The Decibel - How rising antisemitism is affecting Canadian Jews

Episode Date: July 3, 2024

Since October 7th, antisemitic incidents in Canada have been on the rise. Toronto Police Deputy Chief Robert Johnson said that nearly half of all hate crimes so far in 2024 have been antisemitic. In a single week in May, a girls’ school in Toronto was shot at, bullets were found outside a Montreal Jewish school inside a synagogue, and a Vancouver synagogue was set on fire. While no one was hurt, it left Canadian Jews feeling unsettled. And over the Canada Day weekend, two synagogues in Toronto were vandalized.Ellin Bessner is an investigative journalist who hosts the Canadian Jewish News’ daily podcast, The CJN Daily. She’s on the show to talk about how Jewish Canadians have been affected by this rise in antisemitism.Questions? Comments? Ideas? Email us at [e-mail]

Since the Israel-Hamas war broke out in October, both Jewish and Muslim communities in Canada have experienced an increase in hate crimes. According to the Toronto Police, hate crimes overall are up nearly 55% over the last year. Almost half of those hate crimes were anti-Semitic. While Canada doesn't release national numbers on anti-Semitism, police in other cities have reported similar upticks. Because of this, we wanted to spend today focusing on the rise of anti-Semitism in Canada. And while we're seeing a rise in incidents now, anti-Semitism doesn't happen in a vacuum. There's a long history of discrimination against Jews in Canada. Ellen Besner is a

journalist with the Canadian Jewish News. She spent the last eight months talking to people about what's going on in their communities. Today, Ellen joins us to talk about what's at the root of anti-Semitism, how Jewish people are reacting to this increase in hate, and where she's finding hope. I'm Cheryl Sutherland, and this is The Decibel from The Globe and Mail. Ellen, thanks so much for being here today. Thanks for having me. So we've been hearing about this rise in anti-Semitism since October 7th, and you host a daily podcast.

What have people you've been interviewing, people you've been talking to, what have they been saying that they've been going through? It's a flood of things that I get that I can barely put into my show. But I hear things such as there are people in schools in Ottawa where they toss pennies at the Jewish kids. They tell them Heil Hitler salutes when Holocaust survivors come and speak at the school. When you go to drop your kid off at a school that's a Jewish school now, you have to literally drive one by one to the door. A security guard comes out with the staff. The child comes out of the car, goes into the school, and that's one by one by one. There's barriers up. There's guards everywhere. There's police command posts.

Ten synagogues have been firebombed or vandalized. Schools have been shot at. Plays of Jewish content, like theater plays, have been canceled. Members of parliament who are Jewish and Jewish leaders are receiving death threats, and they can't leave their home. They have to go with guards. They have to make sure they know where they're going. They curtail their events.

Who are you talking about here when you talk about members of parliament? I'm talking about the Jewish members of parliament. I'm talking about Melissa Lansman. I'm talking about Yara Sachs. I'm talking about Anthony Housefather. I'm talking about Erwin Kotler, former member of parliament, Canada's first special envoy about anti-Semitism and combating Holocaust denial. And he had to stay in his home in Canada because of death threats.

This is what is happening in our country. Yeah, let's talk a little bit about what's been happening, because there have been synagogues that have been targeted. There was one in Vancouver that was firebombed. Ten in the last few months, a lot more in the last month and a half. Yeah, there was Vancouver, there was a school in Toronto, and a synagogue in Montreal that was shot at. Kitchener, London, Fredericton, many in Montreal. But it's not just that, it's also bomb threats as well. So what are the leaders? How have

they been dealing with it? The leaders of these institutions? How have they been dealing with these incidents? So I'm glad you asked that question. If you talk to the community and the rabbis, let's talk about the schools, for example. I interviewed Rabbi Rosenblatt. And where's Rabbi Rosenblatt? Andy Rosenblatt is from Vancouver's Shahr Tzedek. It's a large, I think, 117-year-old synagogue. And they had an accelerant poured onto their front door, and they tried to burn the synagogue down. So I asked him, so how are you reacting to this?

He comes from a long line of cantors and rabbis. This is his heritage. He's never had to deal with anything like this. And he said he hates this. He hates anti-Semitism because it's not how Jews should be celebrating their faith and their culture and their tradition, which is that it's a beautiful tradition. It's a beautiful religion. There's so much positivity. Instead, it's being defined by who hates us the most and why everyone hates us. And that's not how he wants to live. And that's not how Jews want to live is being defined by everyone's hate, as opposed to our 3,000-year-old, 5,000-year-old tradition. I want to talk about the numbers here, because there are these incidents of fire bombings, which are quite scary. But it's not just that. There are other incidents happening. So

how many incidents do we know that are happening of anti-Semitism in Canada? What kind of numbers do we know? Okay, so first of all, we should tell your listeners, there's 400,000 Jews in Canada. That is about 1%. And it's the fourth largest Jewish community in the world. Israel's first, France, United States, and then Canada. So there have been Jews here for 350 years. And when you talk about incidents of antisemitism, there wasn't social media before this. So if there was hate, it would be in the newspapers. It would be Jews weren't allowed to, for example, own property in certain parts of the country. They weren't allowed to be accepted to medical school. Many people will know the U of T, McGill and the University in Winnipeg had quotas. So Jews who were excellent students couldn't get accepted. That was before the Second World War. And Jews couldn't work in certain businesses. They weren't allowed to have memberships in any of the golf courses or private clubs. They had to open their own hospitals because Jewish doctors weren't allowed. This is

nothing that we don't know about. Canada has a terrible record up until the 1940s and 50s of discrimination against Jews. It's a long history there. There was the whole none is too many, which was what the federal minister of immigration told Mackenzie King in the 1930s when Jews wanted to escape Hitler's Europe. And he was asked, how many Jewish refugees will you take? And he said, none is too many.

And Canada took 5,000 until the end of 1947, which means everyone who wanted to come to Canada either had nowhere to go and died in the concentration camps, and I wouldn't say everyone, but the majority, or they had, luckily, maybe to go to the States or Australia or other places. But no, that was a shame and a black mark on Canada's treatment of its Jewish citizens. And it was only in 2018 that the Prime Minister apologized for that treatment of Canada's Jews. That's a long tangent, but we have to sort of set the history up. There was only 16,000 Jews in Canada during the Second World War, and now we're 400,000.

And it's not growing very much. Right. So we have 400,000 Jews in Canada. And so what are we seeing in terms of the numbers? So in terms of anti-Semitism, whether it's B'nai B'rith keeping statistics or the Canadian police who report hate crimes, university chapters like Hillel all across the country are taking in reports. Jewish federations are taking in reports. There is no one centralized data, unfortunately, place where we can say definitively this is how many. However, B'nai B'rith has been tracking for 40 years. I would say B'nai B'rith is Canada's affiliate with B'nai B'rith International, which promotes Jewish unity and continuity, but it tracks these numbers. And they have an annual report which comes out every year, just like the ADL does, just

like Tel Aviv University does. And it tracks physical, it tracks actual graffiti, it tracks also online hate and their numbers have been controversial because actual sociologists who are academics say the methodology is flawed and they discredit some of the way they gather all these information their numbers are even if you think that it's not consistent uh in terms of how a sociology professor would do it, they sold over 5,000 incidents this past year in 2023, way up from 2022. What was the number in 2022? About 2,700. So Toronto police said more than 50% increase in hate crimes over last year.

Anti-Semitism, the top category for occurrences. Officers are seeing five hate crimes every single day right in Toronto that they have to go to. And 300 suspected hate crimes since October 7th have reported in 243 charges, 94 arrests, mostly for mischief, uttering threats, assault, crimes against property as well, that people are defacing or actually firebombing a restaurant that happened in North York or in Montreal where an Israeli falafel joint was damaged, attacked. But it's also they're doing it online. They're putting horrible social media posts, bad reviews on restaurants. It's not just the physical things. Right. I want to bring it back to a very specific

thing because we're talking about antisemitism and I don't think we've actually really defined what we're talking about here. So when we talk about antisemitism, what do we mean when we say that? So antisemitism is, and this is my, I'm not the definer of it, it was defined in the 1800s, is a hate of someone who is Jewish because they are Jewish, because of their religion, because of their culture, because of their beliefs. Many times, for example, it would be holding Jews up to a double standard, that Jews are basically responsible for all the bad things that happen in the world because they're Jewish, economic, COVID, nationalism, hunger, famine, you name it, immigration, high interest rates. It's all the Jews' fault. This is part of the tropes that happen.

And it's not just from now. Where did that idea come from? Well, there's several historic tenets. First of all, partly going back to the Catholic Church. They forgot that Pontius Pilate was the one that crucified Jesus, and they made it so the Jews would be responsible. And they taught that for centuries. In 1963, Second Vatican Council came,

and the Pope, John XXIII, said, no, it was actually all the world that killed Jesus. It wasn't the Jewish people's fault. Stop teaching this. That was a huge moment. But the damage was done. And then for generations before that, there were in the Inquisition and in the Crusades, Jews were accused of blood libel, drinking the blood of Christian children for their Passover holidays, which is, again, libel. It never happened. It's crazy. Anyway, blood's not kosher.

We're not allowed. It's not. We're not allowed to drink any blood, which is why all our meat has to be slaughtered a certain way. But those are still happening now, that the Jew is the parasite, vampire, blood-sucking communist or capitalist. It depends on what point of view, but we're blamed for either the left or the right. And that is what you're seeing now. And historically, also, Jews were often used as the moneylenders because they weren't allowed to be in other kinds of guilds in medieval times.

So they would be not allowed to be in real estate or in law or in medicine or any actual trades, but they would be the money lenders. So then, of course, Jews helped many people become successful and they became successful and the Rothschilds and the banking. But that was because they were shut out of everything else. And eventually Jews were put in the margins because whenever there was problems in those countries, even though Jews were accepted in many countries, eventually the welcome mat is removed. And that's what people are worrying about here. And I'm going to tell you, from anecdotal experience,

people are starting to say, I'm going to sell my house. I'm going to take my money out. I'm going to try to find another place to move. Many people are moving to Israel or talking about it, even though Israel is not safe. You're talking about people in Canada here? I'm going to try to find another place to move. Many people are moving to Israel or talking about it, even though Israel is not safe. You're talking about people in Canada here. I'm talking about Canadians. Like people are thinking of where to run. And these are just anecdotal information from you. This is people you've been talking to. This is now they're going to meetings with their advisors and saying, how do I, I got to pack a suitcase. We'll be right back.

In the context of the war, we are hearing criticism of the government of Israel. And sometimes that criticism is called anti-Semitic. And I guess like this is kind of the people in good faith and in bad faith. People in good faith will talk about criticizing Israel for, I think, very, very valid reasons. And I guess, where is the line here? Like, when does criticism of Israel intersect with anti-Semitism? And this is a great question. There are so many people who don't agree with the Israeli government policy within the Jewish community here, too. So many.

People have been out protesting in the streets before October 7th to try to get rid of Benjamin Netanyahu's government because they think that it's turning into a right-wing, anti-everything, nationalistic, hateful country in terms of the government, the ruling party. When it turns into anti-Semitism is here. When you say Israel has no right to exist, all Jews should go to the gas chambers, go back to the ovens. You are baby genocidal killers. I've had that said to me by a former student of mine online. That's quite overt, but I'm wondering, is there something? So that's the line, is when Israel is held up to a double standard.

Why do you think we see a correlation between anti-Semitic incidents and the start of the war? Like, how does the war change how people are treating Jewish people? Beforehand, it was behind a mask. And I mean that literally because it was during COVID. On October 7th, when the attack happened on Israel and nothing had been done retaliating, there were already people saying, praise to the martyrs, praise to Hamas, resistance is justified. These were already having manifestations in Canada on the streets. The head of CUPE, Fred Hahn, tweeted on that Thanksgiving weekend, how wonderful resistance is.

So these tendencies that were already always longstanding were allowed to be unmasked. I think it's, I'm going to get into social media here because I think it's fair to say that viewpoints about the war are all over social media. I see them in my feed every day and it's quite fraught when it comes to what I'm seeing on my feed. But I wanted to ask you, Ellen, based on the people you've spoken to in your work as a journalist, what have you learned about how social media has played into what we're seeing with anti-Semitism? So it's true of also before the war, before October 7th. It spreads like the speed of lightning, even if it may or may not be true.

Or there's somebody that says, oh, what's happening at the corner of Bathurst and Glencairn, for example, there's a social media Facebook group called Everything Jewish in Toronto, which has about 50,000 members. It's an amazing group. It's been there for years. But now it's kind of like the telegraph, the drum beating. It's like, what did you see? Where is it safe? Who can I find? And if they say if something happens, they see a poster or they see something, everybody piles on and they're all outraged. And then it turns out, well, yes, it was true or no, it's not. In terms of young people, I'm the parent of a university age student and I talk to students all the time. And it is a cesspool.

It is so upsetting to see the hate that they are getting on their Instagram feeds, on the comments. If you post a beautiful picture of you lighting the Friday night candles, the Shabbat candles, with your challah, which is a religious thing, nothing to do with Israel, Gaza, the hate that you get on your comments is, how can you be doing that when you're genocidal, murdering Israeli babies? This is what you get. So I don't post anything personal, ever. And I only post work stuff, like our stories. And is what you get. So I don't post anything personal ever. And I only post work

stuff like our stories. And I still get hate. We have to close the comments. The hate that comes on social media is, it's just horrible. I know a lot of people have stopped going on it. They just stopped. They just stopped because it's not good for your mental health. Let's talk about your podcast, the CJN Daily. I was listening to a couple episodes and one of them that I found really interesting was where you spoke to Robert Brim. He's a professor of sociology at the University of Toronto and he researches Canadian attitudes towards Jewish people. And something that he found was that 83% of Canadians express positive attitudes towards Jews.

And this is a survey that was published in the spring of 2024, which is at the same time that we're seeing this rise in anti-Semitic incidents. So what do you make of this research? Well, I mean, I'm not an academic, so I can't say whether it was accurate or not, but he's a very well-respected academic. He's a well-respected sociologist, and he's been measuring the Jewish community for years. And he and his colleagues have been publishing on this for years. So I was actually surprised by that data. And a lot of people were surprised. And

the headline was, no, not everyone hates you. The perception though, is that he did survey Jews and two thirds of Canadian Jews think everyone hates us. Interesting. So there's this disconnect. So there's something happening here where there's Jews think that people hate them, but in fact that the surveys of Canadians is 83% have positive views. Right. Yeah.

About Jews. Because they don't really know many Jews. Most people don't know many Jews. Most people in Canada probably never deal with them on a day-to-day basis, especially in smaller communities. He did also survey for Muslim university students, Quebecers, and young people. And there is the areas, the four parts of his survey where there is very strong anti-Jewish, anti-Israel feelings. So those are the loud, small voices. But those loud, small voices have taken over the front pages of our newspapers, our television coverage, our social media, our political discourse, and changed the way Canadian Jews feel.

You're saying two things at once, right? That the two-thirds of Jews feel like everyone hates them, and yet there's at least this one researcher that says 83% of Canadians feel positive perceptions of Jewish people. Does that give you hope? Well, yes, it does. There is a group that I wrote a story about called Standing Together, which has Jews and Palestinians in it. It's an Israeli-formed group. They have a chapter in Canada that just started,

and they've been sending people all across the country to speak. And I interviewed one of the Canadians. It's one of the most moving podcast episodes I did with Yaffa Sakeja. Shout out to Yaffa. We don't agree on many things, but we were able to listen to each other, be respectful, show empathy and understanding. And that is the key. I think the one-on-ones, these interactions with people who you can have a difference with,

but they're not telling you, we want to murder you, you're a genocidal killer, get off and go back to the ovens. They're not saying these things. And then you can talk. Having talked to her about how her trauma

and her family losing their homes in Jaffa and how she's become an ally. And we should say also Jaffa is Palestinian. She's a Palestinian Canadian. Yeah. So that was very hopeful to me is the willingness to go together, stand together. I think it kind of shows this idea of building bridges. What did that conversation mean to you? I changed my mind about a lot of things. Because, you know, we live in an echo chamber,

many people. And I don't think many Jewish people want to talk to Palestinians because they're afraid or they're angry or they're hurt or they're scared or they're outraged. Or, you know, pro-Palestinian people who yell at you and have this hateful symbols and signs and chants. Like, it's scary. It didn't help the peace activists in Israel, the Canadian peace activists who were murdered, like Vivian Silver, may she rest in peace, who were building bridges. It didn't help that they were activists for peace. They were murdered. So it's scary to take those steps. I want to tell you that we've

agreed to have tea together in person. That's lovely. And I'm so happy to do that. I want to do that. I want to try. I have to tell her that she wants to meet at a certain place in Toronto which didn't allow Jews in before the 50s and 60s

and so I'm a little uncomfortable going there. I might not. But then she said, I told her about it. It's called the Granite Club and Jews weren't allowed. But then she said, let's do a little resistance and we'll both go. So I like that. I might just go anyway. Because you've got to be brave now.

This is time for bravery. This is my time. This is my time. This is our time. We grew up in Canada, I grew up in the 60s, the 70s, the 80s, where it was the promise, it was the golden Medina, the promised land, we had everything we could want, we could become the Supreme Court of Canada Chief Justice, we could be academics, we could be stars, we could be movie stars, we could be singers, we could be stars. We could be movie stars. We could be singers. We could be actors. We could be comedians. We could be politicians. We could be anything we wanted and do anything. And now I'm afraid for my kids. I'm afraid for my friends' kids. I don't

know how they're going to live in a country that's like this, in a world that's like this. And I think dialogue and listening are the only way. Someone told me, a rabbi told me recently, God gave you two ears and one mouth. There's a reason for that. Ellen, this has been a really interesting conversation. Thank you so much for coming on the show today. Thank you for having me.

That's it for today. I'm Cheryl Sutherland. Our producers are Madeline White, Rachel Levy-McLaughlin, and Michal Stein. David Crosby edits the show. Adrian Chung is our senior producer, and Matt Frainer is our managing editor.

Thanks so much for listening.