When Canadian Antisemitism Makes The Israeli News
Like many Jewish Canadians I am anxiously following the wartime news from Israel in real time updates from a number of Israeli and secular international news outlets several times a day. I watch and worry for my Israeli friends and relatives and for the future of Israel. But you know things are really bad in Canada when Canadian antisemitism makes the wartime news in Israel!
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/424071
This report on a recent Al Quds Day weekend rally in Toronto at the intersection of Bathurst and Sheppard in the heart of one of Canada’s major Jewish neighborhoods was featured on Arutz Sheva, Israel’s National News (Channel 7). Three major Jewish advocacy organizations were forced to add their calls to Toronto Police to investigate this incident as incitement of hatred toward the Jewish community.
Toronto Police are now consulting with the Crown Attorney (prosecutor) on potential charges, as is required for hate speech prosecutions, but it is indeed strange that so many public letters have had to be issued to Toronto Police to enforce EXISTING criminal laws to protect our Jewish community, from Jewish advocacy groups and political leaders. This should not be necessary in a functional and equitable law enforcement infrastructure.
In a related development, Toronto Police have now issued a directive prohibiting anti-Israel protestors from entering local side streets near the Bathurst/Sheppard intersection to intimidate local residents, but have not outlawed these anti-Israel protests entirely. No word yet on prospective hate speech complaints as police remain deployed near Jewish sites at risk.
https://nationalpost.com/news/anti-israel-protesters-banned-toronto-jewish-neighbourhood
The article in Arutz Sheva did not include the highly offensive images displayed at the rally, caught in screenshots from a social media poster on X known as ‘Leviathan’ (spelled in cryptic alphanumeric letters). The images depicted semitic looking Jewish men with beards and hooked noses as rats asking if it was safe to come out, asking their US ‘Daddy’ (Trump) for help, and displayed an Israeli flag with the word “Eliminated”.
Question: Is this any worse than Israel’s PR posters declaring certain terrorist forces as “Eliminated”? This motivation will likely be used to defend the anti-Israel activists and to excuse their offensive posters as political comment and lawful free speech advocacy defended ad nauseum as ‘free speech and right to protest’.
To my sensibilities, it was poor media strategy on the part of our Jewish advocacy organizations to include these images in their media releases, as much as we understand the need to underscore the offensiveness of these images. Their quote from an unnamed X user undermines their credibility, and the public use of these images only retraumatizes and revictimizes vulnerable members of our Jewish community already at high risk of hate crimes.
Unfortunately our major secular Canadian media organizations who claim to be allies of our Jewish community chose to broadcast these images wholesale in their massive publication distributions, potentially inflaming further hate crimes and harassment against the Jewish community. One of these was done in a column by a white Christian male right wing journalist exploiting these images.
One almost suspects a subconscious desire on their part to subjugate the Jewish community while claiming to advocate heroically on its behalf. This is a white Christian right wing journalist known to reject any form of ‘political correctness’ or accountability. I wrote to their newspapers nonetheless and explained the legal foundations of human rights law and remonstrated with them and our uptown Jewish organizations for replicating these hateful images irresponsibly.
As I did during the Gaza War, and during the pandemic, I have scrolled through images online of the current war on sources such as Reuters and the BBC and CNN and on Instagram. I have seen images not cleared by the Israeli military censors.
My heart is breaking, and I am worried for my friends and family in Israel. The Israeli casualty rates are climbing alarmingly, and it is not enough to suggest that Israeli citizens are to blame for not being in their shelters. In some communities, shelters are inadequate.
The Israeli government did its PR visits to ‘sell’ the war to Israeli civilians or to implicitly blame those affected by recent bomb impacts and shrapnel for not being in their safe rooms. One of the impacts happened on Shabbat, (the Jewish Sabbath) when many Gur Hasidim in the area of Dimona and Arad would not be using their cell phones and receiving alerts from the Home Front Command.
I am horrified by images of Jewish blood on the pavement and smashed cars and apartment buildings and Israeli civilians lying down on roadside pavements for cover as sirens wail and rockets fire overhead. The international media and its viewers marvel at cell phone footage of sirens wailing and rockets intercepted over major Israeli cities. This is not a life many Canadians could endure.
Perhaps my strong and resilient Israeli friends are used to this, but to my Canadian Jewish sensibilities, it looks like the end of the world, especially when we see reports of rocket impacts near the nuclear facilities at Dimona. Did anyone else notice the strange glow-in-the-dark green soil around the Natanz nuclear facility in Iran recently bombed by the US Air Force?
I am having Armageddon nightmares, as would many of my generation. This is the fear we have always known. The real ‘N-word’ is not racist, but nuclear, and it is terrifying. I actually saw an article on Israeli media outlining the symptoms of radiation poisoning, for the benefit of those still claiming that Israel does not have nuclear facilities. God give us strength.
The scene that truly broke my heart was the video footage of a terrified little Israeli boy aged about three or four in Purim costume running behind his friends to a shelter, as sirens wailed ominously overhead, screaming out plaintively “Ima!” (Mommy). It’s not all coffee shops and camaraderie. Tell your PR flacks and Hasbarahniks. How will this generation of children be affected by repeated terror attacks and the need to run for shelter? And what about their parents and IDF veterans?
While Israeli culture favors the cultivation of a group consciousness and dedication to the concept of community above oneself, we are seeing too many reports of casualties and deaths of elderly Israeli citizens with disabilities unable to reach their shelters in time, or those suffering ‘trip and fall’ injuries on their way to shelters, the destruction of homes and businesses and the loss of life and the potential for life long disabilities and psychological impacts such as PTSD, allegedly affecting a significant portion of Israeli soldiers who have been deployed and redeployed too often.
The PR videos celebrating pretty female Israeli soldiers and resilient social life underground are no longer convincing to me. I don’t know how my Israeli friends accept these risks as a condition of their lives. Many Israelis are thinking of leaving Israel. What are the effects on the Israeli economy and tourism? Who started this war? And who is expected to bear the burden of financing it? I have done all I can. I can’t help you anymore Israel, other than praying for your wellbeing.
I am beginning to think that the Netanyahu government and its ministers and military establishment are geared only for war and carnage, and not for peace. Our Canadian media laments the displacement of Lebanese civilians without asking why Lebanon and other Islamist countries in the region have harboured jihadist terrorists. We see images of forlorn displaced Lebanese citizens and children, including estimates of children already killed by the war with Hezbollah.
I do not live in Israel and cannot imagine doing so under these conditions. I have had to limit my exposure to media for my own wellbeing and sanity. But I do pray for Israel. Here are those links again for the prayers for Israel and the IDF. Please join me and please support Israeli charities and first responders such as Magen David Adom and United Hatzalah. Thank you.
https://jewishvirtuallibrary.org/prayer-for-the-state-of-israel
https://jewishvirtuallibrary.org/prayer-for-the-well-being-of-the-israel-defense-forces
Pirkei Avot (The Ethics of the Sages) teaches us to pray for the welfare of the government, for without it, people would eat each other alive. So we pray. But ultimately it will be up to the Israeli people in the upcoming elections to determine whether they wish to live in a constant state of war and worry, or to cultivate the promise and potential we all believe in for the land of Israel and its people.
There is more to life than this. And we need to get back to it, in Israel and in the Diaspora. I long to read news from Israel of new medical discoveries and technological innovations and arts and cultural developments and awards. We must not allow our enemies or our suffering or fighting anti-semitism to define us. We will dance again. I look forward to it.
We are taught in Psalm 146 not to put our faith in princes and leaders and politicians who cannot save, but to have faith in God. As they say, God helps those who help themselves. Let’s get started. I have actually found reading Psalms and praying for Israel and those injured a very good use of time!
https://mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt26e6.htm
Am Yisrael Chai. We send our support and love from Canada.