The Schara Tzedeck synagogue, in Vancouver, B.C., on May. 31, which days earlier was targeted by an arsonist.ETHAN CAIRNS/The Canadian Press
If only there were signs.
If only we could have foreseen – somehow – that the climate in Canada would become so toxic toward Jews that now, in August of 2024, more than 100 Jewish institutions would receive a bomb threat, warning that the buildings’ occupants “will all end up in a pool of blood.”
“None of you deserve to keep living,” it read.
How did we get here?
If only there were signs. Like, say, weekly protests that regularly included antisemitic chants about sending Jews back to Europe or celebrations of terrorist groups.
If only there was a way to know that the most extreme rhetoric expressed by participants – including those who shouted “Long live October 7″ and “October 7 is proof that we are almost free” – were not simply errant opinions. Maybe we would have noticed it if some people cheered, in Vancouver and Ottawa, when speakers celebrated the deaths of Israeli civilians. Or if a gathering was held in Toronto on Oct. 7 “to honour and celebrate the Palestinian resistance.” Or if, after Israeli forces killed Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, a group assembled in Ottawa to engage in a “prayer in solidarity with our assassinated resistance freedom fighters.” Perhaps then we might have seen that a rogue voice expressing hatred for Jews wasn’t actually so rogue after all.
If only there were signs that Canadian Jews were being maligned for the actions of a foreign government. Like if, for example, protests against Israel somehow routinely ended up on a highway overpass in a heavily Jewish community in Toronto, or if they migrated outside a Jewish community centre. Or if Jewish-owned restaurants in Montreal were listed for boycott. Or if a menorah was destroyed outside a Toronto Jewish cultural centre. Or if Jewish kids were being bullied at school.
Maybe we could have foreseen that things would get violent if someone shot at a Jewish school in Montreal in November, or firebombed a Montreal synagogue that same month, or vandalized a Fredericton synagogue in January, or shot at a Jewish elementary school in Toronto in May, or shot at a Jewish school in Montreal days after that, or lit the door of a Vancouver synagogue on fire the following day, or threw rocks through the windows at two Toronto synagogues one month later. Maybe then this mass bomb threat wouldn’t be so shocking.
How could we have known that antisemitism would become so entrenched in Canadian society? Perhaps a clue would have been if a Victoria theatre cancelled a play set in Israel, or if a Vancouver comics festival banned an Israeli-American artist because of her past service in the Israeli Defence Forces, or if organizers of an Ontario International Women’s Day event disinvited a keynote speaker for the same reason. Maybe if pro-Palestinian encampments popped up at Canadian universities, where gatekeepers demanded ideological conformity for admission, and some called for globalizing the intifada. And maybe if this was just allowed, for weeks, as if it was normal and acceptable, we might have had some indication that antisemitism – even overt displays thereof – would be tacitly condoned.
Maybe if York University teaching assistants claimed in written materials that their university’s tolerance of the campus group Hillel, which engages in such divisive activities as hosting Shabbat dinners for students away from home, was evidence of its complicity in genocide. Maybe if the president of CUPE Ontario celebrated “the power of resistance” a day after Hamas’s mass slaughter of Israeli civilians, and if he shared an antisemitic video in August. Possibly then we might have been able to recognize that antisemitism had infiltrated some of our highest institutions.
But even then, what would have given someone such a sense of impunity that they would threaten 100 Jewish institutions at once? Was it Winnipeg’s mayor taking down the city’s menorah, or Moncton’s mayor doing the same? Or Calgary’s mayor skipping the city’s menorah-lighting ceremony, or Toronto’s mayor declining to attend the Walk with Israel? Was it the empty words offered by Canadian politicians, over and over again, in lieu of action each time a Jewish institution is attacked?
Or maybe these individuals were emboldened by the national indifference this country has shown toward the targeting of Catholic churches, dozens of which have been set ablaze over the course of the last few years? Maybe it was the constant dismissal of the concerns of Jews feeling unsafe in Canada, because, as many have taken to saying now, why should anyone care about hurt feelings here, when people are dying in Gaza?
If only there were warnings, beyond the threats, violence, vandalism, harassment, cultural exclusion, institutional antisemitism, empty words and constant gaslighting. And when – not if – someone gets seriously injured or worse, we’ll wish there had been more signs, too.