The toxic effects of the Hamas’ October 7 massacre in Israel have spilled over into Canada in the form of a sharp intensification of antisemitic incidents.
As Deborah Lyons, Canada’s former ambassador to Israel and now its special envoy on preserving Holocaust remembrance and combating antisemitism, said recently, “It’s clear from the data we’re seeing, particularly coming from police units across Canada, that there’s a huge increase in antisemitism in terms of hate crimes happening. I would say the level of antisemitism now in Canada is at an all-time high. It’s unprecedented.”
These are worrisome comments, but Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau agrees with her somber and unsettling appraisal.
Speaking at the National Holocaust Monument in Ottawa recently to mark Holocaust Remembrance Day, Trudeau said that, since the October 7 attack, there has been a “disturbing increase in antisemitism on a scale we have not witnessed for generations”
“Windows of synagogues have been broken and shot at (and) Jewish stores vandalized,” he noted, adding that Jewish Canadians are feeling “isolated and unsafe in their communities.”
Trudeau suggested that, with anti-Israel sentiment running high since the outbreak of the Israeli-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip, Zionism has become a dirty word. “In a country like Canada, it should be and it must be safe to declare oneself a Zionist.” He defined Zionism as the belief that Jews in Israel have “the right to determine their own future.”
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Delivering a speech at the same event, Pierre Poilievre, the leader of the Conservative party, said that antisemitic attitudes and tropes have emerged as the memory of the Holocaust fades.
“We see at university campuses the hateful anti-Jewish rhetoric directed at innocent students. We see firebombings of Canadian synagogues, something we never would have imagined a short time ago,” he said. “In the last year, antisemitic attacks are up over 100 per cent. That means the Jewish people are being doubly victimized, once with the bloodshed they witnessed in their homeland of Israel, and again on the streets and in their synagogues.”
The statistics are striking, if not depressing, reminding Canadians that tolerance can be only skin deep.
According to B’nai Brith Canada’s annual audit of antisemitic incidents, 2023 was the “most antisemitic year ever recorded.” Last year, 5,791 incidents were reported, or about 16 per day, more than double the number from 2022.
Antisemitism in Canada usually expresses itself in the form of vandalism, graffiti and verbal and physical violence, the distribution of hate propaganda, the dissemination of hatred online, bomb threats to schools and institutions, and the intimidation of Jewish university students.
“If a physical barometer did in fact exist, the reading for 2023 would be off the chart,” said Richard Robertson, B’nai Brith Canada’s director of policy and research. He is particularly worried by the 208 per cent increase in violent incidents. There were 77 such incidents last year, compared with 25 in 2022.
“The systemic nature of antisemitism has forced Canadian Jews to question the continued vitality of the nation’s Jewish communities,” he said.
The October 7 attack, he went on to say, makes it “abundantly clear that when there is unrest in Israel, Jewish Canadians suffer unduly.”
Anthony Housefather, a Liberal Party member of Parliament who represents the Montreal riding of Mount Royal, believes the tougher measures are needed to stem the tide of antisemitism.
Housefather, having been himself targeted with an antisemitic flyer last month demanding his departure from Canada, said in May that the federal government’s condemnation of antisemitism is not enough. “All levels of government need to do more immediately. Enough is enough. Canadian Jews have a right to be safe in our country.”
On July 8, Trudeau appointed him as his special advisor on combating antisemitism. Trudeau said that Jewish Canadians must be able to live in “security and dignity.”
Housefather described Trudeau’s decision to appoint him to this new position as “a very significant step to address the community’s concerns.” He said he would work with Lyons to ensure that antisemitism is not normalized in Canada, which is home to one of the largest Jewish communities in the world.
The October 7 attack, he noted, makes it “abundantly clear that when there is unrest in Israel, Jewish Canadians suffer unduly.”
There have been a drumbeat of antisemitic attacks, the most recent of which occurred in northern Toronto on June 30, when still unidentified assailants threw rocks through the windows of two synagogues — Pride of Israel and Kehillat Shaarei Torah, which has been attacked several times in the past few months.
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On June 4, the windows of the Anshei Minsk synagogue were smashed.
On May 25, shots were fired at the Bais Chaya Mushka School for Girls in North York, an incident Trudeau denounced as despicable, a brazen act of antisemitism.”
In March, pro-Palestinian protesters tried to block people from attending a presentation at a synagogue in Toronto in which real estate agents were selling homes in Israel and the occupied West Bank.
Toronto police say that antisemitic hate crimes have risen by 64 percent since last October, that about 240 hate-related charges have been laid, and that more than half of the reported hate crimes have been directed at Jews, followed by gays and lesbians, black people and Muslims.
Montreal, with Canada’s largest Jewish community after Toronto, also has been hit by a wave of antisemitic incidents. The most recent one occurred on May 30, when the front doors of Schara Tzedeck Synagogue were doused with fuel and set ablaze. The day before, a gunshot was fired into the Ketana yeshiva.
Across the rest of Canada, the window of a synagogue in Kitchener was smashed, while a shul in Vancouver was set on fire.
Jews in Canada, a peaceful and progressive nation, have lived charmed lives for decades now, but this golden era could well be drawing to a close.