From the JI

Need holistic approach

Prime Minister Mark Carney delivered a much-vaunted statement on Canada’s antisemitism crisis last week. It was unlikely to satisfy everyone – partly because there is only so much a single government can do about a global social phenomenon like escalating Jew-hatred.

Even by the standards of that acknowledgement, the address, delivered in Toronto’s Holy Blossom Temple, seemed like a significant missed opportunity.

Some might have expected Canada to appoint a Royal Commission that would investigate the problem of antisemitism in this country, as Australia has done. That, too, likely would have been criticized as kicking the problem down the road.

Instead, Carney announced something called the Ministerial Advisory Council on Rights, Equality and Inclusion, under the stewardship of Marc Miller, the minister of Canadian identity and culture. The council’s mission seems reasonable enough: analyzing “the nature, scale and drivers of antisemitism in Canada – including across our public institutions, workplaces, campuses, public services, professional bodies and online spaces”; coordinating a “whole-of-federal-government approach”; improving research and the collection of data on hate incidents; and “measure[ing] the impact of our efforts, to reinforce those investments in education, prevention, training and community safety that are delivering real results and helping to build a safer, more inclusive Canada for all.”

Lovely enough, though Carney’s speech seemed defensive on at least two fronts. First, he insisted none of this would impinge free expression, which came across as a bit of a sop to those who insist that there should be no limits to the Jew-hatred and anti-Israel bombast on Canadian streets, in classrooms and at workplaces. Further, while insisting that antisemitism is a top priority and that it would be moved to the top of the new council’s agenda, the council is, in the end, a broadly mandated body with a massive jurisdictional swath including, as its name states, amorphous “rights, equality and inclusion.” At a time when many Jews feel like their interests cannot be addressed without an addendum acknowledging the concerns of a laundry list of other equity-seeking peoples, the assignment of antisemitism to this omnibus-type council seems as much an insult as a salve.

What most people did not know during Carney’s speech were the names of the members of the new council. Among them is a lawyer behind a Charter of Rights challenge in defence of anti-Israel encampments. More galling to many is the inclusion of former Liberal MP Omar Alghabra, who has been head of the Canadian Arab Federation, is an admirer of Yasser Arafat, and lobbied to keep Hamas and Hezbollah off Canada’s list of proscribed terrorist entities.

It is an understatement to say that this news undermines the confidence of Jewish (and most reasonable) Canadians that the council will be anything like a panacea for the antisemitism problem. One could hardly conjure council members more likely to raise distrust among Jewish Canadians, no matter how respected any of the other members may be.

Carney also outlined not insignificant steps the government has taken, including funding for programs against radicalization and for Jewish community security. The latter funding is, of course, deeply necessary and appreciated, but also a symptom, rather than a treatment, of the issue.

Rich on bromides and with a requisite quote from Elie Wiesel, the prime minister’s speech probably struck most Canadian Jews as bland and empty. Carney uttered not a word about Israel or antizionism. More than this, the role of Islamic extremism as a major source of antisemitism in Canada was addressed only indirectly. As many commentators have noted, if we are too afraid to even acknowledge and name a main driver of the problem, the likelihood of taking steps that will resolve it seems very remote.

At a minimum, the PM’s address gives a benchmark with which to measure success or failure in the next few years. Any progress brought about by the work of the council and the other steps Carney noted, including Bill C-9 regarding hate propaganda, hate crimes and access to religious or cultural places, will be welcomed. The government should be held to account for any shortcomings.

As important as government action is, that alone will not have the impact necessary if there is not a significant upswell in public demand for change. While Carney called for a “whole-of-federal-government approach,” we need an all-of-society approach, with civic groups, media, the corporate sector and, especially, individual Canadians, speaking up against antisemitism.

Wrong person rebuked

The City of Vancouver’s integrity commissioner this month declared that Mayor Ken Sim breached the city’s code of conduct by criticizing Councilor Sean Orr’s presence and comments at an anti-Israel rally last year.

The report concluded that Sim misused the influence of his office by holding a press conference to criticize Orr over inflammatory social media posts and his attendance at an anti-Israel protest alongside very problematic speakers and organizations. The report said Sim should apologize to Orr or face censure by council.

Ezra Shanken, chief executive officer of the Jewish Federation of British Columbia, said in a statement that the conflict commissioner’s report represented a double standard, and expressed gratitude to the mayor for raising our community’s concerns.

Nico Slobinsky, on behalf of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, criticized Orr for not showing accountability for past social media posts, including claiming that city planners were controlled by a “secret cabal of Jews,” and calling for the “destruction of both Israel and Canada.” While a city councilor, Orr spoke at the “Flood for Palestine” protest organized by Al-Awda, a group with links to the terrorist entity Samidoun.

The brouhaha at city hall is just one in a small avalanche of administrative, legal and political episodes in recent years that have left many Jews feeling abandoned and betrayed by the institutions and legal protections ostensibly in place to protect them and other minority communities.

Many Jews feel under attack and, despite pleasant words from some elected officials, actual tangible responses often seem weak or absent. For example, the flooding of a Vancouver neighbourhood with hate messages against Jews and Israel have been effectively ignored by city officials. Clearing them away has been left to local residents. Nothing, apparently, has been done to reprimand the individual known to be perpetrating the graffiti and vandalism, despite laws and bylaws against precisely this sort of behaviour.

In Ontario, some progress has been seen recently. Toronto authorities responded to demonstrations in Jewish neighbourhoods by tightening enforcement, restricting marches from entering residential streets, and arresting some participants and investigating alleged incidents of hate speech and public incitement. Ontario’s Premier Doug Ford has been vocal in defending Jewish communities and, no doubt, his unequivocal position gave some political cover to police and others to take action.

No similar political leadership has been seen in British Columbia, where the unresolved case of Charlotte Kates remains a sore point for many in the Jewish community. Vancouver police arrested Kates in April 2024 after remarks at a Vancouver rally in which she praised the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks and venerated their perpetrators as heroic. Police recommended charges for public incitement and wilful promotion of hatred. Nearly two years later, Crown counsel has still not announced a charge decision. Pressed by the Independent, the premier’s office pointed to prosecutorial independence, arguing that charging decisions rest with the BC Prosecution Service, not elected officials.

This may be fair justification, but piled upon so many instances where words and actions that are perceived by Jews as hateful and inciting go officially unchallenged leave many Jewish people with an overall sense that they are being abandoned by those who should be enforcing anti-hate protections.

Parliament is now considering Bill C-9, a proposed online harms law that carries numerous provisions that Jewish leaders support. But many people are leery of more laws that likely will not be enforced, provisions intended to increase safety for minority communities – Jews, in particular – but that will not have their intended impact, whether because police do not enforce them, the Crown does not pursue charges or, if it reaches that level, courts do not convict. The proposed new federal law has much to recommend itself but, if it is just going to be another law on a dusty legal shelf, it will not change the situation we face.

The case of Vancouver’s mayor, who called out egregious incidents only to be called on the carpet himself – and ordered to apologize – portends a chilling on those who would stand up for the Jewish community.

We have laws in this country, but many of them are not being enforced. Very few Jews in this country, we confidently venture, believe the system is working as it should.

The balancing of rights

Canada prides itself on being a country where free expression is a core value. We have always differed from our American cousins, though, in recognizing a balance between an “anything goes” right to speech and the contending right of individuals and groups to live free from fear and incitement.

Canadian law draws definite lines. Speech that incites violence against an identifiable group, that promotes hatred or that crosses into criminal harassment is not protected. Those limits are not theoretical – they exist precisely because history has shown what can happen when words move from expression into incitement.

Even as governments take steps towards legislation that would create “bubble zones” and strengthen hate crime laws, many Canadians Jews are concerned that limitations already set out in law, intended to protect minority communities, are not being enforced. Rhetoric like “Globalize the intifada,” which is heard as an overt call for violence against Jews by most Jews and other people who can hear clearly, is going uncontested by police and courts, for example.

The Criminal Code is clear: advocating or promoting violence against identifiable groups crosses a line. The question is no longer whether such limits exist. The question is whether they are being enforced. And, increasingly, the answer appears to be no.

What we are seeing is not simply robust debate. It is a climate in which harassment and intimidation are proliferating, often without legal consequence.

There are, of course, consequences. Jewish institutions require heightened security after so many incidents that it is hard to keep up with the grim news. Students and faculty experience actively hostile campus environments. Public demonstrations brazenly cross the line between protest, provocation and hate.

There is no provable causal chain between rhetoric and violence. Democracies are right to err on the side of speech. But, when the same language, the same slogans and the same patterns of escalation appear alongside an unprecedented rise in hate incidents and targeted attacks, the correlation becomes increasingly difficult to dismiss – and demands attention.

Canada is not alone in confronting this tension. The British authorities have begun to draw firmer lines – distinguishing between lawful protest and language and conduct that threatens public safety or targets vulnerable communities.

The approach is not without controversy. It raises legitimate concerns about overreach and the risk of suppressing dissent. But it also reflects a recognition that inaction carries its own dangers.

Canada is facing a similar showdown.

The goal must not be to silence political views, however unpopular. Or to criminalize protest or suppress debate about complex international issues. Those must remain protected. The goal must be far narrower – to enforce the laws that already exist and to ensure that calls for violence, harassment and intimidation are treated as such, regardless of political context. To make clear that free expression does not extend to threatening the safety and dignity of others.

This is a position that seems simple enough, even unquestioned, when it comes to hateful language and physical intimidation against other vulnerable populations. The situation is serious and it demands the willingness to confront uncomfortable truths.

Canada should not abandon its commitment to free expression. But we must recognize, as we always have, that free expression has limits – and that those limits exist for a reason. In this instance, the reason is the evident correlation between rampant anti-Israel, antizionist and antisemitic rhetoric and the violence against Jews and Jewish institutions we are experiencing.

The government of the United Kingdom is now experimenting in enforcing limitations on hate expression. It is a courageous step. It could also be a turning point – in either direction.

The inevitable pushback around “silencing” (itself often founded on antisemitic tropes of Jewish power) and the more legitimate concerns about free speech make this a fraught policy area. However, if the UK, which shares much of our political culture, can find a middle ground, we would be wise to pay attention.

If, on the other hand, more violent protests, adverse court decisions or – more damagingly – if the government suffers internal splits or popular disapproval over its approach to anti-Jewish harassment, it could set a precedent in which politicians in places like Canada learn that it is best not to provoke the harassers. If that happens, it will signal an open season for anti-Jewish agitation and an extraordinary abandonment of free speech’s twin core value of being able to live free from fear and incitement.

What is needed right now is political courage. Some of that exists, but it needs to exist in a sufficient number of decision-makers and in the places of power where it is most needed and can have the most effect. For better or worse, we will know if this is the case soon enough.

Is it the end of an era?

The landslide defeat of Viktor Orbán and his Fidesz party in the recent Hungarian parliamentary elections could herald a seismic shift in European and global politics. Or not.

There were many issues at play in the election, obviously, including pocketbook economics and other domestic matters. Overseas observers have focused on Orbán’s “illiberal democracy” – his hacking away at free media and other institutions that tend to be measures of democratic health. It bears noting, to his credit, that as undemocratic as Orbán may have been in office, when he was defeated, he accepted the peaceful transition of power without apparent reservation.

The Hungarian election outcome is notable because of the era it could bring to a close. Orbán’s election in 2010 is viewed in retrospect as a major milestone in the advance of far-right politics in Europe.

Orbán did not invent European far-right politics, clearly. His election, though, was a major breakthrough and served as a model and inspiration for other movements, including those outside Europe, like figures in Latin America, as well as Donald Trump, who went so far as to send his vice-president to Hungary in an unashamed bid to shore up support for the Hungarian leader in the final hours of the campaign.

Something else Orbán may not have invented, but which he and his government exemplified and honed, was an ambiguous, somewhat cunning approach to Jews and the Jewish state.

Jews, put mildly, have a history with European far-right politics. Even sensible non-Jews are conscious of this third rail. Neutralizing the echoes of that history – or at least casting its veracity in doubt – is essential to legitimizing contemporary far-right politics.

Being pro-Israel has been a calculated and expedient position for figures like Orbán. In the sense that support for Israel fits into a xenophobic European narrative that sees Israel as a bulwark of Western civilization, there is something more transactional going on. Far-right pro-Israel politicians are often militantly anti-Muslim, supporting Israel less because they endorse Jewish self-determination than because of the adage that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Contemporary Israel is a model for them of defiant nationalism facing down (not coincidentally, Muslim) threats, which justifies some of their own domestic policies.

Support for Israel can also serve as a reputational shield. Supporting Israel in their foreign policy can deflect allegations of antisemitism – even in cases where leaders and grassroots supporters have deeply problematic records of antisemitic rhetoric. In many countries, Jews serve as a wedge in centre and left politics, pitting more vulnerable communities against one another as those in power deflect attention from charges of corruption or the results of bad policies and other inequalities that plague societies.

Pro-Israel politicians who deny charges of antisemitism often engage in anti-Jewish dog whistles like conspiracy theories about “globalists,” “elites,” “the Epstein class” or George Soros, in which linguistic stand-ins for “Jews” allow just enough plausible deniability. Orbán perfected this strategy, using the Hungarian-born Jewish billionaire Soros as a scapegoat, with overtly antisemitic undertones.

In France, Marine Le Pen’s National Rally presents itself as pro-Israel and protective of French Jews. But many Jews and analysts question whether this is a tactical strategy to “mainstream” the party, which was founded on explicitly antisemitic premises by Le Pen’s father, Jean-Marie Le Pen.

The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party routinely attacks the Holocaust memorialization culture in Germany and tolerates antisemitic rhetoric in its ranks, while its pro-Israel foreign policy puts a twist in its ideological pedigree. But the AfD’s commitment to Israel looks to many observers like a qualified alliance based on Jews fitting the party’s anti-Muslim civilizational story.

Austria’s far-right Freedom Party, founded by former Nazis, has attempted to soften the hard edges of their anti-Muslim immigration policy with what some have termed a “charm offensive” toward Jews, especially relating to support for Israel.

The opacity of parties with problematic, antisemitic individuals taking actively pro-Israel stands has blurred conventional lines in politics and apparently created some confusion in the Jewish community. At a time when voices defending Israel are so rare, some Jews welcome anyone who expresses anything that can be construed as something like empathy.

Above all, foreign policy is a place where alliances are commonly as tactical as they are principled. Notably, the government of Israel plays this game, too. Last year, far-right European figures were invited to a conference on combating antisemitism. (Many mainstream Jewish leaders stayed away.)

Whether Orbán’s downfall is a Hungary-specific phenomenon or whether it might portend a waning of the European extreme right and those forces around the world will be known only over time. Either way, what will it mean for Jews and the Jewish state? That, too, remains an open question – one that Jewish communities need to keep trying to better understand and be more strategically positioned to respond to.

The only sure thing is that Jews and Israel will remain tools in the hands of self-interested politicians, one way or another.

Survival not passive

Driving south along Oak Street on a recent sunny spring morning, it was hard not to feel the hope of renewal. Paralleling Vancouver Talmud Torah is a majestic line of cherry blossoms in full flourish. A few metres on, outside Congregation Beth Israel, waves of daffodils tell the cyclical story of nature and regeneration.

If hope itself were temporal, springtime would be its incarnation. Sometimes, though, recognizing and feeling hope can take effort.

For many of us, the just-ended celebration of Jewish redemption and rebirth held special resonance, as it has since 2023. The ageless stories, relived at the seder, remain so relevant. We are living through a period that feels, at once, ancient and immediate, because hatred has resurfaced so ferociously and wears familiar disguises.

The redemption of the last hostages from Gaza and the end of that war gave little reprieve before a new war began in a cycle with which Israelis are all too familiar. Jewish history, though, teaches that darkness is never the whole story.

Seeking peace is a central obligation in the Jewish tradition. But Jewish law, halachah, also acknowledges the role of force when necessary. Jewish survival has never been passive; it has never been the result of favourable conditions. It has been an act of will – a refusal to accept that the present moment, however dark, is permanent. From the destruction of the Temples to the expulsions of Europe and the Levant, from the crusades and pogroms of the Middle Ages to the ashes of the 20th century, Jewish history has been punctuated by chapters that seemed like endings. And yet, they were not.

Jewish hope is not blind. It is strategic – necessary and unavoidable. Consider what has happened in just the past century – an epoch that, in the annals of Jewish time, is the blink of an eye. A people nearly annihilated rebuilt not only our lives, but our language, our culture and our sovereignty. The rebirth of Jewish life in our ancestral homeland was not inevitable. It was improbable.

War is tragedy. There are no easy moral lessons in suffering, no easy narrative that redeems loss. But history demonstrates that moments of profound rupture can create the conditions for transformation. As David Ben-Gurion said, “In Israel, in order to be a realist, you must believe in miracles.”

The peace between Israel and Egypt followed a devastating war. The Abraham Accords emerged from a recognition that endless conflict was untenable. It is not naïve to hope that, from the current devastation, a new framework might eventually emerge – one that prioritizes stability, dignity and coexistence over perpetual violence.

The same is true of the surge in antisemitism globally. It is alarming, yes. But it is also exposing something that has long simmered beneath the surface. Ideas that were once coded are now explicit. Relationships that were once assumed are now being tested. Perhaps, in these challenges lies opportunity.

There is a growing recognition that Jew-hatred and Israel-hatred are not isolated prejudices, but warning signs. Individuals and communities are standing ground and pushing back. Young Jews and “Oct. 8 Jews” – whose connections to Jewishness were limited until the shock of renewed hatreds motivated new inquiries into their identities – are rising to the moment.

Non-Jewish allies are speaking out, showing their support in their actions and presence. Take, for example, those daffodils at Beth Israel – planted in memory of those people murdered in the Hamas terror attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, the garden was inspired by a non-Jewish ally. (See jewishindependent.ca/flowers-for-those-murdered.)

The story of Passover does not promise that the journey will be easy. It does not deny the existence of hardship or doubt. It does insist that liberation is possible. And this idea is not just tradition. It is necessary and an obligation.

Teach critical thinking

We are failing in a battle we cannot afford to lose. Canadians and the world are trying, unsuccessfully, to control the spread of misinformation and disinformation at the source, policing online platforms, flagging content and regulating perpetrators.

This “supply-side” approach is fundamentally flawed. Information today moves too fast, too freely and too globally to ever be contained. Controlling what is produced is a losing battle. Our main hope is to vaccinate consumers of information against the pandemic of lies.

In recent issues, the Independent has reported on steps being taken by the provincial and federal governments to police boundaries (for example, provincial legislation that would create “bubble zones” around religious institutions) and strengthening hate crime laws (the federal government’s Bill C-9). These are deeply necessary and well-intentioned steps.

They are also like plugging a collapsing dike.

In the immediate term, we need to police speech that is hateful and potentially violent. In the longer term, we need to educate citizens to differentiate between truth and lies so they are less susceptible to bigoted ideas and misinformation.

B’nai Brith Canada has launched a national digital literacy campaign that is timely and necessary. (Click here for story.) Even this initiative, though, should go further. Digital literacy alone is not enough. Canadians – and people everywhere – require a much broader foundation in critical thinking and media consumption. They need to know not just how to use digital tools, but how to question and critique all manner of information: how to evaluate sources, how to distinguish fact from fiction, commentary from reporting, propaganda from legitimate information.

If individuals are equipped to interrogate what they see – if they instinctively ask, “Who created this? Why? What evidence supports it? What motivations might the creator have beyond informing me?” – then misinformation loses some of its power. It stops spreading, not because it has been removed, but because it has been assessed and rejected by its targets.

Importantly, this is not just about young people, though teaching students these skills early is essential. Misinformation does not discriminate by age, and neither should our response. In many cases, older generations, who did not grow up in a digital environment, are even more susceptible.

The world is experiencing a tsunami of information. Everything – everything – depends on the ability of each of us to navigate these surging waters. If people cannot tell what is real, they cannot make informed decisions or vote responsibly. If they cannot distinguish truth from manipulation, democracy itself erodes.

This is especially relevant right now to Jewish Canadians, who are deeply concerned by surging antisemitism and antizionism. We are wringing our hands over how to successfully confront this crisis. If we can train people to identify misinformation, propaganda and assorted falsehoods and conspiracies, the Jew-hatred problem may not entirely resolve itself. Those steps would, however, almost certainly be the most effective and enduring contemporary response to an ancient and enduring bigotry.

A society that can think critically is a society that is less easily misled. And, in today’s world, that may be the most important skill of all.

Moment of opportunity

From the first of Vancouver’s weekly vigils for Israeli hostages, after the 10/7 attacks, members of the local Iranian community were a welcome presence. Asked by the Independent why he was moved to join the mostly Jewish crowd at one of the first vigils, an Iranian-Canadian man explained that no one knows better than Iranians the enemy Israel is up against.

Now, it is the Iranians in Vancouver who are gathering regularly to show solidarity with their families halfway around the world. And it is uplifting not only to see Israeli flags and Jewish community members amid the throngs, but additionally inspiring that the Jewish presence is as profoundly welcomed at these gatherings as the Iranian-Canadian support was at our own community’s vigils.

The escalating confrontation between the United States, Israel and the Islamic Republic of Iran is fraught with danger. War in the Middle East rarely unfolds in neat or predictable ways. Yet, for all the risks, the present moment might represent a genuine opportunity.

For more than four decades, the regime in Tehran has destabilized the Middle East. Since the Iranian Revolution in 1979, the Islamic Republic has invested enormous resources in regional proxy networks, backing armed groups across the Middle East while suppressing dissent and freedoms at home. Iran is one of the world’s foremost state sponsors of terror and the primary backer of both Hamas and Hezbollah – Israel’s most dangerous terrorist enemies.

Many Iranians living outside Iran, probably most, support efforts to weaken or eliminate the Islamist regime in Tehran. Diaspora communities across North America and Europe include people who fled political persecution, censorship and the stifling of basic freedoms.

Domestic opposition – the courageous Iranians who have taken to the streets in opposition to government tyranny – has not dislodged the regime, obviously. Many hope that the US-Israel military action could create an environment that might topple it.

The Israelis and Americans, it needs to be noted, have both explicit and less overt objectives in this war. One stated aim, of many unclear objectives, is to ensure that Iran is prevented from developing nuclear weapons. Regime change is not an explicit goal. The US president has instead called on the Iranian people to take this opportunity to continue to rise up against their oppressors. However, the US administration has not made it clear that ending the theocracy is their aim or that the US will be there for the Iranian people if the war’s other geopolitical aims are met.

For Israelis, regime change in Iran probably presents the greatest chance for stability the country has experienced, at least in the past four decades.

A post-theocratic Iran might pursue normal relations with its neighbours and with the West. It could redirect vast resources away from proxy wars and toward economic development.

None of this, of course, is guaranteed or, perhaps, even likely. History offers sobering reminders that the collapse of authoritarian regimes can produce chaos as easily as freedom.

Iran is not Iraq in 2003 or Afghanistan in 2001. It has a large, educated population, a long, cohesive national history and a strong sense of cultural identity that predates the current regime. Civil society – though heavily suppressed – has shown remarkable resilience, from women’s rights movements to waves of protests demanding political reform. These internal forces matter a great deal. Ultimately, the future of Iran will be determined not by foreign militaries but by the Iranian people.

That is why the current moment, dangerous as it is, should also be understood as holding possibility. If external pressure weakens the regime enough to create space for internal change, Iranians may have a chance to shape a different future.

The risks are undeniable. Escalation could spiral. More civilian lives will be lost – especially as a regime saturated with end-times theology sees its very survival threatened. The region could face new volatility before it finds stability. Civil war could break out.

Sometimes, though, the status quo is the deeper danger. The Islamist regime in Tehran has spent decades exporting conflict and constraining the aspirations of its people. As long as it remains in power, Israel and other countries in the region will not know dependable calm or have much chance to fulfil any dreams of peace.

For the Iranian people, for the region and for the world, this may be one of those rare instances when risk and opportunity arrive together. What follows will depend not only on military outcomes but on whether the international community – and Iranians themselves – can seize the chance to build something better.

As events unfold half a world away, something positive is happening closer to home. In this time of danger and war, it is uplifting to witness Jewish British Columbians standing alongside our Iranian neighbours as they have stood alongside us in our most challenging moments.

Attack on Jewish kids

Fresh red lines have been crossed by anti-Israel agitators in Canada. These developments should alarm everyone who cares about civil society, diversity and safe spaces for children.

A coalition of antizionist groups is pressuring provincial camping associations to strip accreditation from Jewish summer camps on the basis that the camps integrate Zionism into their programming.

These opponents accuse the camps of politicizing Jewish summer camps, but the irony here is that it is the activists who are doing the politicizing. The land and the state of Israel are integral to Jewish identity. They deserve to be part of a holistic Jewish experience – camping, or any other cultural undertaking – for Jews of any age.

A primary complaint, it seems, is that Jewish camps often employ young Israelis, including (as almost all Israelis are) veterans of the Israel Defence Forces. They take it a step further, though – and this is a lesson about the insidious strategy behind the “genocide” libel.

The term genocide, we should not need to note, carries a strict definition under international law and no competent international court has made such a finding against Israel. While the term is thrown about with abandon, including by erstwhile legitimate nongovernmental organizations, this is, at best, a contested area of discourse.

It might have seemed that the widespread use of the term “genocide” was a means to undermine the legitimacy of the Jewish state. It is much more than that.

Having planted the flag of “genocide,” antizionist groups are now moving from this presumed “fact” to employing it as a weapon on new fronts to attack Jewish identity, culture and security worldwide – the first, apparently, being Jewish kids’ summer camp experiences.

The activists targeting Jewish camps are accusing them of endorsing “genocide.” The campaign is part of a broader effort to cast Jewish institutions as unacceptable in public life if they are connected, even tangentially, to anything associated with Israel.

Jewish summer camps have nothing to do with military strategy in Gaza or legislative decisions in Jerusalem. They have everything to do with building community, preserving language and tradition, fostering positive identity and belongingness, and providing childhood experiences that many Canadian Jews cherish and remember fondly for decades. They are also sources of relationships – dating and marriages included – for many in the Jewish world.

And that, of course, may be the point.

The anti-Israel activists know the centrality of Israel to Jewish identity. To undermine Israel, they seem to have concluded, it is necessary to attack the foundations of Jewish identity in Canada and around the world. Starting with kids.

The attempt to weaponize accreditation – a marker of safety, quality and regulatory compliance – threatens to blur the boundary between political disputes and Canada’s multicultural harmony. Provincial camping associations are rightly focused on ensuring that camps meet health, safety and staffing standards. They are not forums for arbitrating geopolitical grievances.

What is most disturbing about this campaign is not merely its target, but its implications. If any cultural institution can be penalized because it maintains a connection to a nation or narrative that some (rightly or wrongly) find objectionable, then no group is safe from the imposition of political litmus tests in civic life. Imagine if every cultural organization that used Russian, Hausa, Arabic, Urdu or Mandarin were accused of endorsing every foreign government’s actions. The corrosive effect on Canadian pluralism would be profound.

To their credit, camping associations in Ontario and Manitoba have responded appropriately. We await similar expressions from the BC Camps Association.

Jewish camp leaders, Jewish federations and others have rightly pushed back, calling the campaign discriminatory and cautioning that it risks undermining the welfare and safety of Jewish children. Their voices deserve amplification. Protecting our children’s right to participate in enriching experiences free from political and antisemitic harassment is not a partisan concern. It is a foundational element of a just, inclusive society.

In defending Jewish summer camps, we are defending more than campfires and games. We are defending a principle: that identity – religious, cultural or ethnic – must not be a basis for discrimination in Canada.

To suggest that Jewish camps should lose their accreditation because they use Hebrew words around a campfire, celebrate Jewish holidays or employ staff who have served in the Israeli military is to redefine discrimination as activism.

Targeting Jewish summer camps for their cultural identity is an assault on the very foundations of multicultural community life.

Concerning actions

The federal government announced last week that they are eliminating the office of Canada’s Special Envoy on Preserving Holocaust Remembrance and Combatting Antisemitism.

The announcement came in conjunction with the decision to eliminate the similar office of the Special Representative on Combatting Islamophobia, and the announcement that there will be a new Advisory Council on Rights, Equality and Inclusion.

It is hard to find fault with the hope expressed by the government that the new council, which will be comprised of prominent Canadians from academia as well as experts and community leaders, will foster social cohesion, rally Canadians around shared identity, combat racism and hate in all their forms, and help guide the government’s work in fighting racism. However, cutting the one position in Ottawa explicitly committed to addressing antisemitism just doesn’t seem wise.

Given the precipitous rise in antisemitism in Canada, we might assume that the office of antisemitism was not a great success. On the other hand, it is nearly impossible to measure success and failure on these matters. Perhaps things would have been markedly worse without it. In any event, for what was no doubt a barely negligible cost in the bigger scheme of the federal budget, the office was at least a nod toward taking the matter seriously.

Perhaps the new office will have profound impacts that the two eradicated offices did not. The problem is that, in so many ways, antisemitism is different in form and content from other forms of racism. It needs and deserves to be recognized and treated in ways that reflect this meaningful difference.

It is a symptom of the problem of antisemitism itself that this basic recognition of difference elicits condemnations of “Jewish exceptionalism,” or worse. It is an unavoidable truth, though, and the unique challenges of antisemitism are not addressed when elected officials, commentators, academics and antiracist activists seem congenitally incapable of condemning antisemitism without couching that condemnation in a basket of other biases and bigotries that deserve their own condemnation.

It should be reason for concern that the homogenization of antisemitism is now being institutionalized in an agency that lumps biases against Jews – which Statistics Canada says account for 70% of religiously motivated hate crimes and almost one in five of all hate crimes in the country – into a catch-all council dealing with a vast range of social ills. (The fact that antisemitism is grouped with “religiously motivated hate crimes” is a problematic but common misnomer for another editorial.)

A second, seemingly unrelated story in the news last week should amplify this concern.

In a minor political coup, Doly Begum, the deputy leader of the New Democratic Party in the Ontario legislature, blindsided her leader by suddenly resigning her legislative seat and announcing she would run federally – not for their federal counterpart, the NDP, but for Mark Carney’s Liberal party.

Political commentators have had a field day poking the entrails of Ontario’s NDP and wondering what it might mean for the federal Liberal government’s left flank as some people ponder a snap election this year.

Those attuned to other nuances of the story soon found that Begum has been one of the Ontario legislature’s most vocal anti-Israel voices, with a particular inclination toward the “genocide” claim. Given that provincial governments have precisely no foreign policy responsibilities, Begum’s fixation on this issue suggests she may bring a very particular agenda should she be elected in the upcoming by-election.

There is no way that the prime minister, the Liberal party and anyone else involved in these headline-topping machinations was not aware of their new recruit’s repeated and inflammatory comments on this topic.

The welcoming of Begum into the Liberal fold seems like another message to Canadians about this government’s approach to Israel and Palestine and the inevitable fallout of that conflict on domestic harmony.

Coming on the heels of the federal government’s recognition of a “state of Palestine” last year, it is hard to imagine the latest developments as anything short of a slap in the face to Jewish and pro-Israel Canadians, and anyone who cares about combatting Jew-hatred.

A good place to start

A massive 94% of Canadian Jews support the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish state. However, according to University of Toronto sociologist Robert Brym, who conducted the survey of 600 respondents, only 51% of those call themselves “Zionists.”

In the National Post this month, Brym took aim at those he says have weaponized his work, including the group Independent Jewish Voices and Avi Lewis, who is running for the leadership of the federal New Democratic Party. Lewis and IJV have claimed, based on an apparent deliberate misreading of Brym’s study, that 49% of Canadian Jews are not Zionists.

Brym calls that “gaslighting.”

When asked “Do you support the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish state?” 94% of respondents answered “yes” – in a word, they are Zionist. However, in another question, about how they personally identified, 51% of Jewish Canadians affirm they are Zionist, 15% “express ambivalence” about referring to themselves as Zionist, 7% say they “don’t know” and 27% say they are not Zionist. Just 1% describe themselves as “anti-Zionist.”

Intellectually honest politicians and organizations should not engage in misrepresenting Jewish Canadians’ actual views and the diminishment of their overwhelming emotional, spiritual, familial and other connections to Israel and its right to exist.

Here is something we should be pondering: How has a word and an idea that reflects the manifestation of Jewish self-determination, freedom, actualization and civilizational achievement become so sullied that almost half of Jews hesitate or refuse to identify with it?

In some ways, it is understandable. Before Israel became a state in 1948, Zionism as a contemporary political movement was the outgrowth of Theodor Herzl’s late-19th-century idea of a separate Jewish homeland. Since 1948, and the existence of Israel as a nation-state, the term Zionism has been associated with a tangible country, with a military, a government, and the flaws and foibles that accompany all nation-states. Zionism has come to mean, in some eyes, a vast range of concepts, including actions, good or bad (but, for the purposes of Lewis and groups like IJV, almost always bad), of the government of Israel.

This contradiction between the strict meaning of the term as it is defined in the political sphere and the broad application of it by bad actors is part of the reason many Jews are hesitant to adopt the descriptor “Zionist.” Jews themselves may have limited knowledge around other forms and visions of Zionism that have existed, making it difficult for the average Jew to engage in a discussion that contextualizes modern-day Zionism and the fuller arc of Jewish history.

Given the challenges and anxieties around being Jewish in Canada (and everywhere else in the world) right now, perhaps it is unwise to criticize the hesitancy of half of Canadian Jews to self-identify with an unpopular term. This is especially the case when faced with nefarious discourses that align Zionism with racism, white supremacy and Naziism, and a lack of knowledge of how to respond to those charges.

This survey’s misuse seems like a line in the sand, though.

The defilement of the term “Zionist” to mean things it doesn’t mean is part of a larger trend to score political victories by moving goalposts and using language to obscure truth.

Generally, the anti-Israel narrative is founded on a sort of postmodern rejection of objective definitions and terminology. Terms like “apartheid,” “settler-colonialism,” “ethnic cleansing” and “genocide” are redefined to encompass whatever those who weaponize the terms want them to mean.

When Jews, in the form of the Jewish state, are accused of genocide, a term that had to be invented to describe the Jewish experience of mass death, it makes arguing over the adoption of the label “Zionist” seem petty. But, if there is no consensus on something so foundational to the way many Jews define ourselves and our values, we put ourselves at a disadvantage in combating an abuse of language that reduces the human dignity of the Jewish people and, worse, can have literal life-and-death consequences.

If we are going to reverse this trajectory, which threatens not just Jews but truth itself, we need to contest the manipulation of language. By proudly reclaiming the term “Zionist,” which, apparently, 94% of Canadian Jews are but either don’t know it or won’t admit it, perhaps we can build some of the resilience and strength needed to combat the fight against more destructive and deceitful redefinitions of terms.

If we are going to defend the definition of the words we use to discuss the most vital issues of our time, “Zionism” seems like a good place to start.