OP-ED: The Carney government’s wholly inadequate response to the scourge of anti-Semitism

"An almost-unnoticed recent incident in the U.S. demonstrates the contrast to Canada’s response to mounting Jew-hatred."

Source: Facebook

Author: Lynne Cohen

An almost-unnoticed recent incident in the U.S. demonstrates the contrast to Canada’s response to mounting Jew-hatred. When a Harvard University visiting professor from Brazil was observed wielding a rifle near a Boston-area synagogue on Yom Kippur, U.S. officials acted without hesitation. His visa was cancelled, he faced criminal charges and he ultimately left the country “voluntarily” after further enforcement pressure by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The message was unambiguous: threats to Jewish safety would be met with serious consequences.

Such decisive action is utterly unlike Canada’s response to rising antisemitism. Here, Jews are being told to hang onto “hope.” In front of a Senate committee, Canadian Race Relations Foundation CEO Mohammed Hashim recently described the protection of Canada’s 400,000 Jews not as a critical government responsibility but as a “difficult aspiration”.

There’s no longer any serious argument as to the threat. Jew-hatred, ancient but sometimes obscure, surged significantly across the Western world after the shocking and bloody attack by Hamas on October 7, 2023 that killed more than 1,200 Israelis. The accompanying sharp rise in Jew-hatred and related crimes is backed up by hard data published by Statistics Canada, which also confirms that Jews already belonged to the most besieged religious community in Canada.

Across the country, synagogues and Jewish schools have been fired at and vandalized, Jewish neighborhoods have been overwhelmed by relentless protests involving violent rhetoric, mezuzahs have been ripped off doorframes, and Jewish students, staff and professors have been harassed. Police responses have been subdued while a shockingly high number of Canada’s political leaders remain cowed or seemingly uninterested.

Toronto appears the epicentre of Canadian antisemitism. From repeated gunfire against Jewish schools to vandalism of synagogues and menacing demonstrations being indulged by city police in high-density Jewish neighborhoods, the escalating Jew-hatred is frightening throughout that city. Mayor Olivia Chow can barely hide her apparent distaste for Jews – though couched in criticism of Israel.

Toronto isn’t the only city where antisemitism has surged. In Victoria, graffiti calls for the deaths of Jews; in Montreal leading politicians are bullied by activists propounding pro-Hamas messages under the guise of defending “Palestinians”; and in Toronto the Eaton Centre is brought to a halt on Boxing Day by keffiyeh-clad demonstrators blaring hate through megaphones – again with police doing nothing to halt the madness.

While the U.S. has suffered much more serious and deadly antisemitic attacks in recent years, that country has also responded much more vigorously, especially over the past year. Federal prosecutions against violent assaults are aggressive and executive authority is being used widely to send the message that antisemitism will not be tolerated. (The U.S. campaign to counter antisemitism will be the focus of my next column.)

Canada’s answer has by contrast been tentative, disjointed and even contradictory. The Mark Carney government appears to have revived the devious tactic of “triangulation” – made famous under former U.S. President Bill Clinton – whereby politicians issue rhetorical promises to one voting bloc while implementing conflicting and often more substantive policies aimed at gaining the support of an opposing and often larger voting bloc.

While Carney and his ministers suitably bemoan attacks on Jews in Canada and elsewhere, their actions speak differently.

As Noah Shack, president of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, put it in a recent column, “It is a failure of public policy to have a law that bans a $10 donation to Hamas but permits organizing a pro-Hamas rally for 10,000 people.” Also scandalous is that Samidoun, a Palestinian terrorist-supporting organization that was finally named as such by the Government of Canada late in 2024, continues to enjoy non-profit status in this country while its two Canadian-based principals live their lives freely here despite being barred from EU countries.

The Liberal government’s conduct of foreign affairs appears similarly guided by triangulation. After the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) was found to have employees who actually participated in the October 7 massacre, Canada joined the U.S. in suspending UNRWA funding – but then reopened the financial taps a few months later.

Canada also accepted legally unsound International Criminal Court arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamim Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, the former Minister of Defence. The Carney government has thus joined the radical Palestinian push to delegitimize Israel – an action that speaks far louder than a few consoling words tweeted out about murdered Jews in Australia.

The Carney government is even undermining its own official effort to counter antisemitism. The National Forum on Combatting Antisemitism launched with a mushy opening meeting last March that, instead of focusing laser-like on anti-Semitism as its name implied, made incessant references to “hate crimes in all its (sic) forms” and similar phrasing. And the meeting was preceded – and badly undercut – by an opposing document, The Canadian Guide to Understanding and Combatting Islamophobia: For a More Inclusive Canada. This six-chapter, 99-page report is aimed at convincing Canadians of a newly identified (and basically imaginary) scourge: “Anti-Palestinian Racism.”

Nor has the Liberal government done anything to clamp down on Jew-hatred at Canada’s universities, the ideological ground zero of 21^st century anti-Semitism. In clear violation of campus rulebooks and guidelines, filthy campsites lionizing Hamas, calls for Israel’s annihilation and the harassment of Jewish students and faculty went unpunished for months. Far from being above the fray, school administrators defended many of the actions as free speech. Foreign students, some eventually associated with radical plots, held prominent roles, revealing dangerous breaches in screening methods.

My family in Thornhill has been profoundly affected by Canada’s rising tide of antisemitism. My daughter and her husband have increased security in their home and have had to shift the routines of their children. No longer are the kids allowed to take public transportation, even together. She and her entire family are even contemplating moving to Israel, where there is at least a government devoted absolutely to their safety and security.

The original, full-length version of this article was recently published in C2C Journal.

Lynne Cohen is a non-practising lawyer and journalist. She has written six books, four of them published, including the ghost-written Holocaust memoir The Life of Moshele Der Zinger: How My Singing Saved My Life.