I’ve posted several year-in-reviews of Canadian digital policy (blogs, podcasts, Substacks), but the most important story this year for me and the Jewish community was the relentless rise of antisemitism in Canada. Over the course of the year, I appeared before the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage to emphasize the chilling effect of antisemitism, wrote op-eds in the Globe and Mail (2), National Post, and the Hub, and posted countless pieces on antisemitism in our streets and campuses. There were posts on the need for academic institutions to adhere to the principle of institutional neutrality, support for the government’s guide on the IHRA definition of antisemitism, social media challenges, and even a podcast on Wikipedia’s antisemitism problem. Canada is not alone in dealing with a dramatic rise in antisemitism, but when the attacks hit your synagogue, school, or community centre and it is your leaders that fail to respond, it hits close to home.
After more than a year of waking up to yet another story of a shooting at a Jewish school or Nazi-era slogans on our streets, three things stand out for me. The first is the problem on university campuses, my work home for more than 25 years. For example, consider the court ruling involving the University of Toronto encampment that ultimately led to its closure. Some jumped at the judge’s finding that the evidence did not link the hate speech directly to an encampment protester. Yet this was what he found on campus:
There can be no doubt that some of the speech on the exterior of the encampment rises to the level of hate speech. This has included comments like: “kike”, “baby killer”, “get away and go be with the Jews.”, “We need another holocost” [sic], “Jews in the sea Palestine will be free”, “Jews belong in the sea Palestine will be free”, “Death To the Jews, Hamas for Prime Minister”, “You dirty fucking Jew. Go back to Europe”, “Jews should go back to Europe”, “fuck the Jews”, “I hate every fucking one of you people” (to a group of people carrying Israeli flags), and “Itbach El Yahod” ( “slaughter the Jews”).
We would never tolerate this for any other group on campus. Yet Jewish students and faculty not only faced this hate, but faced the claims there was no real issue on campus. Further, the challenges on campus extended to opposition to efforts to identify antisemitism or agreements featuring one-sided political statements that sacrificed the university’s position as a neutral forum for discussion, debate and learning. The cumulative effect of months of this discrimination – Jewish students and faculty left to feel unsafe on campus, told their political or religious beliefs are unwelcome, or the failure to enforce university policies on student non-discrimination – created a normalization of antisemitism that was once unthinkable on Canadian campuses.
The second is the steadfast denial from some that there is an antisemitism problem or the efforts to explain or justify its rise. As I wrote over the summer:
The disbelief is seemingly everywhere: evidence of Jewish women sexually assaulted during the Oct. 7 massacres is repeatedly doubted, while shootings at schools and vandalism at synagogues and Jewish community centres have been dismissed by some as false flags. Indeed, virtually anyone actively calling out antisemitism on social media is by now accustomed to the obscene flurry of replies that at best question the veracity of the reports and at worst traffic in Nazi-style propaganda.
Police data on the shocking rise of hate crimes should have ended any debate about the gravity of the current situation. Jews account for less than 4 per cent of Toronto’s population, but since the start of the year, Toronto police report that 45 per cent of reported hate crimes involved antisemitism. Yet here too many profess disbelief, questioning the data by arguing that antisemitism is over-reported or implausibly claiming that there is no overlap between anti-Zionism and antisemitism.
The consequences manifest themselves in ways both visible and invisible. Police presence at Jewish schools and events are now commonplace and community events withhold publicizing location information and conduct security screenings for attendees. Less visible, yet no less disturbing, is the need many feel to conceal their identity by removing mezuzahs from door posts, hiding Star of Davids or other Jewish identifiers, speaking in hushed tones when speaking about antisemitism in public, or simply remaining silent for fear of backlash at work or school.
The third is the failure of leadership with too many saying little and doing even less about a societal problem that poses a threat to the foundations of Canadian values of equality. As I wrote in May post called This is Who We Are Now:
The pinnacle of failure is reserved for our political leaders. From the initial hesitation to call out antisemitism on its own to the inadequate reliance on tweets to respond to a true crisis, too many leaders have been missing in action or occasionally have added their own fuel to the fire. I know many are grateful for the consistent voices of MPs such as Housefather, Mendicino, Lantsman, and Vuong, Senators such as Housakos, and Provincial MPPs and MLAs such as MacLeod and Robinson. This is by no means an exhaustive list, but the ultimate leadership must come from Trudeau, Ford, Eby, Legault and others that command the largest audience and most authority. Their voices and their presence is needed again and again with leadership that leave no doubt about right, wrong, and the zero tolerance for antisemitic behaviour and violence. Beyond words, they must implement policies that demand law enforcement enforce the law and universities uphold their policies. In other words, they must lead by example, not by tweeting that this isn’t who we are, but by actively working to make it so.
Antisemitism in Canada has shown few signs of abating and as we enter a new year, the need for leadership and for the broader community to speak out is more critical than ever.