Episode 217 - How A Single Flag-Wave Sparked A Citywide Stand For Israel And Transformed A Community

Fear told people to hide their identity. We chose to stand on a busy corner with flags and let courage do the talking. Our guest, Guidy Mammon—lawyer, proud Jew, and relentless advocate for Israel—walks us through the exact moment he decided to turn private shock into public leadership. What started as a few friends and a flag at Bathurst and Sheppard grew into a weekly rhythm that drew hundreds, sparked new friendships, and gave a shaken community a reliable place to breathe, pray, and act.

We unpack the mechanics of real grassroots momentum: flags assembled on a dining table, signs stapled to dowels, neighbours texting neighbours, and simple assignments that made participation easy. Guidy shares why we never engaged the taunts across the street, how discipline kept people safe, and why the rallies focused on blessing soldiers by name and sending those messages to families who needed proof they weren’t alone. Faith and action intertwined as tefillin returned to arms that hadn’t felt it since bar mitzvahs, not as a display, but as a bridge between Toronto sidewalks and soldiers on the front lines.

The conversation digs into unity as more than a slogan. Guidy reflects on how standing shoulder to shoulder reframed old divisions and taught a hard truth: disunity weakens us faster than opponents can. We also talk about the day the hostages came home, why the rallies closed with mission accomplished, and how the core community that formed is ready to serve the next need with calm, courage, and clarity. If you’re searching for a blueprint on turning fear into purpose—through consistent presence, smart logistics, and steady faith—you’ll find it here.

Subscribe, share this with someone who needs strength today, and leave a review with the moment that hit you hardest. Your words help more people find stories that lift and equip.

Chapters

• 0:16 Setting The Stage And Stakes
• 1:31 The Turning Point After October 7
• 3:03 First Flags At Bathurst And Sheppard
• 6:02 Crowds Grow And Community Mobilizes
• 8:47 DIY Logistics And New Bonds
• 12:19 Faith Practices Ignite At Rallies
• 16:25 Unity Lessons And Jewish History
• 19:35 Hostages Return And What’s Next

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:16

Hello and welcome to the Trust Factor Podcast, the only podcast that guarantees your success when you implement its divine age-old teachings. Today we're talking to someone whose voice has become a source of strength for thousands across Canada. Giddy Mammon is a respected lawyer, a proud Jew, and a bold advocate for Israel. In a time of rising anti-Semitism and global tension, he stepped forward, organizing rallies, speaking publicly, and defending Israel in a powerful and articulate way. You'll know him mostly from the rallies that took place, the pro-Israel rallies at Bathurst and Shepherd every Sunday since the early days of the war, ending very recently when thank God all the hostages came home. Today, we're diving into his journey, his leadership, and what drives him to stand up when others stand back. And with that, I want to welcome to the podcast. Welcome, Giddy.

SPEAKER_01: 1:11

Jesse, thank you very much for having me.

SPEAKER_00: 1:13

Oh, it's my pleasure. I'm very excited. I want to talk about, I mean, there's so much to cover off. As you know, we don't spend too much time on the podcast in general. We want to let people get on with their day, but we want to start them off on the right foot. So having said that and having given that introduction, I'm sure, knowing you that you were a pro-Israel advocate before that tragic day in October. And I think it's safe to say that since October the 7th, it's taken a completely different turn and it's gotten amped up to the point where you've dedicated so much time and resources. Can you tell me what was that moment? Was it October 7th? Was it right after October 7th? Was there a defining moment where you said, I need to take this to the next level of my advocacy?

SPEAKER_01: 1:56

There's no question. First of all, October 7th hit me like a ton of bricks, just like it did for everybody in the Jewish community. Uh it was it was uh earth-shattering. What did it for me is that I don't know if you'll remember, on October the 7th, just a few days after that, Hamas and Hezbollah, they declared a global day of jihad. And what our community did was they warned the community not to send their kids to school, to Hebrew schools, not to let them go out with keepas on, um, you know, not to wear Magendavids, uh, because there was tremendous fear out there. At that moment, uh, I knew we had to do something because uh I didn't feel that that was uh leadership that we needed. I think we needed to be very strong instead of making our community members scared uh and worried, uh, we needed to give them confidence, we give had to give them hope, and we had to show them courage in times like these, even though it was a devastating time. I mean, we didn't know how many hostages had been taken, we didn't know how many people were killed, we didn't know if there were still terrorists in Israel, we didn't know if they reached Beersheva or Ashkelon, we didn't know a lot of things, we didn't know if Hezbollah was going to attack. So that moment um I was finishing wrapping up my Tfillin uh in the morning at the um at the Kolel of Rabbi Pinto, and there was a buddy of mine sitting next to me. I said, You know what? It was Friday morning, and I said, Let's go to Bathurst and Shepherd and let's wave the flag, the Israeli flag. He said, Yeah, let's do that. So I called another friend of mine, a good friend of mine, Esther Bakinka, and I said, You know what, meet meet us at Bathurst and Shepherd, we're gonna wave the Canadian flag and the Israeli flag. And when we saw the reaction of people, many people were honking and honking, they were so excited to see someone holding up the Israeli flag on Global Jihad Day. But a lot of people were driving by uh with broken, they they looked broken, they were they were crying, they looked at us, they were tearing up, and we saw how much pain there was out there in the community. And so uh that was Friday, October the 13th, uh 2023. Uh and then we said we have to come back on Sunday. The community needs a lot of support. Uh, we need to inspire people, we need to make them come out of their shells, and that's what happened. And then uh, you know, uh one Sunday led to another Sunday, another Sunday, and the crowds just kept on coming and coming and growing. We bought flags and we bought more flags, and we had to buy flags by the dozens and then by the hundreds.

SPEAKER_00: 4:23

Uh and so it just so it so it went. I remember the early days, and I love that you remembered the exact day, and I love the fact that it happened when you were finished wrapping your tfillin. This is what the podcast is about. It's about bringing God into your life and doing his work. And you literally took that step. I always talk about taking the first step. That's the only thing that we control, the outcome we don't. And boy, did you take that first step, and you did it right when you finished taking off your tfillin. I mean it's unbelievable. I love that story. You also mentioned Esther Bakinka, another powerhouse, another individual I'd love to have on the podcast. So many people have come out of the woodworking, and Aaron talked about this last week. How one of the silver linings of October 7th is that so many people have come out and stepped up their game and have supported the cause. Did that surprise you how many people came and how quick it all came together?

SPEAKER_01: 5:14

It's shocking. We call them the October 8th Jews, people who came out and and found themselves Jewish only on October the 8th. I mean, of course, they, you know, ate matzabal soup and they had Friday night dinners, but to be part of Khal Israel, to be part of the solution, we had a massive problem on October the 7th. Uh many people were very worried about the future for the state of Israel and our friends and family in Israel. But on October 8th, they transformed. They really transformed, and they needed a little bit of a push, they needed a little bit of direction. They didn't have it. A lot of these people were never involved in a rally, they were never involved in advocacy, they were never seeing, tasting, smelling anti-Semitism up close. And October the 8th changed a lot. A lot of people changed on that day. People we've never seen before uh drove by, saw us waving the flags, pulled over into the plaza and said, you know what, I'll I'll go wave a flag for 10 minutes. And two years later, they're still standing by our side. It was unbelievable.

SPEAKER_00: 6:14

I remember that excitement. I remember joining myself and driving by and thinking this can't be real. It was overwhelming to watch all these people and the joy and the intensity and the smiles, and I mean the energy was unbelievable. And there was almost not enough parking, and there was not enough room to for everybody to stand on the streets. And then I mean so much goes into this. You know, we just see what it looks like from afar. But give us some insight. I remember in the early days going to somebody else, it may it may have even been your house, where we were like stapling flags onto these large dowels, right? That's right, exactly.

SPEAKER_01: 6:48

That was my house. I mean, uh uh almost all the flags were made and manufactured on our dining room table. Uh we would just say, you know, we need help putting some flags together, we need help doing, you know, making signs, we need help doing this. And they just came. They they they they just came and they they they poured their heart into it. And we're not just talking about, you know, just I don't know, average Joes. We everybody, from you know, the highest economic sort of uh uh strata to the bottom, and yeah, just everybody pitched in. Just everybody pitched in. Uh it was it it was something uh I I'll never forget. I mean, in the course of my years, you know, I've made friends here and there, but uh basically in two years uh I made not dozens, more than dozens of friends who are going to remain friends uh forever. This was truly a a transformative time for a lot of people, and I think that's what we needed. We we needed something to bring us together. And I and I promise you, Jesse, that was that was really not my intention on that day. I was just very upset that the le uh the Jewish leadership told us to basically stay home and hide in the basement. Right. Um I didn't go out there trying to make Jews more religious or put on Tvillon, but that's exactly what happened, you know, when when you know 20, 30, 40 people started coming, so did the bookers. You know, the bookers from Chabad, they came and they they would start start rapping, and then after a while there was two bookers, and then there'd be a rabbi and two bookers, and then two rabbis and three rabbis. I remember um Rabbi Rabiski coming up to me and saying to me, uh, you know, close to the end of the rally, it wasn't even the the the end. He said, You know how many Tfillin we've put on today? I said, How many? He says, 140. Now, I could never in my life believe that this rally would attract that many people to put on Twillin. And I'm gonna tell you there's people there who who hadn't put on Tfillin in decades since their bar mitzvahs, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 years, they hadn't put on Tfillin. And uh, you know, I I'd go on the microphone and say, listen, I know a lot of you guys are not accustomed to put on Tfillin, that's okay. You know, but if it can help one soldier or one hostage, if there's just one percent chance that that that that can happen, what does it hurt? I mean, we're standing here freezing anyways, we're freezing to death or getting rained on. So what's the difference if you put on fillin' for 20 seconds or 30 seconds? It's not gonna be the end of the world. And it just started to avalanche, and then it just became the norm. You know, guys who never put fillin' would see other guys who never put fill-in on, putting on fillin', and so they did the same.

SPEAKER_00: 9:25

You know, I just finished saying yesterday, repeating, because I've said it a few times throughout the podcast, that there's a verse that says that Hashem says to us, open up a hole for me the size of a pinhole, and I will open up for you a hole the size of an auditorium. And if you can imagine the relativity between a pinhole and an auditorium, it's astronomical. And so it sounds to me, and correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like what you did was you did just that. You opened up that hole, and then Hashem took over and said, You wanted to do this, it's exactly the right thing that needs to happen, and I'm gonna have your back, and everything just exploded after that.

SPEAKER_01: 10:02

Does that sound right? Yeah, except for the word you. You know, I I would love to be able to take all the credit and say, you know, I was a genius, and this, you know, it was all my hard work. One guy standing at the corner of Bathus and Shepherd does not change anything. It was all these people who came who didn't want to see me alone, who wanted to be part of something, even if it was something small, that was defiant, that was beautiful, that was uniting, that was strong, that was brave and courageous and inspirational. And it's those people, each and every one of them, who deserves the same credit. Because like I said, a rally of one is not really that much of a rally, but when we got together and someone would film us and we would, you I don't know if you're aware, but you know, we we would invite people who have friends and relatives in the IDF who are in uh in Gaza and in Lebanon and you know, Syria, and we would ask for their Hebrew names and we'd make a bracha for them and their unit, and we would send them a recording, and you know, they could see, you know, not just me, but many people like me behind me, all the flags behind us, and we would send them these brachas, these these uh acknowledgments by name and by their units. And uh it, you know, the families were in tears when they and they saw you know people standing in the freezing cold in Canada, faraway land, mentioning their son or daughter in the army and their unit and their commanders and all that, and and hearing a blessing for them. And it gave them the sense that we were truly an um, an uh a nation. Uh they weren't just doing this for themselves and for their homes and their neighborhoods and their borders, they were doing it for every Jew in the world, and that's how we felt. We felt that the IDF and our soldiers were doing this not just for themselves, but for us as well. And that's why we we figured as long as they're gonna be in Gaza, we're gonna be a Bathis and Shepherd.

SPEAKER_00: 11:48

Of course. And you know what? It's solidarity and it's unity, and the reality is that unfortunate reality is that leading up to the war, and I think, I mean, obviously go and prove it, but I think the weakness that was shown by the division, there was an amazing amount of division that was going on in Israel between Jews of all different stripes, and I think it had reached a boiling point where the news was talking about all day long, and certainly our enemies were taking note. And what served, I think, as a result of this war, just like you've been outlined for us here, and that we've seen in many other places, is that it's unified us, it's brought us together, and it's reminded us that nobody's gonna have our back. We have to have each other's backs.

SPEAKER_01: 12:31

You know, Jesse, um, you know, I went to Hebrew school, and you know, I'm from a pretty traditional Spartic background, and you know, I'm a regular shulgoer and all that stuff. And I always remember being taught, you know, that we lost the Beta of Mikdash uh because of Sinathinam. And I said, no, we didn't lose it because of Sinathinam. We lost it because, you know, some you know, emperor or some army came and defeated us. They were bigger and we were not as big and we lost, and that's the way it was until October the 7th. And then as this rally kept going and chugging along and everything, and then I saw what the power of unity looked like, uh, I understood. For the first time, I understood why we lost the Beta Mikdash, because we were not united. You know, we all everybody has differences of opinion. Some are on the left, some are on the right, some are a little bit more religious, and the others are a little bit less religious. But I I didn't realize, I didn't realize that you could lose everything through a lack of unity. And that's that's clearly what happened. And the unity that that I felt during those two years is unlike anything I ever felt in my life.

SPEAKER_00: 13:35

I remember you telling me recently that uh you finally got back your freedom, so to speak, when all the hostages came home, and you found yourself with your wife trying to figure out what to do on a Sunday because thank God, mission accomplished. The the hostages came home and it was time to wrap up. Your goal had been met, thank God. You know, what was that like now? Where does the focus shift to today? Well, I I think there's a couple of things.

SPEAKER_01: 14:00

Firstly, uh I'd like to tell you that uh standing out there until all the hostages came home was my idea. It was not my idea. When we started to become a bigger group, 20, 30, 40 people, we would start to attract local media and stuff like that. And then people would start screaming, oh yeah, we're gonna be here, you know, until all the hostages are coming home. And I said, What? Like, we're gonna stand out here until the hostages come home? Are you kidding? They may never come home. In fact, I doubt they will ever come home because uh you don't know who we're dealing with. We're dealing with monsters, people who set people on fire in their own beds and their own homes, men, women, and children. How how would you ever have faith that they're going to all come home? And um sure enough, uh, I was proven wrong. They they did come home. And all we had to do was stand together and pray. Every single rally we we did uh bracha for the soldiers. We ended up the rally with a bracha for the soldiers and Shira Malot uh to heal him for uh for the hostages. And uh and so you you're saying to ask me, so what does the future hold? I don't know. I I think what it does hold is something great. We have a group that uh we can count, we can ask each other anything, and we'll come to the rest, we'll come to their rescue. Uh and I think we've got a very, very strong core, and through my uh you know, through my uh other uh you know, community work, I'm gonna bring that energy to bear. But I I know that the community needs help, they need leadership, they need inspiration, they need courageous inspiration, courageous leadership. You know, it's not enough to cut a check once a year or maybe go to you know menorah lighting somewhere around Hanukkah and you know go to shul once in a while. There's a lot more that we need as a community uh from each other. And and I hope that uh I hope and pray that Hashem gives me the health and the strength uh and uh the time to continue what we started, of course, in a different form. We're not gonna be standing at Bathurst and Shepherd forever, obviously, uh, but there'll be other things that we'll do to bring our community together uh so that we should never be apart, we should never be fighting one another.

SPEAKER_00: 16:16

Absolutely, a hundred percent. Now, you know, standing up for Israel is obviously going to invite hostility. We see that everywhere, and we saw it at Bathurst and Shepherd. We saw that they came out and they were across the street and they tried to agitate and they did everything that they could to get a rise out of us and to get and to make it violent and to do all these different things. And then just this past weekend in Toronto, I'm sure you've heard the news where a building in a Jewish neighborhood was ransacked and they tore down 50 mezuzas from an from elderly apartments. These are people who a lot of them were affected by World War II, and now they're opening up their doors and seeing mezuzas are torn down just this past weekend. But thank God we've got other Jewish organizations that step up immediately and do the right things and give them support and put the mezuzas back up and give them Hanukkah packages and and reassure them that we're still there. But how do you deal with this hostility? How bad did it get? Was it ever personal?

SPEAKER_01: 17:12

Look, uh uh Jesse, for me and someone else it's a little bit different. I've been uh in sort of the demonstration, counter-protest, rally business since my uh my twenties. They they they can't get to me. What they want to do is get a rise out of us so that we do something stupid, that we get arrested, that we you know, we get injured, that we uh make ourselves look stupid. I don't uh I don't let that happen. And and and a lot of people who come to the rally who'd never been to a rally before became very emotional at the sight of a Palestinian flag and you know the taunts and the hate. And we told them, don't worry about it, don't worry about it. Just don't engage. We're not here to talk to them. We're here to talk to our people, to inspire our people. We're never gonna persuade them that they're wrong and that we're right or vice versa. They they think it's their land, we think it's our land, that's it. So uh I don't let it I don't let it get to me. Of course, there there were some, you know, there there have been many threats, and there's been lots of things that people have done to disparage me or my business or um whatever, but yeah, you know, that's what it is to be a leader. You have to show by example. If all of us are going to be afraid to speak up because of our jobs or our careers or our businesses, uh how could we survive in the galut? How is it possible that we can we could make a life here in Canada or in other countries uh if we just hide? We we can't do that. Remember, that's how this all started, Jesse.

SPEAKER_00: 18:38

Right.

SPEAKER_01: 18:38

Uh because I didn't I didn't want kids to take off their kipas, I didn't want them to miss a day of school, I didn't want our our community to be told to run and hide. It's it's not a solution. If you really are in a situation where you can't do anything but, God forbid, run and hide, then you shouldn't be here. The only place and the only solution is Israel and Aliyah. That's it. Uh so as long as you have hope that uh that you can stand up and be proud, a proud Jew, a proud Canadian, a proud member of your community, if you can't do that, this is not the place for you.

SPEAKER_00: 19:11

Gideon I know that we could talk a long time, and God willing, we'll have you back on this podcast again just to talk about some of the other things because I know that you're not slowing down. Thank God. I want to wish you continued success and continued strength, and that Hashem should be at your back and you should continue to do his work. And when you do, you should continue to see his hand just like you did when you started the rally.

SPEAKER_01: 19:33

Thank you, Jesse, and God bless you for the work that you do in bringing uh, you know, uh interesting people to your podcast and inspiring the community. That's what it's all about. We all have our caliph, we all have our our little corner, our little piece of the puzzle to solve. So uh thank you too.

SPEAKER_00: 19:48

Kid, have an amazing day. You too, be well. Take care. Thank you for spending time with us on the Trust Factor Podcast. If you've heard something today that moved you, save this episode and share it with someone who might need to hear it. Be sure to subscribe so you don't miss upcoming conversations that challenge, empower, and uplift. And if you're on social media, connect with us. Leave your thoughts. Drop a quote that resonated with you. Hashtag the TrustFactor Podcast. Until next time, keep growing in your trust and keep living with purpose. I'm Jesse Revivo, and this has been the Trust Factor Podcast. Thanks for listening.