Jew-Hate and 'Inquisitions' in Canada

Since the October 7 massacre in southern Israel, Jews in Canada have been under constant attack. Shooting attacks against schools, firebombings of Jewish institutions, boycotts and vandalism against businesses owned by Jews, imams inciting and telling their congregations that Jews are "vermin", and the constant marches of pro-Hamas activists chanting "long live the intifada" and "from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free" -- a euphemism for annihilating a democratic member of the United Nations, Israel.

In Montreal alone, police recorded 38 reports of hate crimes and other incidents targeting the city's Jewish community in the weeks following October 7. According to Shimon Fogel, CEO of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs: "There is a reason the Jews are being targeted on the streets of Toronto or Vancouver or Montreal. There's a reason that schools and synagogues are being firebombed. And it's because the antipathy is for the Jewish people, and the Jewish state is only an extension of the Jewish people, not something independent and separate.”

In British Columbia, where there are roughly 35,000 Jews, Provincial Premier David Eby said that he had heard "devastating" accounts of antisemitism from the Jewish community.

Eby met with leaders of Jewish groups, and said after that antisemitism "exists in schools, in civil society, in private employers, and I believe that people have had antisemitism experiences within the government of B.C. public service.”

According to Eby, in one incident, a grade-school teacher had asked students to "self-identify as Jewish" and then demanded they explain to the entire class "what Israel was doing in Gaza.”

In another incident, a student who opposed a teacher's opinion on Hamas and Israel was accused of "creating a disturbance" and told to sit outside the class.

In the heavily Jewish Toronto suburb of Thornhill, pro-Hamas protesters assembled outside two Orthodox synagogues and screamed "From the river to the sea", "intifada," and "go back to Poland." Jews walking in the street were intimidated and harassed.
Elsewhere in Toronto, a Jewish-owned delicatessen was set on fire, after "free Palestine" had been painted on the doors. In Montreal, lists of Jewish businesses were circulated on social media, asking people to boycott Jewish-owned establishments and serving as a guide for mobs to gather outside Jewish establishments to call for boycotts, as they did in front of Toronto's Jewish-owned Café Landwer.

"I think it would be impossible for our community not to feel nervous and concerned about safety issues amid the current reality," said Jaime Kirzner-Roberts, vice president for the greater Toronto area at the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA).
"Given the dramatic uptick in hate-motivated crime that we're seeing, given that visible Jews are being attacked on the street, Jewish businesses being targeted by boycotts, campaigns of intimidation and now arson, it's only natural the community is worried."
According to the daily Globe and Mail, in October, police investigated incidents where "people [were] allegedly banging on doors of Jewish homes and stealing mezuzahs.”

Canadian universities are steeped in antisemitic rhetoric, and Jewish students are harassed, with some receiving death threats and having to stay away from campus.

"Jewish students are singled out and demonized for simply being Jewish," said Jay Solomon of Hillel Canada, a network of Jewish student clubs at universities across the country, adding that antisemitism is at unprecedented levels.

According to the Vancouver Sun: "Six prominent Canadian universities, and several student unions, are currently facing class-action lawsuits from students claiming they have allowed an environment hostile to Jews to flourish on campus.”

One Jewish student, Samantha Kline, received such serious threats that she stopped going to the campus. She also described seeing antisemitic graffiti there on a daily basis.

Demonstrations feature swastikas and speakers call to "destroy the arrogant Zionists... kill them all, and do not exempt even one of them," while there are constant calls for "Intifada", "resistance" and the annihilation of Israel. Unfortunately, few lawmakers are willing to wholeheartedly condemn any of this. With a few exceptions, they choose instead to issue half-hearted statements and do virtually nothing to fight the explosion of hatred against Jews.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20511/canada-jew-hate