Study: Anti-Semitism Skyrockets in Canada

Highest level of anti-Semitic incidents ‘ever recorded’

BY: Adam Kredo, NEW BEACON

Anti-Semitic incidents in Canada skyrocketed over the last year and have now hit the highest levels “ever recorded” by human rights groups tracking the number of anti-Jewish episodes, according to a new study.

Canadians across the country reported experiencing more anti-Semitism than in the past four years, with anti-Semitic incidents having risen a total of 28 percent from 2013 to 2014, according to the global Jewish advocacy group B’nai B’rith International (BBI).

This made 2014 the “worst year” for anti-Semitism since advocacy groups began tracking incidents in 1982.

The majority of those who reported an instance of anti-Semitism faced harassment, while others faced forms of violence and vandalism as a result of being Jewish, according to the report.

The rise coincides with a global surge in anti-Semitism, including a rash of terrorist attacks against Jewish communities in countries such as France.

In Canada alone, there were 1,627 anti-Jewish incidents in 2014, a nearly 30 percent rise since the previous year. Such cases “can vary from slurs, name calling, and graffiti, to assault, arson, and bomb threats,” the report states.

“The year 2014 saw the highest number of anti-Semitic incidents ever recorded by B’nai B’rith and the League for Human Rights,” according to the report. “At 1,627 incidents, this year saw a 28 percent increase over 2013. This is consistent with data gathered by other human rights organizations around the world, such as the Anti-Defamation League, who reported a 21 percent increase over the previous year.”

At least 1,370 of reported incidents included forms of anti-Semitic harassment, while 238 reported vandalism and another 19 reported being the victims of violence.

The report’s authors warn that anti-Semitism is becoming a serious threat in Canada and that it follows with larger trends across the globe.

“It would be easy to allow the events of 2014 and the rising prevalence of occurrences to convince Canadians that anti-Semitism has become an inevitable and insurmountable problem in this country, and to allow fear and anger to take hold,” the report states.

“However, the events unfolding in other parts of the world should serve to illustrate the need for increased ties between the Jewish community and the larger Canadian society. It is not by building barriers that we will eliminate anti-Semitism, but rather by building relationships, and encouraging inter-community education and dialogue,” it says.

Toronto police have reported similar finding, with one recent report concluding: “Toronto’s Jewish community was the most victimized group, on the receiving end of nearly one in every three reported hate crime incidents.”

In addition, “similar results were seen in other municipalities around Canada, and this disturbing trend is indicative of a larger, global rise in anti-Semitism, with 2014 seeing multiple high-profile anti-Semitic incidents across Europe and around the world.”

Researchers attribute growing anti-Semitism to the ongoing conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians and a growth in anti-Israel activity on college campuses.

“On college and university campuses across Canada, on the streets in protests and in the media, one drum-beat is being pounded again and again: Jews, via the state of Israel, are responsible for some of the worst types of human rights violations and the genocide of the Palestinian people,” the report states. “Criticism of Israeli policy has become a condemnation of the Jewish people as a whole, legitimized by movements such as BDS (Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions) [movement].”

In 2014 alone, Jewish individuals reported being targeted for wearing yarmulkes in public and having their homes vandalized with anti-Semitic graffiti.

In April of last year, for instance, several Hasidic homes were vandalized, with one being completely destroyed by arson, according to the report.

Another individual reported that a mattress was set on fire “with the words ‘burnt Jew’ written across the top.”

The Washington Free Beacon reported in July that a family of pro-Israel supporters were assaulted and strangled by pro-Palestinian protestors and an anti-Israel event in Calgary.

Family members reported protestors shouting, “Kill Jews,” “Hitler should finish you off,” and “baby killers.” Events then turned violent when some of the protestors punched family members and spat on them.

A vandal smeared dog feces onto the door of a synagogue in Toronto in September.

June 17, 2015 | 5 Comments »

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5 Comments / 5 Comments

  2. @ Bear Klein:

    BK,

    My wife and I live in rural Wisconsin, but I’m not at all into this Cheesehead crap which was dreamed up for tourists. In any case, most of the cheese i know of is imported from elsewhere. Anyway, I get along with the locals because around here, people steer clear of getting antagonistic. So long as you pay your taxes, don’t drive while intoxicated,

    The people who know me well are my business customers, Tea Party Republicans, and, above all, Wisconsin’s hardcore gun owners. Among other things, I’m known as the guy who organized and helped run a series of speed and accuracy matches for owners of legally registered submachine guns. Over some 10 years or so, I think I reloaded about 20,000 rounds of .45 caliber swaged FMJ round-nose hardball ammo. Reloading is a lot cheaper than using the factory stuff, even though a buddy of mine is in the online-order ammunition business.

    As for opinions about religion, nobody around here gives a damn whether I worship HaShem or a picture of Marilyn Monroe. Twenty-three years ago, about 10 days before an Arab shot him dead in a New York hotel meeting room, I did the legwork on getting Rav Meir Kahane invited to speak at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The mostly liberal Madison Jews hated me for that; but lots of Christians seemed interested in what Kahane had to say.

    About feeling at home in Israel. I did just that back in 1973-1974, precisely because I expected it to be as different as possible from life in the USA, and in that, I never was disappointed. For Stefi, it was a lot easier. Like most Europeans, she understood multiple languages in addition to the Hrvatski (Serbo-Croatian) she learned growing up in Zagreb. So for her, Ivrit was just one more language added to her repertoire. I might have felt different if we had lived in Tel Aviv, which we thought was a rat-hole, instead of Yerushalayim, which we loved. But if I were to come back there, either to visit or stay, the only place in the country that really interest me would be Shomron and Yehuda. There’s a nice little town in the Jordan Valley, a little ways north of Jericho, called Ma’aleh Efrayim, the photos I have seen are impressive.

    By the way. Is the government in Israel still dominated by the Galitzianers, the Hebrew University by the Yekkes, and the Jerusalem Post by the British Jews? I suppose by now all those Soviet Jews must be establishing their own turf. As far as I’m concerned, those are my own landsmen, and I wish them well.

    Be well yourself, BK. And don’t listen to anybody’s line of shit, unless you have reason to know it’s true.

    Arnold Harris
    Mount Horeb WI

  3. @ ArnoldHarris:
    Arnold let us hope Cheesland (Wisconsin) does not suffer anti-antisemitism because it would that mean the Harris clan is marching to Judah and Samaria to boost aliyah.

    Oh well just messing with you Arnold.

    I wish Jews to make aliyah and some make it for ideological (religious, zionistic) reasons and some make it for a mixture of reasons. Some come because of anti-antisemitism. Some come because after all is said and done Israel feels like home for a Jew in-spite of the difficulties of moving ones family from wherever they live.

  4. On the other hand, let’s look at a potentially useful side of all this anti-Semitism in Canada, because it’s always useful in boosting aliya. Jews, like anyone else, rarely leave places in which they live comfortable lives. If Canada wants to fill up Toronto with ragheads, you really can’t stop them. So make the best of the situation by transplanting a couple of hundred thousand Canadian Jews to Shomron and Yehuda. This possibly seems offensive to a lot of liberal Jewish folk. But I don’t think I’m he only right-wing Zionist who welcomed it as a tactic to help induce he Jewish nation to build a Jewish state.

    Arnold Harris
    Mounbt Horeb WI