Canada’s Jews ask: When is it too late?

When I wrote When Is It Too Late?: Holocaust Lessons on Risk, Decision Making, and the Failure to Act, I was not only writing about the Holocaust. I was writing about recognition.

How do ordinary people understand danger while they are still living inside ordinary life?

That question has become painfully relevant for many Canadian Jews after October 7. Not because Canada is Nazi Germany. It is not. Not because Canada is occupied Europe. It is not. Serious history requires that distinction.

But serious history also requires that we pay attention when hatred becomes more visible, when intimidation is minimized, and when institutions hesitate to respond with moral clarity.

For many Canadian Jews, the concern is not only the number of antisemitic incidents. It is the atmosphere those incidents create.

Jewish schools require greater security. Synagogues need protection. Jewish businesses and neighbourhoods have been targeted. On campuses and in public spaces, many Jews have watched hostility toward Israel slide too easily into hostility toward Jews.

This has created a sense of vulnerability that many Canadian Jews did not expect to feel in this country. The fear is not only about isolated acts of hatred. It is about whether the broader society understands what those acts mean to the people being targeted.

The issue is not protest. Lawful protest belongs in a democracy. People have the right to criticize governments, policies, and political decisions, including those of Israel.

The issue is when protest becomes intimidation. The issue is when political language excuses hatred. The issue is when Jewish Canadians are made to feel unsafe in schools, places of worship, neighbourhoods, workplaces, and public spaces.

The issue is also institutional clarity. When public institutions appear more concerned with managing disorder than naming antisemitism clearly, the Jewish community hears that hesitation. Silence and ambiguity carry meaning.

One of the central lessons of my book is that danger rarely arrives all at once. It develops gradually.

People continue working, studying, worshipping, raising families, and living ordinary lives while the conditions around them begin to change. That is what makes recognition difficult. Life does not stop simply because danger is increasing.

Most people do not experience history as a clear warning sign. They experience it as uncertainty, discomfort, explanation, denial, and delay. They tell themselves that things are serious, but not yet dangerous enough to require decisive action.

That is where failure often begins.

In Hungary before 1944, Jewish life did not vanish overnight. Families remained in their homes. Synagogues functioned. Children went to school. Meals were prepared. Communities continued, even as the legal, social, and political conditions beneath them weakened.

Hungary matters historically because it was one of the last major Jewish communities in Europe to fall under the full machinery of Nazi destruction. By 1944, much was already known or should have been known about what Nazi rule meant for Jews in Europe.

Yet even then, many families were trapped inside uncertainty. Leaving was not simple. Recognizing the full danger was not simple. Acting early carried personal, financial, emotional, and practical costs.

By the time the danger became unmistakable, options had already narrowed.

That is not a comparison meant to equate Canada with 1944 Hungary. It is a warning about human behaviour.

People often wait for certainty before they act. Institutions often wait for conditions to become undeniable before they respond. Societies often tell themselves that what is happening is serious, but not yet serious enough.

The problem is that history rarely gives people certainty in time. It gives warnings. It gives patterns. It gives moments that may seem manageable when viewed separately, but deeply troubling when seen together.

For minorities, those patterns are often recognized earlier because they are felt more directly. A community that has been targeted before may sense danger before others are willing to name it.

That does not make the community alarmist. It may simply mean that it understands the meaning of warning signs.

The Holocaust teaches more than remembrance. It teaches the danger of delay, normalization, and moral hesitation.

It teaches that hatred does not need to control a society completely in order to damage the lives of those it targets. It teaches that institutions matter. Language matters. Public response matters. The willingness to name hatred clearly matters.

“Never Again” cannot mean only honouring victims after the fact. It must mean recognizing danger earlier, while there is still time to defend the values that make democratic life possible.

If remembrance does not sharpen recognition, then remembrance becomes too passive.

Canada remains a free and democratic country. That is exactly why this moment matters.

A democracy proves its strength not only by protecting popular speech, but by protecting vulnerable communities when doing so becomes uncomfortable. It proves its strength when it can defend both civil liberties and minority safety without pretending that one must cancel the other.

Jewish Canadians are not asking for special treatment. They are asking for equal protection, equal dignity, and equal moral concern.

They are asking institutions to recognize that antisemitism is not merely a Jewish issue. It is a warning sign about the health of democratic society itself.

The question is not whether Canada is at the edge of catastrophe. That is not the argument.

The question is whether Canada is willing to recognize signs of social and institutional weakening before they become normalized.

The question is whether public leaders, universities, police services, school boards, civic institutions, and ordinary citizens can distinguish between legitimate political expression and conduct that makes Jewish Canadians feel threatened or excluded.

The question is whether “Never Again” still has meaning when recognition is difficult, when the facts are contested, and when speaking clearly may be unpopular.

When I ask, “When is it too late?”, I am not asking a theoretical question. I am asking a question rooted in my mother’s history, in Holocaust memory, and in the lived experience of many Jews today.

The lesson of history is not that every moment is the same. It is that dangerous moments are often misunderstood while they are unfolding.

Canada is not 1944 Hungary. But Canadian Jews are asking an old question again because they understand that safety can weaken gradually, and that recognition often comes too late.

The responsibility of a democratic society is to recognize danger before it becomes undeniable.

That is the question behind my book.

And increasingly, it is the question many Canadian Jews are asking today.