Crisis for Canadian Jewry

History is a stern teacher. Too frequently, its warnings go unheeded. Twenty years ago, France descended into a season of antisemitic violence that continues to this day. In 2006, when a young Jewish man named Ilan Halimi was kidnapped, tortured for three weeks, then brutally murdered by a Muslim criminal gang infamously referred to as the "Gang of Barbarians," the international community was shocked. The reason for the kidnapping, torture and murder was the old stereotype that supposedly all Jews are rich. Halimi's family could not afford to pay the 450,000 euros demanded as ransom.

For centuries, Jewish communities have been, with various pretexts, objects of hostility.

In Britain, the rise of Jeremy Corbyn, a parliamentarian with decades-long radically anti-Israel sentiments, to Labour Party leadership in 2015, ushered in a radical reformation. Labour became a nursery of antisemitic conspiracy theories, a podium for radical activists hijacking the language of Hamas, and a party where Jewish members were bullied, ostracized and expelled. Protests broke out across the United Kingdom, demanding "From the river to the sea" — a cry for Israel's destruction….Why does this matter?

Because this is precisely where Canada is going. Historically, Canada has been behind Europe on antisemitism by a generation, but the pace at which it is gaining momentum is now catching up. The same forces that have harmed France and the United Kingdom are now entrenched in Canada: radicalized academic environments, media that demonize Israel and downplay antisemitism, politicians pressured to appease extremists, and a Jewish community that, even as it grows more alarmed, is still unwilling to confront the reality of the threat.

At the eye of the storm is the Liberal Party of Canada and its new leader, Prime Minister Mark Carney. Many would argue that in the past decade, the Liberal government under former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau increasingly empowered antisemitic elements. In the name of "diversity", "equity" and "inclusion", it has encouraged extreme radical ideologies and runaway antisemitism. It has failed to act decisively against imams who call for the shedding of Jewish blood. It has ignored incitement on university campuses, tolerated the spread of anti-Israel and anti-Jewish libels and defamation through public broadcasters that it funds. In the process, it has encouraged antisemitic opinions to intensify and be legitimized.

In the years 2023-2025, anti-Jewish violence in Montreal has escalated. Gunmen opened fire on two Jewish schools in 2023. The Congregation Beth Tikvah synagogue was firebombed twice in 2023 and 2024, causing serious damage. A Jewish community center was also firebombed in 2023.

Jewish businesses and institutions have been vandalized, effigies burned, and antisemitic slogans and cries in Arabic to murder Jews heard in the streets of Canada's major cities. As in 1930s Germany, attackers have broken synagogue windows.

Jewish students have been assaulted in front of schools, and swastikas were painted on Jewish businesses and homes. On university campuses across Canada, encampments have appeared, where Jewish students and faculty are harassed and obstructed. Some in the media, politics and faculty members have excused or justified these acts. What if black students had been prevented from moving freely on campus? All hell would have broken out — or should have. Yet, when it comes to Jews, or as the antisemites like to say "Zionists," no one, it seems, has a problem.

Violence is just part of the story. Jewish Canadians face harassment at work and violent physical attacks at protests, and are harassed relentlessly online. "Montreal has become North America's capital of antisemitism," according to Professor Gad Saad, of Montreal's Concordia University. The city is quickly becoming the continent's largest hotbed of radical Islam. In Toronto, meanwhile, instead of cracking down on hate crimes, the police department has been busy producing an official podcast featuring Muslim police officers praising the October 7, 2023 attack as something that generated more converts to Islam.

With Carney now as Canada's new prime minister, the Canadian government has pledged $100 million in aid to Palestinians. They claim it is for "humanitarian purposes." However, you would have to be living under a rock not to know that any aid sent to Gaza invariably goes straight to Hamas…

The sad truth is that if things do not drastically change, Canadian Jews may soon have to face a reckoning. Some will leave, as tens of thousands of Jews have already left France. Others will stay and fight back. What we are seeing today, however, is not a temporary peak in antisemitism. It appears to be the beginning of something far worse.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21527/canada-jews-crisis

[TBC: Though the Lord prophesied that Israel would be scattered through all nations, He also said they would be gathered again (Deut. 30:3).  Further, the Lord distinctly said that “...though I make a full end of all nations whither I have scattered thee, yet will I not make a full end of thee: but I will correct thee in measure, and will not leave thee altogether unpunished” (Jer:30:11For I am with thee, saith the LORD, to save thee: though I make a full end of all nations whither I have scattered thee, yet will I not make a full end of thee: but I will correct thee in measure, and will not leave thee altogether unpunished.
See All...). As to their importance as “signs of the times,” the prophet Joel recorded that “I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for my people and for my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted my land” (Joel:3:2I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for my people and for my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted my land.
See All...; see also Zech. 7,8, 12, 14, etc.).]