chose to ignore that. Good to speak to you. Thank you so much.
Ellin Bessner
And that’s what Jewish Canada sounded like for this episode of North Star, brought to you by Ira Gluskin and Maxine Granovsky Gluskin’s Charitable Foundation.
I can tell you the voting ended February 3rd for the Manischewitz contest, and sadly, none of this year’s finalists were Canadians. The names will be announced soon.
Our show is produced by Zachary Judah Kauffman, the executive producer is Michael Fraiman, and the editorial director is Alicia Richler. Our theme for North Star was composed by Bret Higgins.
We’ll be cheering on Team Canada this weekend in hockey, and Monday we’re closed for Family Day. Thanks for listening.
