Apparently, Toronto Jews largely support Israel’s holocaust in Gaza. Many also claim victimhood while being amongst the best-off ethnic/religious communities in Canada’s largest city.
A genocidal crowd turned out to view last Thursday’s Munk Debates on the question of “anti-Zionism is antisemitism.” The “sophisticated” audience of Munk Debate members, donors, and ticket purchasers booed while Mehdi Hassan listed organizations that have detailed the crimes of their favored ethnostate, including Oxfam.
“What has it come to when you are booing Oxfam?” Hasan said during the debate.
In a similarly crass expression of Jewish supremacism, 300 rallied two weeks ago to oppose the Toronto District School Board adopting an anti-racism strategy. According to the protesters, including a mention of anti-Palestinian racism in the wide-ranging strategy was anti-Jewish.
A few days earlier, tens of thousands of Torontonians marched for a foreign state the UN has blacklisted for violence against children and said commits the crime of “extermination.” At the June 9 Walk for Israel, a group calling itself Canadians Opposed to the Occupation of our Streets and Campuses had a van with digital advertising promoting anti-Palestinian and Muslim racism. It read, “Is this Lebanon? Is this Yemen? Is this Syria? Is this Iraq?” The vehicle then displayed Muslims praying and protesting in Toronto’s Nathan Phillips Square with Palestinian flags. The ad then says, “No. This is Canada. Wake up Canada. You are under siege.”
Ignored at the Walk for Israel, many politicians later denounced the van’s messaging as Islamophobic.
Among educated, even supposedly liberal-minded Toronto Jews, anti-Palestinian and Muslim bigotry is widespread, as is support for Israel’s holocaust in Gaza. In recent months a stream of largely Jewish Toronto doctors and lawyers have engaged in appalling anti-Palestinian racism.
Of course, this sort of racism isn’t new, as the 2020 effort to bankrupt the small progressive restaurant Foodbenders attests, or the next year’s attacks against racialized University of Toronto medical students, or the 2021 bid to block professor Valentina Azarova from an appointment at the University of Toronto law school. And on and on.
Being in Toronto during Israel’s brutal 2014 attack on Gaza opened my eyes to the city’s fanatical Jewish supremacism, changing my assessment of the dynamic driving Canadian support for Israel. During that summer, I saw thousands demonstrate in favor of Israel’s onslaught and was shoved, spat on, and had my bike damaged and lock stolen by men wearing “never again” T-shirts who were angry with my support for Palestinians. Over the two-month-long “war,” I witnessed numerous random outbursts of anti-Arab racism. During a rally on Bloor Street, a middle-aged man walking with his partner crumpled a leaflet I handed him and pointed at two older Arab-looking men, who responded and yelled “barbarians.” In a similarly bizarre racist outburst, a man who was biking past a demonstration stopped to engage and soon after he was pointing at a young Arab-looking child close by and telling me that I was indoctrinating him to kill. Then, an older woman interrupted a phone conversation I was having about Israel’s destruction of Gaza and yelled she hoped Israel would kill “10,000 more.”
With 1,500 Palestinian civilians (versus six Israeli) killed during the seven-week war Toronto’s United Jewish Appeal and other Israel lobby groups organized a large pro-war demonstration under the banner: “We Will Not be Silent: A March Against Global Anti-Semitism.” Framed as a challenge to prejudice, the march was little more than a group of white people calling for the further subjugation of brown folk.
At last week’s rally opposing Toronto schools mentioning anti-Palestinian racism, the protesters wore “End Jew Hate” shirts. Their spokesperson told the Toronto Star they were there to protect the “vulnerable.” Tamara Gottlieb said, “I have never seen a crisis of vulnerable people like I am seeing today with the experiences of our Jewish students and teachers in K-to-12 schools.”
The notion that Toronto Jews are vulnerable or oppressed is not supported by statistics. In fact, a Jewish person in Toronto is more likely to earn above the median income, own a home, have a university degree, sit on a corporate board, or be a billionaire. They are less likely to be incarcerated, have their children taken from them or die young. Hate crimes is the only widely used indicator of discrimination in which the Jewish community fairs poorly. While the genocide lobby exaggerates the scope of the problem, Jews are substantially overrepresented as victims of hate crimes. But they fare better (often significantly so) than other groups on the other indicators commonly employed to identify status/oppression.
The Toronto Jewish community may be the best placed of any in the world. Describing it as “the envy of the UJA federation world,” Alan Dershowitz told United Jewish Appeal’s late 2014 Toronto Major Gifts dinner: “You must never be ashamed to use your power and strength. Never be afraid that people will say, ‘You’re too strong and powerful.’ Jews need power and strength. Without this strength — economically, morally, militarily — we can’t have peace.” But UJA-Toronto isn’t seeking “peace.” Rather, they’re working to strengthen a Sparta-like, Jewish-supremacist state in the Middle East.
Yes, tens of thousands of Toronto Jews oppose Israel’s holocaust in Gaza. Groups like Jews Against Genocide and Independent Jewish Voices actively oppose the mainstream Jewish establishment and the Canadian government’s role in enabling Israeli violence. Still, that shouldn’t stop anti-genocide campaigners from highlighting the mainstream Toronto Jewish community’s role in promoting anti-Palestinian and Muslim racism and Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
Statistics regarding rising antisemitism should be interrogated vigorously. While real antisemitism (i.e. hatred toward Jews) exists and must be confronted and vigorously condemned, much of the purported new antisemitism is actually anti-Israel and anti-genocide in nature.
For example, minor vandalism directed at the Indigo book store in Toronto was characterized as antisemitic because the owner is Jewish. Not mentioned is that owner funds an organization that supports the IDF soldiers which the ICJ has said is plausibly committing genocide. Similarly, a protest outside a synagogue in which stolen West Bank real estate was being sold was called antisemitic. A few years ago, an Israeli-Canadian was caught making hundreds of threatening calls to synagogues and Jewish institutions. When questioned about his motivation, he said he did it to garner support and sympathy for Jews and Israel.
Such short-sightedness on the part of those who purposely conflate criticism of the Apartheid regime with antisemitism. It makes fighting real antisemitism that much harder and cheapens the significance of the Holocaust, and may also trigger an increase in the incidence of authentic antisemitism.
“….he was pointing at a young Arab-looking child close by and telling me that I was indoctrinating him to kill.”
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I wonder what percent of Jews demonstrating in Toronto would share the opinion that the average Palestinian would kill them if the opportunity arose?
The lower the percentage the better for the future well-being of the Palestinian people.