The Source of His Discomfiture ... Raw Antisemitism

"The health system issues that may have played a role in Manny Moss deciding to leave, they didn't just arise last week or last month or last year."

"The problems with the health system have existed for years, and he could have left at any time before."

"So what it comes down to is the antisemitism and the feeling that this [city] has become an increasingly dangerous or unrecognizable place to live [for Canadian Jewish Montrealers]."

Anonymous source

 

"[Dr. Moss's departure is a blow to the already perilous state of cardiac surgery in Quebec]."

"He's 45 and he's ultra specialized in robotic surgery."

"He's in the prime of his career and he's leaving for personal reasons and obviously for resources reasons."

Dr. Louis Perrault, president, Association des chirurgiens cardio-vasculaires et thoraciques du Quebec 

Dr. Emmanuel Moss sits at the controls as he performs robotic cardiac surgery at the Jewish General Hospital in Montreal on Monday May 28, 2018. John Mahoney / Montreal Gazett

 

Canadian Jews, although proud of their citizenship have been shocked in the past several years by a sudden upheaval in civic life in Canada where groups of anti-Israel -- and by extension anti-Jewish-presence -- protesters led by Palestinian student groups throughout Canadian universities alongside incitement and funding from foreign sources have called for a 'final solution', chanting for Jews to 'go back to Poland', railing against Israeli 'genocide' while calling for a 'global Intifada' and the establishment of a sovereign Palestine 'from the river to the sea'. All of which is doublespeak for the destruction of the state of Israel, and a yearning for another Holocaust.

 

Dr. Emmanuel Moss, Institut de cardiologie de Montréal)

That their government, under Liberal party leadership, has done nothing whatever to put a stop to the constant harassment of Canadian Jews -- the malicious marches, the university campus 'Palestinian' tent camps where Jewish students and staff were mercilessly threatened and harassed, Canadian-Jewish-owned businesses vandalized, marches taking place in areas of cities comprising Jewish neighbourhoods -- leaving the Jewish community confused, abandoned, isolated and beyond troubled, wondering how safe they and their families are now in the country they call home.

 

Aside from random Canadian Jews  now and again deciding they've had enough, and preparing to abandon their Canadian roots for other places where they feel safe and secure, there have been high-profile departures, such as that of Professor Gad Saad, formerly of Concordia University, leaving to take up residence in the United States. "I'm now leaving in large part because it became difficult for me, if not impossible, to be a high-profile Jewish professor who supports the right of Israel to exist", he explained. Not did the death threats he received convince him to remain in Canada.

 

Now, the Jewish community in Montreal has been made aware that the chief of cardiac surgery at the Jewish General Hospital tendered his resignation, with plans to move his family to Atlanta. He has cited both rising antisemitism in Montreal, as well as the deteriorating health-care system in the province.  

After working out of the Jewish General Hospital for the past decade, Dr. Emmanuel Moss informed his patients and his synagogue of his impending move to the United States. Although Dr. Moss declined to offer a statement to the press, close sources confirmed the background of disillusionment with rampant antisemitism and the lack of action by authorities to crack down on serious incidents of Jew-hate.

Montreal4Palestine posted this image to Instagram on Wednesday in response to the public outcry, clarifying that the three figures hanging in effigy at a rally on Saturday in Montreal were directed specifically at political figures. (mtl4pal/Instagram)

 

Images that circulated recently of masked anti-Zionist protesters in Montreal staging a mock hanging of an effigy of a kippah-clad man that appeared to depict Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, added its weight of concern over anti-Jew extremism to the incidents of physical assaults, vandalism of Jewish-owned businesses and firebombing of synagogues and bullets fired at a Jewish girls' school.   Incidents too numerous, frustrating and worrying that in total represented a complete rejection of Jewish life in Canada, with no response from the federal government for the years these events have been carried out in the wake of the mass Palestinian terrorist atrocities in southern Israel on October 7, 2023.

 

On a more personal, professional level, Dr. Moss's frustration  with limited resources for heart patients in vital need of heart surgery in Quebec, all played on his sensibilities. Obviously, for  him in his professional capacity layered over with his personal reaction in alarm over rising antisemitism played their critical role in his difficult decision to leave Canada. Just recently, Dr. Moss sounded the alarm over a shortage of perfusionists at the Jewish General, with the warning that the scarcity of technicians operating heart-lung machines placed the hospital's cardiac surgery program in jeopardy.

 

Jewish General Hospital, Montreal    Photo: Adama Diop

"From a strategic planning perspective, we have been aware that Dr. Moss could leave at a time of his choosing, for personal reasons, and we have been working on contingencies for some time."

"When he departs, we will have a plan in place to offset any potential negative impact to our cardiac surgery program, with a view of maintaining timely access to high-quality care."

Dr. Lawrence Rosenberg, chief executive officer, west-central Montreal health authority 

Workplace Antisemism Harassment

"You kind of feel like you're drowning. All the bad feels is what I felt: Lonely, confused,  hurt, isolated. And ultimately it led me to have a really bad breakdown."

"I was confused how these people can be my friends one day and then the next day hate me with a capital H, having not gotten into any verbal arguments, or anything like that previously."

"They knew I was Jewish and they knew that I am a Zionist, that I lived in Israel before."

"It escalated to the point where I wouldn't do my job anymore, not because of the things I was feeling, but realistically, I wasn't getting any calls, which we called leads, which are businesses that you get introduced to to sell your product to." 

"No one should be subjected to this kind of treatment at work for being Jewish."

Amanda Rafael 

Amanda Rafael: “I was confused how these people can be my friends one day and then the next day hate me with a capital H.” Photo by Supplied

 

Filing charges against her one-time employer with Quebec's labour tribunal, 34-year-old Amanda Rafael whose work was in sales with the company, documented the pattern of rabid hostility and psychological harassment she faced at her workplace, a situation that emerged the very day that southern Israel suffered mass deadly attacks by Palestinian terrorist groups led by Hamas. She described receiving antisemitic images as several of her co-workers turned on her with a vengeance with denigrating messages leading to her being frozen out of shared sales leads. When she alerted supervisors at the company, nothing came of it.

 

Lightspeed Commerce Inc. is a publicly traded e-commerce company, with a record of success that saw it labelled at one of those tech rarities, a 'unicorn'. Nothing quite prepared this young woman who worked for the company since 2021, when some of her work colleagues disconnected from her to an extent that was unimaginable to her, disorienting and totally demoralizing. She was so badly affected that when she consulted her doctor over the depressed state she was in, she was advised to take sick leave, to separate herself temporarily from the vitriol emanating from within her workplace against her. 

 

Quebec's labour standards authority investigated her complaint, forwarding it to the province's administrative labour tribunal for a hearing, reflecting Quebec's two-stage occupational complaints schedule. Her allegations at the tribunal are being challenged by Lightspeed. A point-of-sale and payments platform out of Quebec since 2005, the company has since expanded with clients in over 100 countries, with listings on the New York Stock Exchange and the Toronto Stock Exchange.  

Lightspeed Commerce

"Lightspeed is committed to providing a safe workplace environment and has a zero-tolerance policy toward workplace violence, harassment and discrimination, including hate speech and antisemitism."

"We expect all our employees to treat each other and every member of our communities with respect and integrity and to foster a diverse and inclusive culture."

Lightspeed Montreal, global tech company 

 According to documents filed with the tribunal a Lightspeed manager informed an investigator that the company's internal probe of the situation failed to support a finding of psychological harassment. Memes and posts at issue in the matter, explained the manager, had been sent from employees' private accounts. Accepting that the workplace atmosphere following October 7 was tense "on both sides", management took steps to ensure the workplace remained 'safe'. 

 

Amanda Rafael after having worked at  Lightspeed for two years, encountered an 'unsafe' workplace following October of 2023. She was ultimately terminated in February 2024, and six months later she filed her complaint against the company whose manager denied the company had failed to intervene on her behalf. Rafael documented how a colleague had posted a photograph of Adolf Hitler and with it a quote: "Jews are not people, they are animals", four days after October 7.  Other colleagues called her a "f---king Zionist", sharing social media posts reflecting "kill all Zionists", informing her that her presence was unwanted.

 

 

 

Rafael was asked to remove the flag of Israel from her company online profile, while some colleagues were free to add Palestinian flags to theirs. She was refused a request to be transferred elsewhere within the company, away from these demeaning colleagues. When she logged into the company's internal sales team messaging system she discovered colleagues having informed her clients that she was no longer employed with the company, introducing themselves at the new point of contact. "Is there something I don't know about here?", she had asked.  

"What Amanda alleges is not ordinary workplace friction or a mere political disagreement. It is targeted discrimination against a Jewish employee, coupled with an alleged failure by the employer to protect her dignity and safety."

"Lightspeed is a global public company. Amanda's experience raises serious questions."

Benjamin Ryberg, chief operating officer, the Lawfare Project 

Canada ... No Longer a Secure Home for Diaspora Jews

Adil Charkaoui's speech has drawn broad condemnation from politicians like Premier François Legault and groups like the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs. (Adil Charkaoui/X)

 

"The statistics on hate crimes in Canada are pretty clear on this. It's really in the early 2000s that hate crimes against Jews in Canada started to go up in a significant way."

"By this measure, then, the rate of antisemitic incidents is more than 16.5 times higher today than it was before 2000."

"I did experience quite a lot of antisemitism where I grew up [in Saint John, N.B.]. My golden age didn't start until I was 18 and got out of there. [The promise Canada offered Jews in major cities was real.] I think it's true for most Jews, who grew up in Montreal, Toronto, Winnipeg from the '60s on." 

"The percentage of Muslims among the most extreme antisemites is considerably higher than the corresponding percentage of non-Muslims." 

Emeritus sociology professor Robert Brym, University of Toronto 

 

"Every time I wake up and I realize that the water's getting hotter, somebody greases the bowl. The level of tolerance that this country seems to have adopted in terms of antisemitism is breathtaking."

"It was wonderful to be a Jew at York [University in the 1990s] . There was a vibrant [Jewish student and professorial] community." 

"[By 2000], it was a completely different place to be a Jew. The anti-Zionist, left-wing academic was already starting to infuse the university."

Talia Klein Leighton, president, Canadian Women Against Antisemitism

 

"It wasn't easy as a Jewish boy walking around with my kippah [in France]."

"Moving to Canada was, for me, a breath of fresh air to be able to bring up my children in a safe and welcoming environment."

"What has happened in the last two, three years, is quite unbelievable. What I saw  happening in Paris in the '70s where you could be walking in the streets and people were screaming slurs at you or driving by and just a feeling of unwelcome and just looking behind your back."

"That, to me, is terrifying, because I was able to see the contrast of being here in Canada."

Menachem Mendel Blum, rabbi, Ottawa Torah Centre Chabad

THORNHILL, CANADA - MARCH 7 : Pro-Israel demonstrators gather outside Beth Avraham Yoseph of Toronto synagogue hosting 'Israeli Real Estate Event' in Thornhill, north of Toronto, Ontario on March 7, 2024. (Photo by Mert Alper Dervis/Anadolu via Getty Images)

 

According to B'nai Brith Canada's statistics, there were 6,800 antisemitic incidents that took place during 2025, an increase from 2,769 that occurred in 2022. During that time, synagogues were shot at and firebombed, 'F---k the Jews' graffiti appeared all too often, Jews have been accosted, berated, harassed, beaten, even shot at with pellets. Anti-Israel, antisemitic protesters marched en masse for months on end through Jewish residential neighbourhoods in Toronto. 

 

The years following World War II saw an enlightened public attitude toward Jews. The majority of Canadians became more accepting of a Jewish-Canadian presence. Prejudice against Jews that had previously manifested in public notices that parks were off limits to 'Jews and dogs', Jewish exclusion from clubs, from buying homes in certain neighbourhoods, Jewish doctors refused hospital affiliations, rental units not available to Jews, slowly underwent a social change.

 

Jews flourished in the new social environment; the numbers limiting Jewish acceptance at universities became history, Jewish businesses thrived, laws were passed prohibiting discrimination against minority groups for employment opportunities, medical treatment, academic admissions, and home rentals made it mandatory that all citizens were treated in equal measure under the law. Just as the Charter of Rights and Freedoms guaranteeing equality and freedom of religious expression, freedom of speech and all other civil rights. Antisemitism went underground.

Parliament Hill, Ottawa, Canada (Freepik.com)

 

Jews enjoyed that same sense of security in Canada as all others and the Jewish community thrived on its freedom to explore economic prosperity. Then, suddenly, a mass atrocity that occurred halfway across the world on October 7, 2023, when Palestinian terrorists launched a mass atrocity slaughtering Israeli civilians in southern Israel changed all that. It seemed sudden, but it was a kind of climax that had been building for some time, and October 7 was the signal that the time was right for an explosion of Jew-hate. Up to that time beginning decades earlier, a slow and steady increase of Middle Eastern immigrants bringing with them traditions of antisemitism infiltrated all walks of academia, unions, government and social institutions.

 

Expatriate 'Palestinians' studying in droves in Canadian universities provided the spark as 'victims' of Israeli oppression, which is to say Israeli defensive action against Palestinian terrorism that sought to destroy the Jewish state physically, then resorted to systematically through propaganda destroying Israel's reputation through libelous slander, promulgating lies of 'apartheid' and plans to kill Palestinians to rid themselves of counterclaims to Judean ancestral lands upon which both Israel and the 'Palestinian Territories' sit.

 

TORONTO, ON - December 20 - Shots were fired at a North York Jewish girls school early Friday morning, marking the third shooting at the school this year, Toronto police said. December 20, 2024. 

 

Governments in Canada stood by, unreactive while chaos broke out in the streets and on university campuses as thousands of anti-Israel protests, extended to include Canadian Jews in rejection of their presence as Zionists were called upon to 'go back to Poland' while Palestinians used every vicious tool at their disposal to delegitimize the Jewish state, making great inroads in alliances with the far-left and Liberal 'progressives' who found much to support in those claims, repeating with vigour 'Globalize the Intifada'. 

 

As Muslim populations proliferated through immigration, refugee intake and mass migration throughout Europe, and threats against European Jews ballooned, so too did they in North America, Australia and elsewhere. Jews who once felt secure and accepted for what they are; loyal citizens of the countries they lived in, contributors to the civilized world, outperforming other groups in their literary, scientific, academic, technological proficiency, were hounded by the baying of rousing, mind-numbing levels of expressed Jew-hate.

 

Jews now in Canada, as elsewhere in the world have been forced to resort to security measures to protect their schools, their synagogues, their community centres, vulnerable to attack and indeed experiencing attacks; gunshots, explosive devices at night, and crowds of protesting Jew-haters during the day, harassing, threatening, jeering and smearing Canadian Jews; vandalizing Jewish-owned businesses and property, boycotting and isolating Jews from mainstream society.

 

Michael A. Sachs: Some Jewish Canadians planning exit strategies to more welcoming U.S.

 

The governments whose democratic duty has always been to secure public order, to protect minority rights and guarantee equality of treatment and opportunity for all, have instead merely observed the ongoing diminution of Jewish rights in Canada. Their silence and lack of action have predictably bolstered the hateful resolve of the rioters and hate-mongers. And while all decent people decry the advent of renewed antisemitism and the moral incivility accompanying it, the majority remain silent. The Jews can look after themselves. 

 

Many are trying to do just that. And many are now contemplating wrenching their roots asunder from the soil that once guaranteed them peace of mind, planning to emigrate to the one place on Earth where their survival and that of their children is guaranteed: Israel. Politics in Canada under a succession of Liberal-led governments is such that those at the highest order of governance decry the rise of antisemitism and invariably add that of 'Islamophobia'. 

 

None among them ever contemplate speaking the reality of the situation, that it is the large and growing Muslim population from among whom this rise has resulted. They are prepared to live with the results of deliberately overlooking and bypassing the truth, rather than express it, and risk losing the votes that come with pandering to a segment of society whose values are not those of the prevailing majority, nor of democracy itself. Shame on them all.

 

Portable museum to show at schools, as an educational device, but after October 7, it was deemed too political. Photo by Courtesy of Sam Eskenasi

 

Canada's Multiculturalism Love Affair

"I want to acknowledge the fear and distress this has caused."

"We recognize that Jewish residents have been living with a heightened sense of fear due to repeated incidents targeting their community, and this only adds to that, which is completely unacceptable."

"While the weapons used were imitation firearms, the impact is very real."

"These are criminal acts that we allege were meant to intimidate and cause fear."

Toronto Acting Deputy Police chief Joe Matthews 

 

"We are under attack like never before. Antisemitism, a global virus that has metastasized, finds itself right here on Bathurst Street. A street that my grandparents moved to from Poland in 1921, a street that represents the Jewish community's past, present, and one day will represent the future."

"[Thursday night's shooting] at one of the most revered, respected and holy synagogues in Canada, is totally unacceptable."

"Our government, led by Premier [Doug] Ford, will never accept the normalization of even one act of antisemitism."

"Not only will we call it out, we will work day and night with our police services."

Ontario Solicitor General Michael Kerzner

 

"Heartbroken and furious at the same time over another attack on a Canadian synagogue by thugs who target the innocent at prayer."

"Antisemites are doing this. And governments too spineless to name them or defend what Canada once stood for is giving them the room to flourish."

Melissa Lantsman, deputy leader, federal Conservative Party of Canada 

A police cruiser is shown outside a synagogue in North York where three people were shot at with a replica firearm on Thursday night. (CP24)

 

 It was announced by Toronto police that an 18-year-old man from Vaughan, north of Toronto has been arrested. He is being charged in connection with a shooting at the Chasidei Bobov synagogue in Toronto last Thursday night. The charge and arrest is inclusive of an April 30 shooting that took place in front of another synagogue in an area of the city long known as a Jewish neighbourhood. The man arrested was named as Ruslan Novruzov. In making his announcement to the press, Acting Deputy Police chief Joe Matthews added that the incidents were "deeply concerning, particularly because the victims were visibly identifiable members of our Jewish community".

 

On April 30, three individuals walking in the Jewish neighbourhood near Bathurst Street and Lawrence Avenue West were shot at with a replica firearm, from a vehicle. Of the three, one was hit, as the suspects swiftly drove off in a blue SUV. Early Friday morning, police executed search warrants on a residence and vehicle in Vaughan where Novruzov was arrested and charged with a number of weapons offences. Two  gel blaster imitation firearms were seized.

 

The incident happened around 10:49 p.m. on Thursday at Chasidei Bobov synagogue in the area of Bathurst Street and Hwy. 401. Photo: Peter Dworschak/CityNews.

 

"I am disgusted by the targeted antisemitic attacks that took place in North York over the last several days, including last night outside a synagogue."

"These attacks will not be tolerated and I'm pleased the Toronto police have acted quickly in response and have a suspect in custody."

"I expect that all those who are responsible will be punished to the full extent of the law."

Ontario Premier Doug Ford  

Fine statements of sympathy and support from the province's highest political authority. An authority that has not -- in the past three-and-a-half years since the October 7, 2023 Palestinian terrorist assault on southern Israel led by Hamas that rampaged through farming communities, towns and villages and a nearby music festival to slaughter, rape and torture children, youth, the elderly, entire families in an orgy of sadistic savagery and which ignited a storm of antisemitic claims and threats in Canada through organized Palestinian protests, endangering the Jewish community -- moved to put a strop to these public displays of hatred.

 

Nor, for that matter has the federal government acted in any way to calm the situation, secure the normalcy of civil behaviour of one ethnic/religious/ideological group of Canadians against another. Instead, all levels of government, from Toronto's own municipal council led by its Mayor Olivia Chow, to the provincial government of Premier Doug Ford, to that of the Liberal government of Prime Minister Mark Carney acted to calm the firestorms of ongoing anti-Israel, anti-Jew, pro-Palestinian protests. While declaring their objections on moral grounds to antisemitism, they invariably invoke their rejection of 'Islamophobia'. 

 

The incident took place outside a synagogue on Bathurst Street near Wilson Avenue.   CTV News

 

Lost in the turmoil of never-ending protests -- where choruses of 'Final Solution!', 'Israeli genocide!', and 'Globalize the Intifada', along with threatening marches through Jewish neighbourhoods by scores of keffiyeh-clad, masked protesters was the need to ensure the security of Jewish Canadians whose houses of worship, parochial schools, and Jewish-owned businesses have been vandalized, fire-bombed and shot at -- have responsible government-authority interventions taken place. Group Muslim street prayers, illegally shutting down intersections and roadways have been tolerated. 

 

The large, and growing Canadian Muslim population has the kind of voting heft that the much smaller Canadian Jewish population does not have any longer. The generations of Jewish Canadians that trusted and loved their Canadian home now find themselves marginalized, thanks to the mass migration, emigration and refugee-intake of recent years, of people from Muslim-majority countries who have brought their traditional Jew-hate baggage with them. This is the cultural vigour celebrated in Canada as the benefits of multiculturalism.  

"Know this, if anybody feels that one act of antisemitism is going to be OK, it's not. It's time that everybody in our community, of other faiths, of other heritages, stand together."

"[Non-Jews are welcome to go on the Jewish Sabbath, Saturday], to a synagogue, a Jewish congregation, in our city, and stand outside that congregation in solidarity."

"Stand, raise  your voices. Stand a little stronger for the values of Canada and Ontario that unite us, that bind us one together."

Solicitor-General Michael Kerzner 

 

Virulent Antisemitism Brought Up Short

"[The superintendent recently reprimanded Alizadeh-Gharib and ordered him to] register for and successfully complete the custom educational course, including four immersive workshops and all assignments, as provided by the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies."

"[If Alizadeh-Gharib] fails to comply with any of the terms of this order, the superintendent may suspend or cancel [his real estate licence without further notice]." 

B.C. Financial Services Authority

The B.C. Financial Services Authority has sanctioned a Vancouver real estate agent and ordered him to complete mandatory education after he sent a hateful message to a Jewish Toronto restaurant. Real Estate Magazine

 

The British Columbia financial services regulator penalized a real estate agent in British Columbia who sent a message to a Jewish-owned restaurant in Toronto that read: "F--K UR JEW ASS RESTAURANT, LAND STEALING C--ts, TURN YOUR OVENS ON N GO HOME! WISH (GERMANY) FINISHED ALL OF YOU PARASITES", accompanied by a picture of Hitler. The "antisemitic, violent and hateful" message was sent by Nima Alizadeh-Gharib while licensed with a numbered B.C. company in a business arrangement with Coldwell Banker Prestige Reality.

 

To the disciplinary measure imposed upon him, AlizadethGharib signed a consent order used by the regulator to resolve disciplinary matters. Alizadeh-Gharib, according to the order, was made responsible for paying for the course's $3,000 cost. Enforcement expenses must also be paid by him to the B.C. Financial Services Authority within two months in the amount of $2,350, according to the signed consent order. 

 

Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre

 

The regulator was made aware of the real estate agent's messaging of a seemingly random Jewish business when Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Centre lodged a formal complaint last year with the regulator.

"Promoting hatred and advocating genocide are criminal matters. Alizadeh's hateful conduct is also beyond the pale for any professional, let alone a licensed real estate agent, who is entrusted by the B.C. Financial Services Authority to uphold ethical standards and serve the public with respect, fairness, and integrity."

"[The message represented] a vile attack on the Jewish community but also a direct violation of the ethical obligations required of real estate professionals in British Columbia."

"This is a totally random Jewish family. They have no public politics to speak of. Unfortunately, there are people out there that think that they can direct any amount of hate at random Jewish citizens with complete impunity."

Jaime Kirzner-Roberts, senior director of policy and advocacy, Wiesenthal Centre  

A licensed real estate agent in the province since 2011, Alizadeh-Gharib sent his message from his personal Instagram account in December of 2024. The investigators were informed by Alizadeh-Gharib that he "had consumed a significant amount of alcohol and was intoxicated" when the message was sent. He "had viewed a social media post alleging that the restaurant w as financially supporting the Israeli Defense Forces with their operations in Gaza", the order clarified. Alizadeh waived his right to an appeal.

 

At the time that the Wiesenthal Centre had reported the incident, the organization also filed a report with respect to Alizadeh-Gharib' actions with the RCMP. The RCMP advised Alizadeh-Gharib "that any further contact with the restaurant owners would result in criminal charges".  

"On January 6, 2025, N. Alizadeh-Gharib delivered a written apology to the restaurant. In his apology letter, he stated ... 'I take full responsibility for my behaviour and the harm it caused to everyone affected. I am committed to taking immediate and meaningful steps to educate myself, grow and ensure nothing like this ever happens again."

"[Alizadeh-Gharib] has made a donation of $1,000 to the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre as a gesture of goodwill, intended to represent a meaningful act of reparation that contributes to an organization devoted to promoting the values that were undermined by his singular action."

Consent Order,  B.C. Financial Services Authority 

Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre

 

Normalizing Violent Antisemitism

"High levels of antisemitism have become a normalized feature in societies with large Jewish minorities."

"The data raise concern that a high level of antisemitic incidents is becoming a normalized reality." 

"The label of antisemitism is harsh and should be applied only after careful consideration and based on solid criteria."

"The peak in the number of incidents was recorded in the immediate aftermath of the 7 October attack, after which we began to see a downward trend. But unfortunately, that trend did not continue in 2025."  

Uriya Shavit, chief editor, Tel Aviv University annual report 

Survivor Saul Reichert, third from left, and his family light a candle at Toronto's Holocaust memorial event, April 13, 2026. (Credit: Shay Markowitz, for the Toronto Holocaust Museum)

"Offenders align with two main ideological orientations."

"They are predominantly Christian white supremacists or Muslims who apply antisemitism as a response to grievances about Middle Eastern political developments."

"[The] most worrying phenomenon [of the past year had been the] normalisation of antisemitic rhetoric in American political discourse."

"[US President Donald Trump had] tolerated, as no contemporary president has, deep-seated, loathsome antisemites within his camp, and continues to do so for cynical political reasons."

"The result is a new culture of everything-goes that is undermining the sense that Jews have had for decades that their future in America is secure."

Tel Aviv University annual report  

The attack at Sydney's Bondi Beach killed 15 members of the Jewish Community.  Getty Images

 

According to an annual study released on Monday, coinciding with the Shoah Day of Remembrance, 2025 distinguished itself as the most violent year in thirty, for Jews facing a resurgence of global antisemitism. The study pointed out that Canada, the United Kingdom, Belgium, Italy and Australia had all posted notable increases in antisemitic incidents reported in 2025. In the United States and France, irrespective of notable physical attacks on Jewish targets, the report found the number of antisemitic incidents there declined.

 

Violence against Jews saw a spike beginning after the  Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack in southern Israel when an estimated 6 thousand terrorists flooded across from Gaza into Israel, followed by ordinary Palestinian citizens, all of whom committed barbaric, sadistic acts of rape, torture, burning entire families alive in their homes, slaughtering over a thousand civilians, foreign farm workers, children and the elderly, while taking infants, their parents and grandparents, women and men hostage into Gaza.

When Israel mobilized the Israel Defense Forces to enter Gaza to search for Hamas leaders, their operatives, and those of Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, all involved in the heinous bloodshed, the world -- initially shocked at the carnage committed in Israel -- turned against Israeli reprisal against the terrorists, despite the military doing its utmost to spare civilian lives through pre-strike alerts and organized population moves out of harm's way.

A sign reading "Jewish Lives Should Matter, Too" is seen at the floral tributes area outside Bondi Pavilion in Sydney on Dec. 18, 2025, to honour victims of the Bondi Beach shooting. The attack at Bondi Beach on Dec.14 was one of the deadliest in Australian history. Photo by DAVID GRAY / AFP via Getty Images 

 

In Sydney, Australia, a Muslim father and son duo launched a deadly attack on Bondi Beach, killing 15 members of the Jewish community that had gathered in December to celebrate Hannukah. Two antisemitic attacks in the United States in Washington, D.C. and Colorado were mounted, while in Britain two people were murdered at a Manchester synagogue on Yom Kippur, the most sacred day in Judaism's High Holy Days.

 

Tel Aviv University's Center for the Study of Contemporary European Jewry, alongside the Irwin Cotler Institute for Democracy, Human Rights and Justice annually release their report on antisemitism, coinciding with Israel's Holocaust Remembrance Day, the day that serves as a national memorial for the six million Jewish children, women and men whose lives were systematically obliterated in a state mechanism deployed to destroy Europe's Jews. 

 

An increase in antisemitic attacks resulting in physical harm is tracked annually to produce each year's report. This report found that 2025 represented the deadliest year for such attacks since 1994, when a Jewish community centre in Argentina (Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina),was bombed, where 85 people died and over 300 were wounded. A suicide-bombing attributed to Islamic Jihad/Hezbollah, the Islamic State of Iran's proxy terrorist groups in Lebanon. 

 

Since 2023, the incidents of viral antisemitism have soared, in comparison to those committed in 2022 Incidents that range from physical violence and vandalism to verbal threats and harassment on social media are all tracked by researchers who produce the final report. The report relies on statistics based on reports from police, national authorities, and local Jewish communities.

 

In Canada alone, to cite one country in isolation from others, the number of incidents rose from 6,219 committed in 2024, to 6,800 in 2025, representing a number over three times steeper than in 2022 -- pre-October 7's Palestinian terrorist horde attacking Israeli farming communities and a nearby musical festival where over 370 young festival-goers, men and women were raped and murdered. 

Some might question why the report failed to address the phenomenon of mass protests on the streets of Europe and North America by Palestinian and Muslim groups that immediately began accusing Israel of 'genocide' in its terrorist-seeking foray into Gaza, where masked, keffiyeh-clad 'protesters' issued threats against Israel and harassed, hounded and threatened diaspora-citizen Jews. Where in Canada, synagogues, Jewish parochial schools, and private businesses owned by Jews were vandalized and shot up.  

 

Rabbi Yossi Friedman speaks to people gathering at a flower memorial by the Bondi Pavilion at Bondi Beach on Tuesday, Dec. 16, 2025, following Sunday’s shooting in Sydney, Australia. (AP Photo/Mark Baker)

 

 

Protection for Toronto's Jewish Community from Rabid Islamists

"Due to the changing security landscape in Toronto in recent weeks, including increased volatility and heightened fear in our communities, demonstrations  moving into residential neighbourhoods in the Bathurst and Sheppard area presents an unacceptable risk to public safety."

"As a result, demonstrators will not be permitted to enter residential streets in this area."

"[This is a] measured step to reduce the risk of escalation and maintain public safety." 

Toronto Police Service spokesperson Stephanie Sayer

A pro-Palestine march makes its way through Toronto, Sunday, Oct. 29, 2023. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young

 

The issue of Toronto's Jewish community forced by disinterest from Toronto's mayor to 'notice' the ebbing lack of  safety and security imposed on that demographic by gangs of roving 'pro-Palestinian' demonstrators and the inaction of the Toronto Police Service to rein in the verbal insults and assaults ranging from 'Final Solution!' to 'Globalize the Intifada!' -- and other not-so-veiled threats that arose in the wake of the Palestinian Hamas terrorists governing Gaza committing an unspeakable mass atrocity in southern Israel -- had to wait over two years for action. And the Jewish community is supposed to be grateful that their distress under constant threat from openly-celebrating Islamist violence is finally being partially addressed.

 

Ostensibly the move to finally act to put an end to the mob incursion into streets housing Jewish Torontonians was the result of Jewish community group lobbying. In very fact those community groups pleaded with the municipality, the police, the province, to act in the face of intimidation and threats when the demonstrations first emerged and that was directly after the shocking massacre of Israelis on October 7, 2023. The inaction of authorities at all levels to restore order and security from the federal government on down, was undoubtedly responsible for the kind of escalation that took place with synagogues, Jewish schools and community centres, along with privately owned Jewish businesses being shot at, firebombed and vandalized. 

A  protest at Bathurst Street and Sheppard Ave. West, a Jewish neighbourhood, featured one protester dressed as Yahya Al-Sinwar, the Hamas leader behind the October 7th massacre.  MSN

 

Each time violence erupted, authorities were quick to condemn the events, expressing solidarity with the Jewish community, piously declaiming that 'this (antisemitism and violence) is not Canada'. Yet it is what Canada has become under the watch of the decade-long reign of the Liberal government of Justin Trudeau, followed by Mark Carney. Both of whom have a penchant for bemoaning antisemitism, and never failing to link it with the (to them) equally troubling 'Islamophobia', which in itself is rather absurd, since most of the antisemitic attacks come courtesy of the Canadian Muslim population.

 

The Toronto Police spokesperson explained that legal protests on main streets in the area where the Jewish community in the city is located will be permitted to continue. The same protests that have taken place regularly since the day following the October7, 2023 slaughter of Israelis by Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the PLO's Fatah contingents, led by the master-class terrorist group Hamas, whose charter is dedicated to the destruction of Israel.  

"Our community has consistently refused to accept the normalization of intimidation on residential streets in the heart of a heavily Jewish neighbourhood."

"Around Bathurst and Sheppard, residents, families, seniors, students and community institutions have been forced to contend with repeated demonstrations in spaces where people should be able to live, walk, pray, and gather in peace."

B'nai Brith Canada 

Another Jewish group that had called upon the city and police for attention to the plight of the Toronto Jewish community, stated that the announcement by the Toronto Police Service represented "a meaningful step -- but it must be matched with consistent enforcement and protection for our community." 

"At protests at Bathurst & Sheppard, extremists openly made threats of violence, glorified terrorism, and depicted Jews as sub-human — yet no arrests have been announced. After multiple attacks on our community, many are asking why the law is not being enforced."

"We’re calling on TPS to investigate and lay charges, declare assemblies unlawful when there are activities that promote and incite hate, and make the necessary and critical changes to protect our city."

Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs  

Images of antisemitic signage shared by X user Leviathan (@l3v1at4an) during an anti-Israel protest Bathurst St. and Sheppard Ave. West in Toronto on Sunday, March 15. (Credit: @l3v1at4an/X)

 

There is much to be concerned about.  Days following the U.S.-Israel launch of the joint aerial bombardment of the Islamic Republic of Iran, to destroy its nuclear ambitions by targeting its powerful missile caches, its launch sites, nuclear enrichment sites, leading government authorities and chiefs of its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in an effort to hasten  regime change and rescue the Iranian people from their persecutors while neutralizing Iran's capacity to train, arm and fund its proxy terrorist groups in the Middle East, synagogues were again hit by gunfire in Toronto.

 

Jewish-owned businesses and the U.S. consulate in Toronto were also shot at in demonstrations of Islamist targeting of associates and allies of the State of Israel. In addressing these and allied issues, the Toronto Police spokesperson stated that police officers would provide "clear direction". That anyone who fails to comply with them would face possible arrest for obstructing police.  

"The Toronto Police Service facilitates lawful demonstrations while balancing the rights of participants with the safety of the broader public."

Stephanie Sayer  

Toronto police stand watch near the Al-Quds day protest in Toronto, Ontario, on March 14, 2026.

(photo credit: Geoff Robins / AFP via Getty Images)

 

Vandal-Proofing Synagogues in Toronto

"It's very important to acknowledge nobody in our synagogue was hurt. This took place off hours when the building was not occupied."

"The sad reality is, we've been through this quite a number of times already in the last 18 months."

"We are an early warning system, and if these things are not addressed, if they're not dealt with they don't get easier over time."

"...Without overdramatizing it, it can fairly be said, I think, at some point in history in our civil and western civilization, that the Jews are often the canary in the mine shaft."

Rabbi Joe Kanofsky, Kehillat ShaareiTorah synagogue, North Toronto

Toronto Police are seeking a suspect (left) in a hate-motivated mischief to religious property investigation after multiple windows were smashed (centre, right) at Kehillat Shaarei Torah early on Nov. 4, 2025. (Toronto Police Services handout/supplied photos/Composite image by The CJN)

 

Early this week in Toronto there was a vandalism attack against a synagogue. This was not the first time the Kehillat Shaarei Torah synagogue had been attacked, not the second, not the third, not even the fourth time that vandals has chosen to express their vile contempt for this Jewish house of worship. Synagogues everywhere have been forced to take extraordinary security precautions against just such events, and this synagogue was no exception. Yet despite those precautions to harden the synagogue environs against unauthorized night-time access, on Tuesday the synagogue saw its tenth act of vandalism that left the congregation shaken but philosophical.

 

Reports of smashed windows were reported to the Toronto Police Service and the response was swift. In a year and a half they had responded on nine previous occasions to the plight of this synagogue under attack by unseen perpetrators spurred by the force of antisemitic hatred. On arrival police found four smashed window panes. Despite that the synagogue had last year installed a steel fence and locked gate following earlier attacks. The temple added barriers and a CCTV system that the Canada Community Security Program helped to fund through the federal government releasing funds for that purpose to the wider community of houses of worship in the city.

 

The suspect whose image was captured on video, was described as a man in late teen years or early 20s, short dark hair and a lean physique, wearing dark clothing. He has not yet been identified. The perimeter fence did not keep this damage-determined individual from his purpose, nor did special lighting and the gate that is securely locked during the night hours. The rabbi had nothing but praise for the police service tasked to be present during the daylight hours when the synagogue is in use.

 

Yet neither their presence nor the fact that the synagogue hired a paid duty constable to be on site during seasons of special worship, deter whoever it was that felt the need to desecrate a house of worship. In the rabbi's mind were dread visions of a number of attacks that took place in the United States at synagogues there, when people were in attendance and became the victims of racist violence. A Pittsburgh shooting where people were killed on a Sabbath morning as an example; even a hostage-taking at a Texas synagogue.

 

What can be seen as additionally distressing to the rabbi of this synagogue and some of the members of the synagogue's congregation; that no one from any of the nearby Christian churches expressed dismay and/or support when this occurred. The rabbi did receive word of commiseration and concern from other synagogues across the city, but nothing whatever from his Christian counterparts. 

 

A smashed window at Kehilat Shaarei Torah synagogue in Toronto, Ontario, following the latest act of vandalism — the tenth antisemitic attack targeting the congregation since October 7th massacre. Photo: Social media.

"I have heard politicians over the last couple of years say things which to me ring like platitudes, where they say, 'violence has no place in our society'. Violence has quite a big place, because violence is what people use to intimidate others, and to harm and to disrupt."

"So to say it has no place in our society is really inaccurate and misleading, because it has quite a great place."

"What they should say is, 'we will not tolerate, we will not stand for, we will not permit, and we will not rest until we stamp out as best as we can those forces in our society."

"When we stand together, when our leaders, religious and civic leaders, are together and united against hatred, not just antisemitism, but hatred of any minority group, of any small group within our society, it doesn't stand a chance."

"And when people are silent, people take that as acquiescence. It's not a complicated equation."

Rabbi Joe Kanofsky 

'Independent Jewish Voices'

"Our politicians cannot be complacent in these marble hallways while Israel continues to burn Palestinians alive in their tents."

"Canada's ongoing arms exports and diplomatic support make it complicit in these atrocities."

Niall Ricardo, Independent Jewish Voices Canada 

"Their actions represent an egregious distortion of Jewish values and a calculated attempt to hijack Jewish identity to serve a hateful anti-Zionist and antisemitic agenda."

"We refuse to remain silent as Independent Jewish Voices and their partners recklessly endanger Jewish Canadians by perpetuating lies and fomenting hostility."

"Their shameful antics today, which trivialize genocide and vilify Israel, undermine Jewish safety and foster the very antisemitism they claim to oppose."

Joint statement of  19 Jewish groups in Canada

Members of the Parliamentary Protective Service and Ottawa Police Service detain members of an antiwar protest that occupied the lobby of the Confederation Building on Tuesday morning. The building houses MPs' offices. (Raffy Boudjikanian/CBC)

 

Canada's exports of arms and military equipment to Israel has never been other than peripheral to actual military equipment as in lethal weaponry. Months ago, Melanie Joly, Canada's minister of foreign affairs announced that her government was placing all such 'military equipment' on hold until the cessation of the Israel-Gaza/Hamas conflict. "Our policy has been clear," she said. "Since Jan. 8, we have not accepted any form of arms export permits to be sent to Israel."

 

Weapons permits by non-governmental weapons producers in Canada have also been suspended. Canada's Liberal government is quite a bit ahead of these shameful 'Jewish' action groups demanding that Canada completely isolate Israel from Canadian military exports. Canada through this Liberal government abandonment of an ally at war, has nothing to be proud of. Perhaps they chose to overlook that Canada buys missiles manufactured in Israel, along with indispensable radar equipment.

“For some reason, (Foreign Minister Melanie Joly) forgot that in the last decade, the Canadian Defense Ministry purchased Israeli weapon systems worth more than a billion dollars,” according to an analysis by the Jerusalem Post, which noted that Israeli military technology is “protecting Canadian pilots, fighters, and naval combatants around the world.”

National Post

A member of the Swiss army walks past an Israeli-made Spike LR2 Long-Range Missile on March 21, 2024. A version of the Spike LR2 was recently fast-tracked by Canada for its troops in Latvia. Photo by STEFAN WERMUTH / AFP

This past Tuesday a group calling itself Jews Say No To Genocide Coalition, took Parliament Hill hostage to its campaign, with an occupation it vows to continue until the government accedes to its demands. A group estimated to number 100, of anti-Israel protesters rushed the lobby of the Confederation Building in Ottawa, housing the offices of Members of Parliament. Parliamentary Protective Services and Ottawa police responded, and 14 protesters were arrested, then released.

The coalition stated through a news release that its membership is comprised of Jewish Canadians, announcing its intention to occupy the building indefinitely, with "MPs and staff blocked from business as usual". Which led a group of 19 mainstream Jewish groups that include B'Nai Brith Canada, the Tafsik Organization, the Canadian Antisemitism Education Foundation, Allied Voices for Israel, Canadian Women Against Antisemitism, the Canadian Institute for Jewish Research, and groups representing Jewish lawyers, doctors and educators to decry the protesters, standing in direct opposition to the values of the entire Jewish Community in Canada.

An estimated 91 percent of Canadian Jews believe that Israel has a right to exist, stated the group of 19 organizations. Numbers from the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance were cited in support of their contention that connection to Israel is a core part of Jewish identity. They urged Parliament and Canadians to view the protesters as "fringe activists operating outside the mainstream Jewish community."

Jews Say No To Genocide Coalition demanded that Canada must end "its active participation in Israel's genocide", an astonishingly egregious statement falsifying the entire conflict history between Palestinians and Israel of over a century, culminating in the atrocities committed in southern Israel when thousands of Palestinian terrorists swept through farming villages and kibbutzim to rape, burn families alive, torture and slaughter infants, the elderly, women and men, civilians all. Israel still awaits the return of the 101 hostages remaining in Gazan captivity by Hamas.

In the choice of that estimated 100 Jewish protesters to  make their demands and stage their dramatic storming of Parliament buildings, the Canadian Jewish community, already under huge duress by pro-Hamas instigators of violence against Jews, knowingly and deliberately add to the uncertainty and insecurity experienced by Jews in Canada. That tight little group of 100 Jewish dissidents chose to support Palestinian terrorism over Israeli existence. Absolutely not to be believed!

Dozens of antiwar protesters that occupied the lobby of the Confederation Building in Ottawa early Tuesday have now been removed by police and security services. (Raffy Boudjikanian/CBC)