A home that displays a mezuzah — signifying a covenant with God and blessings on the home — has been defiled with a note that reads: “You and your Jewish family are going to die.’’
Elsewhere, “Long live Hitler’’ graffiti-scrawled on the curb.
In Toronto, suspected arson at a Jewish-owned grocery store, bullets fired at a Jewish girls’ elementary school, among the targeted attacks included in the most recent hate-crime data provided by police — out of nearly 190 incidents this year, nearly half have been antisemitic.
How Jews are living in these days of wrath and unceasing protests as war rages in Gaza is very much the big picture. Fearful for their children, appalled they’re being held responsible for a military operation being waged half a world away, whether they support Israel’s ongoing response to the Hamas Oct. 7 atrocities or not. A friend raising two kids here, with a good job and a nice midtown house, tells me they’re seriously considering moving away, perhaps to the United States, because the tenor of existence for Jews in this city has become intolerable.
It’s the normalizing of hatred, the blatant antisemitism which shows no signs of receding, that’s the crux of the matter. As if Jews should have thicker skins, countenancing the animus and malice that no other minority would ever be expected to abide.
Maybe they can put their faith in an anti-racism czar accused of virulent anti-Israel sentiments. (The federal government just announced it has opened an investigation into Birju Dattani, newly appointed head of the Canadian Human Rights Commission, over alleged antisemitic comments and anti-Israel activism, including purportedly sharing the stage with a member of an Islamic fundamentalist group.)
But Jews, sure, lets parse six-ways-from Sunday how hate speech and reprehensible activities directed at them must be assessed with “nuance’’ and “context.”
I’m no fan of Canada’s hate-speech laws, libertarian to the bone on free speech — which, yes, includes those “pro-Palestinian’’ demonstrations on Toronto’s streets — but there’s a disturbing flaw at the core of the granted injunction that drove away occupants of the University of Toronto encampment this week.
In his 96-page decision released Tuesday, Justice Markus Koehnen agreed the university had a legal right to have the protesting students and faculty removed from their King’s College Circle cantonment. They were trespassing on private property, erecting nearly 200 tents over the previous two months and unilaterally deciding who could come in, who could go out.
“At the end of the day, the only people who are allowed onto Front Campus are those who agree with (or at least who don’t openly disagree with) the protesters’ beliefs,’’ Koehnen wrote. “If the property truly is a quasi-public space, why should one ad hoc group get to determine who can use that space for a period of over 50 days?’’
Yet Koehnen ceded the protesters — they were demanding the U of T divest from Israel, as well as other measures — moral latitude in finding the university’s lawyers hadn’t succeeded in showing that the encampment’s occupants were either violent or antisemitic, as many complainants had alleged.
“The statements of the named respondents to which I was taken during oral arguments, are of the nature and intensity that one might expect from a student activist in their twenties but have never approached violence or hatred.’’
Adding: “There was considerable controversy over certain slogans used at the encampment such as ‘From the River to the Sea, Palestine shall be free’ ... The record does not establish a strong prima facie case to demonstrate that the slogans are antisemitic.’’
Koehnen took the view that such slogans convey a variety of meanings. But as the DEI movement has usefully taught us in recent years, racism isn’t just about intent. It’s also about impact. What do Jews hear when these slogans are chanted? They hear that Israel shouldn’t exist, a view explicitly stated by many protesters. They hear no concern for the fate of the 7 million Jews who live there now. No care for the many who see in Israel a refuge from millennia of pogroms. No acknowledgment of the Jewish right to self-determination.
“There can be no doubt that some of the speech on the exterior of the encampment rises to the level of hate speech,’’ Koehnen continued. To wit: “kikes,’’ “baby killer,’’ “we need another holocost’’ (sic), Death to the Jews, Hamas for Prime Minister’’, “You dirty f—-ing Jews. Go back to Europe!’’
Koehnen couldn’t directly associate those slogans and symbols to the camp occupants. But he also suggested that “part of the controversy arises out of the absence of an agreed definition of antisemitism.’’
Except there absolutely is. The working definition on antisemitism, developed after long consultation by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance and submitted to the UN last year:
“Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred towards Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestation of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish communities and religious facilities.’’
Scores of countries have either signed or endorsed the definition, Canada and the U.S. among them.
Dance the dialectic all you want. You know it when you see it. Jews know it when they feel it.
Correction — July 8, 2024
The sub headline for this article has been updated to correct that Canada has endorsed a working definition of antisemitism submitted to the UN.
