Although Jews comprise about one percent of Canada’s population, they have been the victims of 70 percent of recorded hate crimes in the past few years.
In 2023, Statistics Canada reported a whopping 71 percent increase in antisemitic incidents over 2022. Last year, a record number of 6,219 incidents were recorded, the highest since 1982.
Judging by an antisemitic incident that occurred in Ottawa on August 27, animus toward Jewish citizens in this country has not abated. In an unprovoked attack, an unidentified Jewish woman in her 70s was stabbed by a man at a supermarket in Ottawa. She was released shortly after being admitted to a hospital.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney condemned the attack in a note of solidarity with Jewish Canadians. “We stand with you against hate and threats to your safety, and we will act to confront antisemitism wherever it appears,” wrote Carney, who has proposed legislation to criminalize intimidating protests outside places of worship, schools and community centers.
The assailant, a 71-year-old man from Cornwall, Ontario, identified as Joe Rooke, surrendered to police, and was charged with aggravated assault and possession of a dangerous weapon. The police classified the case as a hate-motivated crime.
Rooke, a status Indian who lists his occupation as a digital creator, is a self-declared antisemite. In a recent Facebook post, he wrote that Jews “have become insidious in governments, businesses, media conglomerates, and educational institutes in order to do what they do better than anyone else. Jews are the world’s masters of propaganda, gaslighting, demonization, demagoguery and outright lying. Using their collective wealth, they have become masters of reprisals.”
A year ago, in a previous Facebook post, Rooke wrote, “I am under no obligation whatsoever, legal, moral or otherwise, to like jews, and I do not. If that means I meet the jewish definition of an antisemite, so be it.”
Antisemitic incidents in Canada, a nation that restricted Jewish immigration prior to the 1950s, have been on an uptick since October 7, 2023. This was the day when Hamas terrorists from the Gaza Strip stormed across the Israeli border and attacked a string of kibbutzim and army bases in a violent rampage that claimed the lives of some 1,200 people and resulted in the abduction of 251 Israelis and foreign nationals.
Antisemitism has become increasingly “normalized” since then, warns Anthony Housefather, a Liberal member of parliament from Montreal who recently issued a statement on X saying that Jewish Canadians across Canada are gripped by “a deep sense of unease, fear and unsafety.”
Jewish Canadians, he wrote on August 31, have the same right to feel as safe as all Canadians.
Housefather, the federal government’s special advisor on Jewish Community Relations and Antisemitism, pointed out that the ongoing Israel-Hamas war has affected Canadian Jews inasmuch as some antisemitic assailants have held them responsible for the upheavals in the Middle East. He denounced this blame game as “wrong, unacceptable and antisemitic.”
He makes an excellent point. While the vast majority of Jews are supportive of Israel, they cannot be held accountable for Israel’s political and military decisions.
Dyed-in-the-wool antisemites do not make such distinctions, of course. They will use every pretext to demonize and assault Jews.
Housefather’s statement was signed by 31 of his Liberal Party colleagues. All but six of the signatories were from the provinces of Ontario and Quebec, where three-quarters of Canadian Jews live.
This means that 137 Liberal MPs did not sign the statement, a shocking and disheartening omission. Housefather claims that virtually all the Liberals asked to sign it had done so, and that their signatures were gathered over only 24 hours during a holiday weekend.
By contrast, all 144 Conservative MPs signed an open letter last week condemning antisemitism.
One can assume that many more Liberals would have signed Housefather’s statement had he circulated it over a greater period of time. But the fact remains that a statement of this importance, signed by only a fraction of the Liberal caucus, leaves the unsettling impression that Liberals are indifferent to antisemitism in a country that prides itself as an oasis of tolerance and inclusivity.
Clearly, Housefather should have allotted a lot more time to gather additional Liberal signatures.
This is an issue that should concern all Canadians. In the name of decency, antisemitism needs to be called out whenever it threatens a Canadian citizen.