Report warns of dramatic rise in anti-Semitic incidents in Canada in 2023

OTTAWA – Anti-Semitism in Canada exploded last year when the ongoing war in Israel and Gaza was used to “justify” attacks on Jews in Canada, B’nai Brith said Monday as it released its latest report on anti-Semitism.

It comes as the world marks Yom HaShoah, or Holocaust Remembrance Day, and the rise in anti-Semitism was a key part of speeches given by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre at the ceremony at the National Holocaust Memorial in Ottawa.

“Since October 7, there has been a disturbing rise in anti-Semitism on a scale we have not witnessed in generations,” Trudeau said.

Based on incidents reported to B’nai Brith, including through collaborations with police, there were 5,791 documented acts of violence, harassment and vandalism directed at Jews in 2023, more than double the 2,769 incidents documented in 2022.

“In 2023, we enter a period of crisis,” said Richard Robertson, research director at B’nai Brith Canada.

He said there is no single place to place the blame and that the incidents can be attributed to the “high left, the far right and those acting at the behest of foreign actors.”

“What is clear is that the situation is unsustainable and requires urgent intervention,” Robertson said.

Last year, 77 violent incidents were recorded, more than triple the number in 2022.

Winnipeg police investigated a shooting at a Jewish home in October as an act of hate. Montreal police launched an investigation after two Jewish schools were shot up overnight in November, and another investigation when a Molotov cocktail was thrown at a synagogue.

In Toronto, police arrested three people after students at a Jewish high school were threatened in October.

“This means that, on average, a Canadian Jew was threatened or attacked every four days in 2023,” Robertson said. “These figures are appalling and warrant immediate action by all stakeholders in society, both governmental and non-governmental.”

In 2023, 462 acts of vandalism occurred.

The vast majority of recorded incidents (4,847) took the form of online harassment. The messages included threats that “you and your family are going to die,” expressing joy at the deaths caused by Hamas on October 7, and declaring the intention to eradicate Israel or the Jews.

More than half of the incidents occurred in the three months after October 7, when Hamas terrorists invaded Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking more than 200 hostages. Israel responded forcefully, launching a relentless airstrike on the Gaza Strip that displaced more than a million people, killed some 35,000 people, and inflicted a humanitarian crisis with shortages of food, medicine, and water.

A week after Oct. 7, the RCMP called for “increased vigilance” after a clear increase in anti-Semitic threats online.

The total number of anti-Semitic incidents in Canada last year was the highest recorded in a single year since B’nai Brith began producing an annual count in 1982. The figures parallel reports from several municipal police forces, including Toronto, Ottawa and Vancouver, on a Last year there was an exponential increase in incidents motivated by hatred against Jews.

Robertson said the “aggressive rise of anti-Semitism” has made Canadian Jews feel dehumanized, “excluded and abandoned.”

“The systemic nature of anti-Semitism has forced Canadian Jews to question the continued vitality of the nation’s Jewish communities,” he said. “Perhaps for the first time there was genuine concern that the Canadian Jewish narrative…is at risk of being erased.”

Poilievre said Monday that given how much time has passed since the Holocaust, some memories have begun to fade and some of the same “totalitarian ideologies” that fueled the Nazis in Germany have returned “with the same hateful rhetoric and, in some cases, the same precursory actions are carried out today.”

Poilievre pointed to anti-Semitic rhetoric on university campuses and attacks on Jewish buildings and homes and said the result is that Canadian Jews are “making the heartbreaking decision” not to wear the Star of David symbol or a kippah, or to remove the mezuzah on his door frame.

“In Canada it is absolutely unacceptable that one is faced with this dilemma,” he said.

Poilievre said Canadian Jews should be allowed to live “without fear and with pride” and that “it is the responsibility of every Canadian, Jewish or not, to defend their right to do so.”

Trudeau said in his speech that the Oct. 7 attack on Israel was the largest mass killing of Jews since the Holocaust, and took aim at those who use “Zionism” to express their hatred.

“In a country like Canada, it should and should be safe to declare yourself a Zionist, Jewish or not,” he said.

“Zionism is not a dirty word or something that someone should be attacked for agreeing with. It is the belief, in its simplest form, that the Jewish people, like all peoples, have the right to determine their own future.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 6, 2024.