Synagogues firebombed. Shots fired at Jewish schools. Jewish restaurants boycotted. Windows smashed at Jewish stores and institutions. A menorah vandalized outside a Jewish cultural institution. Jewish students threatened on university campuses. Productions of Jewish playwrights cancelled at local theatres and Jewish keynote speakers “uninvited” at festivals and charitable events. Antisemitic comments and cartoons posted on the website of a prominent labour union leader and in Canada’s primary French language newspaper.
Pre-war Nazi Germany? Vichy France? Modern Hungary? No. Sadly, this is Canada circa 2024. And this is how it starts.[i]
Given this appalling escalation of classic antisemitism since last October, (some 5,791 incidents reported in 2023, more than double 2022 and a record high[ii]), who could possibly have been surprised to learn that more than 100 Jewish organizations received bomb threats last week with the warning that “none of you deserve to keep living.”?
Yet this recent spate of virulent antisemitisim is surely surprising in the context of a Canadian political culture renowned for pluralism and tolerance. A country in which the overwhelming majority of citizens identify the Charter of Rights and Freedoms as the most defining element of their national identity, ahead even of medicare.[iii] And it is all the more surprising given that the targets of this irrational hatred are not newcomers but Canadian citizens of longstanding. Moreover these attacks on Canadian Jews are allegedly motivated by the actions of a foreign country, over which they clearly have no control.
Needless to say this is a markedly different situation from that of Nazi Germany or other illiberal states of this ilk, where Jewish citizens have been routinely blamed for all manner of domestic economic, social and political woes. But the anomalies of the Canadian situation do not end there. There are at least two other substantive ways in which the current outbreak in Canada differs dramatically from that of 1930’s Germany and elsewhere:
- It was the political leaders of Nazi Germany who drove the antisemitic firestorm of the Holocaust, with all of the agents of law enforcement at their disposal, albeit with the enthusiastic support of many if not most citizens. By contrast, in Canada the leadership of virtually all political parties have categorically condemned these shameful acts and all relevant law enforcement agencies have been tasked with finding the perpetrators as well as protecting the victims. Instead, it is the role of ordinary citizens that is at odds here, both as perpetrators (a small minority) and as apathetic observers (seemingly the vast majority).
- In Nazi Germany and in other illiberal states the mainstream media have been targeted by their autocratic regimes – suppressed and often replaced by state-run propaganda machines, leaving ordinary citizens with no accurate sources of information and, indeed, often providing them with deliberate disinformation. (Surely by now everyone has learned the lessons of George Orwell’s classic Animal Farm.) But this is hardly the case here, where mainstream media have reported on the various antisemitic incidents as well as the critical comments of political leaders.
So what can explain this dramatic explosion in virulent anti-Jewish attitudes and behaviour in Canada? Many observers have cited the predictable culprits of postpandemic fallout, economic stressors and global instability, and these are clearly an element of popular discontent, as they are, in fact, in virtually all western liberal democracies at present. But there are at least two additional contributing factors which some experts have briefly noted, but which have been largely ignored in political commentary.
First, there is the increasingly problematic concept of media ‘balance’, outlined in more detail in an earlier post. (See “The CBC, Journalistic “Balance” and the Definition of Terrorism, October 21, 2023) Simply put, this is the widely held dictum that the integrity of modern media reportage is dependent on providing both sides of an issue and according equal time to both. This worked well in the past, and still works well most of the time in liberal democracies, where numerous guardrails are in place ensuring appropriate civic behaviour. However, as we have all seen in the case of the United States, it does not work well if one side of an issue ignores these guardrails entirely and/or disputes established facts. Nor does it work well if – as is increasingly the case – one individual, group or foreign actor artificially creates an issue, aided and abetted by social media and bots. [iv]
In practical terms, one can easily see that there would be no point in reporting on ‘both sides’ of the ‘issue’ of whether the earth is flat or round. Similarly, a classic example of unjustified ‘balance’ can be found in the biographical film “Denial”, where an American history professor specializing in the Holocaust refuses to participate in a televised debate with a prominent British Holocaust denier, saying she would only be lending credence to his arguments. As the professor explains to the media, “The Holocaust happened. There is no issue here to debate.”
More recently, the appropriateness of ‘balance’ has been heavily criticized in media reporting on the Gaza conflict, where many mainstream media outlets have consistently refused to even refer to the perpetrators of the October 7 attack on Israel as the instigators, let alone as members of a terrorist organization.[v] In Canada both the CBC and the Globe and Mail have adamantly defended this practice on the basis of the traditional journalistic concept of balance, as have almost all mainstream media, despite extensive criticism of this approach as being unnecessarily rigid and inappropriate in certain cases. [vi]
This concept of balance also has increasingly been cited by other elements of civil society as the benchmark for fairness and equity, two unquestioned pillars of liberal democracy to be sure. But here, too, the potential exists for misguided applications. Take, for example, the disastrous performance of the presidents of three leading American universities when testifying before Congress on the issue of student protests on campus over the Gaza conflict. While understandably intent on protecting academic freedom, as well as the right of students to express competing views on an issue, one president was even unwilling to confirm that calling for the genocide of Jews would be considered a violation of the university’s student code of conduct.[vii] Although much less dramatic, the positions of several university administrators in Canada in response to similar pro-Palestinian student campus occupations has been the source of considerable concern, as has the harassment of Jewish students on those campuses. [viii]
In the political sphere, one of Donald Trump’s most widely criticized statements during his term as president also employed the concept of balance as justification. Referring to the violent antisemitic rally of white nationalists in Charlottesville, Virginian in 2017, he told reporters “You had some very bad people in that group, (the white supremacists) but you also had people that were very fine people, on both sides.” Clearly this attempt to play down the importance of the event through ‘balance’ essentially assigns moral justification to both sides of the ‘issue.’ But, as Senator (and fellow Republican) John McCain immediately responded, “There is no moral equivalency between racists and Americans standing up to defy hate and bigotry.” [ix]
Unfortunately in Canada, although all federal political leaders have been categorical in their rejection of antisemitism, there have also been some comments by elected individuals at all three levels of government that have served to muddy the waters through their misguided concept of fairness or equivalency. Perhaps the most straightforward of these comments have come, somewhat ironically, from the left, as epitomized by those of provincial NDP MLAs Joel Hardin and Sara Jama, and especially from federal NDP MP Brian Masse, who in a comment in the House of Commons first deplored the rise in antisemitism in this country and then devalued his comments by adding “but we’re not going to be able to fix anything right now until there’s a ceasefire in Gaza. [x]
At the end of the day, a robust commitment to the rejection of any and all antisemitic behaviour depends on the actions of everyone, not just political leaders. A case could be made that the most significant enabler of antisemitism in Canada today is an apathetic citizenry. Public opinion polls consistently show that the vast majority of Canadians in theory oppose both the concept of antisemitism and the violent acts that have become increasingly common. But there is no evidence that these events have had a conscious impact on their thinking or behaviour. Indeed, as public intellectual Michael Geist has argued, there appears to be a persistent sense of disbelief on the part of many ordinary Canadians, who see only rare and isolated acts rather than a worrying trend. [xi]
At the same time, there has been a striking lack of leadership on the part of civil society, and the business community, in denouncing this snowballing trend, while some groups, such as the organizers of various PRIDE events, have actually exacerbated the situation.
Reversing this trend also depends on accurate information about the origins of these various acts. Enhanced Holocaust education, for example, may well play a part in diminishing this blatant discrimination, but only if the causes of such behaviour are grounded in ignorance. Similarly, if foreign actors are found to play a part in deliberately encouraging such dissension through disinformation, then additional security of access to internet sources and identification of illegitimate intervenors will be essential. (Identifying the origins of the one hundred threatening emails recently disseminated, for example, could prove extremely useful in this regard.)
Hopefully, in light of this latest widely reported development, many more ordinary Canadians will recognize the reality of this current threat and consider ways in which they can actively participate in supporting their fellow citizens. As one prominent Holocaust educator noted, “the Holocaust did not start with the gas chambers, it started with words and hate-filled rhetoric.”[xii] Perhaps equally compelling is the well-known argument of Pastor Martin Niemoller in “First They Came.”[xiii] As numerous scholars have recently outlined in graphic detail [xiv], liberal democracies are not immune to failure and, left unchallenged, the advent of virulent antisemitism may be the canary in the coal mine.
Jewish Canadians have been at the forefront in the defence of human rights for decades. They know we are all in this together. Under the direction of the legendary Alan Borovoy, for example, (someone this author was privileged to know), the Canadian Civil Liberties Association championed the rights of numerous minorities, including Japanese and Indigenous Canadians. It is now time for non-Jewish Canadians to stand up and be counted in the defence of our Jewish fellow citizens.
[i] https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/editorials/article-canadas-dangerous-slide-into-antisemitism/
[ii] https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/bnai-brith-antisemitic-report-record-high-1.7195197
[iii] Gregg and Posner. The Big Picture: What Canadians Think About Almost Everything. (Toronto: McFarland and Stewart, 1999.)
[iv] For example, in the United States the mainstream media have finally learned to their dismay that their strictly ‘balanced’ approach to Donald Trump in 2016 was a serious error in judgment given his outright refusal to be constrained by any of the guardrails of democratic debate and willingness to ignore facts and promote outright lies. (The Washington Post recently published a report concluding that, as president, Trump uttered 30,573 falsehoods or misleading statements.[iv]) As a result, many accounts now routinely qualify/fact check every statement by Trump and, more recently, his VP running mate, Senator J.D. Vance.
[v] National Post. Oct. 11, 2023
[vi] https://www.cbc.ca/news/editorsblog/editor-in-chief-note-use-of-words-terrorist-terrorism-1.6997281 and https://www.theglobeandmail.com/standards-editor/article-understanding-the-guidance-behind-the-globes-coverage-of-the-israel/
[vii] https://www.cnn.com/videos/business/2023/12/07/penn-president-liz-magill-house-hearing-testimony-sot-egan-nc-vpx.cnn
[viii] https://www.michaelgeist.ca/2024/05/a-post-i-never-thought-i-would-need-to-write-jewish-students-have-the-right-to-feel-safe-on-campus/ and https://thehub.ca/2024/07/18/michael-geist-the-university-of-windsor-ends-their-pro-palestine-encampment-but-violates-antisemitism-and-academic-freedom-standards/
[ix] N. Eggert. “Charlottesville: What Made Trump’s Remarks So Offensive?” BBC News. August 16, 2017.
[x] https://ottawa.ctvnews.ca/ottawa-new-democrat-mpp-apologizes-for-2021-comments-that-perpetrated-an-antisemitic-stereotype-1.6161334; and https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/hamilton/sarah-jama-gaza-statement-1.6992654
[xi] https://www.michaelgeist.ca/2024/07/states-of-disbelief/
[xii] N. Eggert. Op. cit.
[xiii] https://www.hmd.org.uk/resource/first-they-came-by-pastor-martin-niemoller/
[xiv] See for example Anne Applebaum, The Twilight of Democracy; or Levitsky, Steven, Zimblatt and Daniel, How Democracies Fail.
