{"id":48945,"date":"2026-05-08T01:29:39","date_gmt":"2026-05-08T08:29:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=48945"},"modified":"2026-05-07T15:12:57","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T22:12:57","slug":"bad-behaviour-affects-us-all","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2026\/05\/08\/bad-behaviour-affects-us-all\/","title":{"rendered":"Bad behaviour affects us all"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"photo<\/a>Recently, my kids walked home from high school late\u00a0 <\/span>because of their games club, which meets once a week. On their way, they saw a man on the sidewalk, coming from a pedestrian trail. He wore a sign on his back that read, \u201cNetanyahu, Butcher of Gaza.\u201d They hung back, took photos and alerted me when they got home.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a good reason to give Jewish teens access to cellphones. I used the \u201cFind My\u201d app to watch them walk home. They used the phone to document this. We found this signage offensive and upsetting, but it hadn\u2019t been an emergency incident, so they didn\u2019t use their phones to call 911.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I reported this incident to B\u2019nai Brith Canada, who suggested also filing a police report. Over dinner, we discussed the sign. Was this antisemitism or just free speech, when using the IHRA definition of antisemitism? Is the test for this, \u201cWould anyone reasonably use this kind of language about other countries\u2019 publicly elected officials?\u201d The answer for us was, \u201cWell, yes.\u201d We don\u2019t approve of it, but, in 2022, we heard all this as part of the truckers\u2019 convoy that came through Winnipeg. They parked (and honked) at the provincial legislature, close enough to our home so we saw their signs and hateful rhetoric.<\/p>\n

I Googled the phrase on the man\u2019s sign. Turkey\u2019s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan started using this phrase in November 2023. It\u2019s been used repeatedly in the last 2.5 years of the Gaza conflict. Knowing a phrase\u2019s \u201corigin story\u201d doesn\u2019t make it less virulent. It still didn\u2019t feel OK. Something can be legal, but also shameful, wrong or antisocial, bad behaviour.<\/p>\n

As a family, we debated whether we should do a police report. In Winnipeg, it\u2019s not that easy to report something like this. There\u2019s an online form, but it specifically rejects claims due to hate crimes or speech. In situations like this, there is calling 911 to report it or going downtown to the only police station that takes these reports. We chose to leave this one up to B\u2019nai Brith, but the situation remained fresh and upsetting.<\/p>\n

First, there\u2019s the debate over whether something hateful and harmful is illegal or immediately dangerous. Our city\u2019s police service is overburdened. Everyone in Winnipeg has heard of someone who has called the cops and been told that, unless the situation was life threatening, no police would show up. This means that squatters without life-threatening weapons aren\u2019t immediately tossed out of vacant homes \u2013 but then the homes catch on fire. In one awful case, a panicked teen, trying to protect his grandmother, called the police during a home invasion. He was killed before the police arrived. This horrific incident puts our hate-signage sighting in perspective.<\/p>\n

Second, though, is the question of whether we (Jewish people) or teens walking home from school deserve to feel safe. This man wasn\u2019t walking in front of a consulate or legislature in protest. He was near multiple schools, a library, a synagogue, several churches, a hospital and a care home. If bubble legislation existed in Canada or in Winnipeg, it would have been possible to report this and expect a police response. As things stand, it didn\u2019t seem forthcoming.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This incident reminded me of a conversation I had at Kiddush lunch at synagogue. A Jewish family at our table insisted, in alarm, that Bill C-9 (the one for federal bubble legislation) would interfere with their right to free speech. I asked how often they wrote for the press or how this risked interference with their current modes of protest. I asked if they felt that their right to protest was in jeopardy. When I Googled them later, I found that they don\u2019t write widely. Their names don\u2019t appear in the news regarding protests. Their right to free speech or protest was likely not being threatened in any way. It seems they had fallen prey to misinformation. At the table, I brought up multiple incidents that our children face as they leave a public school and walk home past our congregation.<\/p>\n

When a protester is outside the synagogue just after school lets out, the police say that it\u2019s public space. The protest is allowed, even though the signage blocks the sidewalk. Kids walking by are exposed to potential hate speech, and normalizing hate speech or graffiti can lead to acts of violence. This kind of protest first happened about two years ago, but, this spring, the signage on a man\u2019s jacket left us in the same quandary.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Well-intentioned allies have asked, \u201cDo you feel safe?\u201d or \u201cWhat can I do?\u201d<\/p>\n

The answer to the first question is, \u201cno.\u201d There are a lot of reasons for that. For one thing, I\u2019d like my kids to be able to walk home without feeling threatened or having to dodge protesters or shoot photos.<\/p>\n

I regularly encounter non-Jewish Canadians who ask the second question. I try to help them learn more about the issues, so they feel ready to be \u201cupstanders\u201d rather than just \u201cbystanders.\u201d Calling the police, paying privately for huge amounts of security or shielding children from hateful protest shouldn\u2019t be something Jewish Canadians navigate alone. We\u2019re less than 1% of the Canadian population. It\u2019s necessary to educate and mobilize allies to help.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Political \u201cfree speech\u201d can be legal and still hateful. A society that speaks up can make change, even if the offender isn\u2019t arrested. Education happens when we say, out loud, that some behaviours are shameful and un-Canadian. Bad behaviour affects all of us. It\u2019s time to find adults willing to speak up. If somebody wants Jews to feel safe in Canada, then the status quo is not what they want either.<\/p>\n

Joanne Seiff<\/b> has written regularly for the<\/i> Winnipeg Free Press and various Jewish publications. She is the author of three books, including <\/i>From the Outside In: Jewish Post Columns 2015-2016, a collection of essays available for digital download or as a paperback from Amazon. Check her out on Instagram @yrnspinner<\/a> or at joanneseiff.blogspot.com<\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Recently, my kids walked home from high school late\u00a0 because of their games club, which meets once a week. On their way, they saw a man on the sidewalk, coming from a pedestrian trail. He wore a sign on his back that read, \u201cNetanyahu, Butcher of Gaza.\u201d They hung back, took photos and alerted me […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[801,2873,20698,2251,24854,5731],"class_list":["post-48945","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-op-ed","tag-antisemitism","tag-free-speech","tag-hate-speech","tag-law","tag-policing","tag-safety"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48945","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48945"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48945\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}