Aviva Klompas: Jew-hatred is not just a Jewish problem. It’s a Canadian problem

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Eight attacks. How many times Kehillat Shaarei Torahthe Toronto synagogue where I grew up, celebrated my bat mitzvah and was a youth director was targeted. Once would have been too many. Eight times is a national disgrace.

I remember Kehillat Shaarei Torah as a place full of warmth and community. Today, it sits behind a newly installed security fence, its windows repeatedly smashed and the property defaced with hate messages – the latest just last week. This is the grim new reality for Jewish institutions in Canada.

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The synagogue of my childhood is far from alone. Across Canada, Jewish institutions are under siege. Also last week, there was Chaim Mushka, a girls’ elementary school in Toronto shot a third time and Congregation Beth Tikvah, a synagogue in Montreal, was bombed for the second time. These are not isolated incidents, but part of a frightening pattern.

Canadian Jews, who make up less than one percent of the population, are the target over 70 percent of all religiously motivated crimes. Despite these shocking statistics, the response from Canada’s leaders has been shamefully inadequate.

Politicians issue statements of sympathy, condemning the attacks and feigning outrage. Prime Minister Trudeau said was “sick” while Mayor Olivia Chow said“That’s enough.” But these words are meaningless when not accompanied by action. They have had more than a year to act – and yet Jewish institutions are being attacked again and again.

The prime minister, premier, mayor and any other elected official who claims to care about the tapestry of Canadian society should spend a week working in synagogues like Kehillat Shaarei Torah or one of the country’s Jewish schools. Perhaps then, when they are on the receiving end of a tsunami of threats and violence, they will finally back up their words and act with the urgency this crisis demands.

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So far, divine intervention—or perhaps the fortuitous mercy of circumstances—has prevented these attacks from ending in the kind of horrific tragedy witnessed by Jewish communities elsewhere, such as massacre at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018, where eleven were killed and six were wounded, some of them Holocaust survivors. This fragile luck, however, is no substitute for government policy or action. Each new act of hate brings us closer to an unthinkable outcome, one that words of outrage and condolences will never undo.

Instead, anti-Semitism was allowed to fester and grow. Canada is failing to learn from history. In 1930s Europe, anti-Semitism did not stop at destroying Jewish lives; it undermined the very fabric of society, paving the way for totalitarian regimes and eroding the democratic values ​​we now hold dear until Canada and the other allied powers went to war to destroy that threat.

Hate is a pollution that does not remain confined to a group or a place. It spreads, infecting everything it touches.

That poison is already visible on the streets of Canada. Masked kefieh-clad mobs march through major cities, burn Canadian flags, vandalize monuments and intimidate anyone who dares to disagree with their ideology. What begins as targeted hatred against Jews inevitably grows into a broader attack on the freedoms and values ​​that define our society.

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These attacks do not occur in a vacuum. Every unpunished act of violence and every ignored plea for protection sends a dangerous message: that hatred and bigotry are allowed.

This global rise in Jew-hatred is inexcusable everywhere, but its prevalence in Canada is particularly shameful. Canada was the first nation to adopt multiculturalism as a official policy since 1971subsequently enshrining it in law by means of Canadian Multiculturalism Act since 1988. Canadians pride themselves on being champions of diversity and tolerance, but today, what they tolerate is violence and bigotry.

For over two decades, Kehillat Shaarei Torah has been a second home to me. Seeing him attacked again and again is heartbreaking and terrifying. Canadian Jews are resilient, but resilience alone is not enough. We cannot fight this battle alone.

Canada’s leaders have failed Canadian Jews. They failed to protect synagogues and schools from attacks. They failed to bring the perpetrators to justice. They have failed to take significant steps to deter further violence.

Worst of all, they have failed to recognize that Jew-hatred is not just a Jewish problem, it is a Canadian problem.

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If our leaders do not act – if they do not prioritize the safety and dignity of Canadian Jews – it will not be just the Jewish community that suffers. Canada as a whole will pay the price. Hatred, when left unchecked, corrodes the foundation of any society.

History is watching. The Jewish community is waiting. The time for action is now.

National Post

native of Toronto Aviva Klompasis the former director of speechwriting at the Israeli Mission to the United Nations and co-founder ofIsrael without bordersa nonprofit that works with community leaders to combat hatred of Jews. She is the co-host ofBoundless Insights Podcast.

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