B’nai Brith Canada CEO Michael Mostyn fought tirelessly against antisemitism

When Michael Mostyn saw some fourth graders beating up a fellow first grader in the schoolyard of Toronto’s Associated Hebrew Schools, he stepped in to fight the bullies. When he returned home, beaten and bruised, his mother encouraged him to arm himself and take up tae kwon do, and by Grade 7, he earned a black belt. While at a high-school soccer tournament, he experienced his first antisemitic incident – a knife was pulled on him, and he was called a derogatory slur. After high school, he completed three months of basic training in the Israel Defence Forces, according to his nephew, Brandon Rudick, where he impressed the head officers to the extent that he was offered to join the elite paratrooper unit. (He turned it down.)Fighting bullies, protecting Israel and going head to head with antisemites – these were harbingers of things to come; they became his life’s work.