The number of antisemitic hate crimes in Canada declined a fraction last year, according to the B\u2019nai Brith Canada League for Human Rights Annual Audit of Antisemitic Incidents 2022. The decline, though, is from 2021, which saw the highest number of incidents since the audit began 40 years ago so, despite the marginally good news, 2022 remains the second-worst year on record. In all, 2022 saw 2,769 incidents, down 1.1% from the 2,799 incidents reported in 2021.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen viewed from a historical perspective \u2026 the numbers are less reassuring,\u201d Marvin Rotrand, national director of the League for Human Rights, writes in the report. \u201cIn 2012, the Jewish community sounded the alarm when that audit noted 1,345 antisemitic incidents, the highest ever since we first began auditing in 1982. Ten years later, the number is an alarming 105.9% higher than that reported in 2012, and the second-highest total since we started tracking 41 years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n
Aron Csaplaros, British Columbia regional manager for B\u2019nai Brith Canada, noted the most significant finding is that the majority of hate incidents are online.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe audit says that 74% of hate is now online and that violent incidents are down,\u201d he told the Jewish Independent<\/em>. Violent incidents across Canada dropped to 25 last year from 75 the year previous. \u201cBut incidents have been moving online in the past decade or so and it\u2019s kind of equally, if not more, dangerous when hate is online because it\u2019s much easier to spread, more people read it,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s about context. It\u2019s obviously different than a violent incident but it is equally as dangerous.\u201d<\/p>\n Csaplaros does not have a clear explanation on why violent incidents saw such a drop. It may have to do with the fact that 2022 saw slightly less incendiary conflict in Israel and Palestine, overseas problems that invariably have repercussions worldwide.<\/p>\n \u201cObviously, we\u2019re happy that violent incidents have gone down,\u201d he said. \u201cHopefully, the reason for that is that certain provinces have adopted, for example, the IHRA [International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance] definition of antisemitism, and that might have filtered down into education for police forces and how they respond and deal with these situations. But we don\u2019t really have a theory on why the violent incidents have gone down.\u201d<\/p>\n In British Columbia, the number of violent crimes declined from two in 2021 to a single incident in 2022: a threat against Victoria\u2019s Jewish Community Centre during the annual Jewish film festival in the capital city. Other B.C. instances include 51 cases of vandalism, 53 cases of harassment and 137 cases of online hate.<\/p>\n Csaplaros acknowledged that it is difficult to place a number on online antisemitic incidents.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are, unfortunately, probably thousands, millions of anti-Israel and antisemitic comments online and, obviously, just because of the sheer number of them, we don\u2019t catch all of them,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The criteria B\u2019nai Brith uses to measure hate online includes the question, \u201cIs it antisemitic in that it targets Jews as a people and attribute negative things to them? For example, that they caused COVID, or do they use antisemitic stereotypes like Jews control the banks and so on and so forth,\u201d explained Csaplaros. \u201cWith a lot of these comments, they are clearly antisemitic.\u201d<\/p>\n B\u2019nai Brith, he said, uses the \u201cthree Ds\u201d measure created by Natan Sharansky: delegitimization, demonization, and applying double standards to the state of Israel.<\/p>\n While 74% of incidents were online, 15% involved vandalism, 10% in-person harassment and 1% were violent incidents.<\/p>\n In British Columbia overall, incidents declined more than 40%, to 242, compared with 409 the previous year. (For the purposes of the report, British Columbia and Yukon are reported together.) Examples of B.C. incidents included in the B\u2019nai Brith report are the Simon Fraser University student society\u2019s passing of a resolution referring to Israeli \u201cwar crimes and apartheid\u201d and a Tweet accusing Jews of Satan worship and seeking world domination.<\/p>\n \u201cAt the end of the day, hate is hate,\u201d said Csaplaros. \u201cIt\u2019s important to have a record of how many antisemitic incidents occurred, regardless of whether it was a Laith Marouf-type thing or a violent incident or a swastika drawn on the sidewalk. Hate and antisemitism is hate \u2026 and it\u2019s important to record all of that.\u201d<\/p>\n Laith Marouf is a Montreal activist whose Community Media Advocacy Centre received more than $133,000 in federal government consulting fees before his antisemitic social media postings became widely known, including one in which he called Jewish people \u201cloud mouthed bags of human feces.\u201d<\/p>\n Csaplaros called on the province of British Columbia to join half of Canada\u2019s other provinces in adopting the IHRA definition of antisemitism and to follow Ontario\u2019s lead by introducing Holocaust education into the elementary school curriculum. The core curriculum in British Columbia does not mandate any Holocaust education, Csaplaros said. Students can learn about the Holocaust in elective courses and may learn about it in core courses, depending on the teacher\u2019s choices.<\/p>\n