LEVY: The Jewish families fleeing Canada for safer Florida life
Sue-Ann Levy writes, "As the reality of what Carney and the Liberals are doing to destroy Canada and to embolden Jew hatred sinks in, people are starting to realize Canada is no longer a safe place."
Irina and Mark Gross moved from midtown Toronto to South Florida for good in June of 2024.
Irina came to Canada from the former Soviet Union, where she could not practice her Jewish religion. In recent years, she has started to wonder what kind of life she was going to give her kids in Canada.
Their concerns escalated during COVID when everything was “locked up” in Canada, while everything was open in Florida.
They flew down in May of 2021 and as they say, “after a year of living in Communist Canada, it was like a breath of fresh air.”
Now Canada has moved dramatically to the left politically, says Mark, which has caused a shocking rise in Jew hatred.
“I grew up in an environment where it wasn’t safe to be Jewish,” says Irina. “Now Canadians are feeling it for the first time.”
Mark pursued the most common route for Canadians now seeking entry into the United States — the E2 visa.
Essentially, that involves investing up to $100K in a business or starting a business and operating it for up to five years.
It gives the successful applicant non-immigrant status but is seen as an entry to a green card and immigrant status.
With an E2 visa, the spouse of the successful applicant is also permitted to work, if they so wish.
It involves negotiating the tax and health care implications of leaving Canada, including likely giving up OHIP coverage.
“They don’t make it easy for you,” says Mark, referring to the Canadian government’s desire to tax you before you leave.
Mark still has a call centre business in Canada, but for the E2, he bought into an express hair dye business in Florida – a physical salon.
Other than the investment, his involvement is “pretty hands off.”
He said the hardest part for him was finding a “viable business.”
Irina, who didn’t work for 20 years, met someone in her fitness class who got her into physician recruiting.
She’s had several doctors call her from Toronto and ask her if they can be placed here.
“They say, they can’t do this anymore (in Canada),” she said. “There’s going to be a brain drain from Canada, especially Jewish doctors.
“I think it has a lot to do with being Jewish,” she said. “Toronto is not feeling the way it used to feel.”
Ben Feferman moved to south Florida from Thornhill in 2021 with his wife and four kids and has never looked back.’
I met him at a lovely outdoor dinner he’d organized to raise money for kosher food for people in need in south Florida.
It was so nice to attend a Jewish event without a cop standing nearby for protection.
Feferman said he moved for the quality of life, better weather and the ability to spend more time outside by the ocean, and at the time, being free of COVID lockdowns.
He has been part of a growing Jewish community and runs an organization called Kosher4Less.
The desire to get out of Canada (and specifically Toronto) has become so intense as of late that there is a private FB page of those who are trying to get an E2 Visa or who have already gotten one and are available for advice.
Attorney Lauren Cohen has started an entire business to assist those who want to get mostly an E2 Visa to move.
The committed Zionist and single mom moved from Toronto for good 25 years ago and is appalled with what is going on in Canada.
In the last week alone she’s heard from five dentists —one an orthodontist.
Since Mark Carney was elected, there has been a “big uptick” in interest but not necessarily conversions.
However, as the reality of what Carney and the Liberals are doing to destroy Canada and to embolden Jew hatred (my words) sinks in, people are starting to realize Canada is no longer a safe place for them.
”This year is going to be a very significant year,” she said. “It is going to be unprecedented in terms of the level of business.”
Although she had spent considerable time writing business plans for a lot of other immigration lawyers after she got licensed by the US bar in 1996, it was 2007 when she really got into her own business.
When her ex-husband was deported on the way back from their honeymoon, she became determined to ensure others didn’t get bad immigration advice as the couple had.
Her ex was pardoned in Canada (for selling illegal Rolexes in Montreal), but that was considered a crime of “moral turpitude” which precluded his entry into the United States and sent him back to Thailand where they’d honeymooned.
”We went through a lot,” she said, noting that they are now divorced, but she got a book and a business out of it.
The book is called “Finding Your Silver Lining in the Immigration Process.”
Cohen says she “oversees the entire process” leading towards a visa, whether it be the E2 or the EB5, the latter of which involves investing a considerable sum in real estate.
“I am the partner of the client,” she said.
Cohen feels that it is important to have someone who really has one’s back, considering that, since Donald Trump was elected, applicants have to “jump through more hoops” to get into the United States.
”The rules have changed, the level of due diligence has changed, the scrutiny of cases has changed and the processing times have changed,” she says.
She says the application and the business have to be “viable” — not a “short-term fix, but a long-term plan.
”If you have a few shekels and this is the lifestyle you want, I’ll find a way to get you here,” she says. “I have the contacts, that’s what you get with me …You get that Rolodex of people who are quality people who work with my clients.”
Enid Gottlieb said it took her 10 years to convince her lawyer husband to move to West Palm Beach from Oakville.
She’d had quite enough of snowstorms and winters when they were forced to stay inside for an extended period of time.
The “cherry on top” were the COVID lockdowns when they were “pretty much locked in.”
She felt it “unnatural” to be inside for an “extended period of time” with three energetic young boys.
She was already into real estate when she found Cohen to help her facilitate the move.
But an opportunity really came to light when her third little guy had medical issues — in his case, club feet — and the best doctors were in West Palm Beach.
While she was down there, she rented a random B&B. But she soon discovered that other medical tourists needed lodging.
That became her business — namely, short-term rentals for medical tourists.
The whole family made the move to Florida in the summer of 2024. She bought a main home with two units and now she’s working to grow her business.
Her husband, a business lawyer, works for Canadians virtually.
The 38-year-old Gotlieb, who has a joie de vivre even when being interviewed, said her three sons, 9, 7 and 3, love being down in Florida.
She says they do a lot of sports outside, go to the beach, where they entertain themselves for hours and enjoy fishing.
At the “well-rated” primary school they found, she discovered that her boys, when tested, were two grade levels behind.
”The school really let us down in Canada,’ she said.
The family has joined the Palm Beach synagogue, which is “very welcoming” and her youngest also goes to the Chabad in Palm Beach.
They left Canada just as things (the anti-Semitic acts) were ramping up.
Although there was a “general sense of uneasiness” in the Jewish community, it hadn’t yet gotten as far as people burning or shooting up things.
”(Here in Florida) I don’t feel the same sense that someone may come and stab or bomb us,” she said.
Mark loves “everything” about living in Florida except for not seeing his family much.
They have made a good life and already have “very close friends” in Florida.
Irina says she’s “embarrassed” to talk about what is going on in Toronto and in Canada.
”Our American friends can’t believe it,” she says.
Even her Liberal sister now thinks “Canada is a dumpster fire.”
“I see it getting worse, says Irina.
”We’ve met many Toronto people who’ve done the same move in the last couple of years and for the same reasons.”
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Makes sense to leave. Cost of housing is much lower if you stay away from the large cities. Pensacola has nice detached homes on large lots for under $400k USD.
No State income taxes in Florida, reasonable property taxes and nice people.
There are lots of residency options outside of the US but a lot depends on your age and stage in life. We live in Mexico part-time as permanent residents and also have residency in Panama. If not for our adult kids and the punitive exit taxes we'd leave permanently. It helps me sleep at night knowing we have a Plan B and C. I would encourage younger people to explore their options because Canada is not a good medium- or long-term bet.