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There’s a truck driving around Toronto. It’s getting noticed.

You’ve seen it around, perhaps. Trucks like that are called LED advertising trucks, or digital trucks. They have big, high-definition screens on three sides.

This week, one such truck has been piloted through some of Toronto’s (typically) gridlocked streets. The panels flash these messages: “Is this Lebanon? Is this Yemen? Is this Syria? Is this Iraq?”

It then shows what appears to be Muslims praying at City Hall in Toronto. There are Palestinian flags seen, too.

The truck’s message then reads: “No. This is Canada. Wake up Canada. You are under siege.”

Cue the outrage.

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The photograph shows six young people in keffiyehs, some with their faces covered, sitting outside reading quotations from Chinese Chairman Mao Zedong.  The poster has been circulated by the McGill University chapter of Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights (SPHR), which is a recognized club at the Montreal university.

“The Summer Youth Program,” the poster reads, “Launching 06.17.2024.”

One is holding a machine gun.  Another has a rifle.  

The poster is still on the Instagram account of SPHR McGill. When it appeared last week, it caused a firestorm, and headlines around the world.  The Jerusalem Post called it “Camp Intifada.” Britain’s The Guardian observed how the poster “featured masked guerillas.”

A federal cabinet minister, very close to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (himself a McGill alumni), issued a statement condemning the poster. “Enough is enough, this is hate speech and incitement to hate, pure and simple,” Immigration Minister Marc Miller wrote on X. “De-escalation at McGill has clearly failed. This needs to end!”

Many questions arise.  Who is SPHR, the group that is promoting the “Summer Camp?” What is the camp’s program? Who are the people in the photo on the poster? Is it legal to seemingly advertise a “camp” like that? What, if anything, are the authorities doing about it?

First off: who is Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights (SPHR)? 

SPHR is a club recognized by the student union at McGill. It was founded more than two decades ago, and is supported by the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU), in the past via funds it receives from student tuition. The SSMU describe SPHR on their web site as “a student-led club that champions the Palestinian liberation struggle settler-colonialism, apartheid, and genocide based on principles of anti-colonial solidarity. We also advocate for the rights of Palestinian students in the face of racism, misinformation, harrassment [sic], and surveillance at McGill, as well as campaign for the end of the University’s complicity in the colonization of Palestine.”

But SPHR McGill – like SPHR “clubs” found at several Canadian universities, like Concordia, Western, Lethbridge, Calgary, McMaster, Queen’s and the University of Ottawa, among others –  isn’t really what it claims to be.  SPHR is really just a front for another, more openly-extremist group: Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP).

SJP is one of the most powerful anti-Israel – and antisemitic – groups in the world, with chapters at universities and colleges across Canada, the United States and overseas.  Founded at UC Berkeley in 2001, SJP has been linked to extremism and terrorism from the start.  Since the October 7 massacre by Hamas in Israel, its leadership and membership have become more and more open in their support for Hamas, for which SJP provides public relations in North America.  

In Canada, SJP/SPHR voices applauded the atrocities of that day.  At McGill, SJP/SPHR posted this online on October 8: “MONTREAL: ALL OUT FOR PALESTINE – Last night, the resistance in Gaza led a heroic attack against the occupation and has taken over 30 hostages …Their march toward liberation is as monumental as their rockets – the resistance will free the prisoners who have been facing a fascist attack by the occupation and liberate our land from the fangs of the enemy. The resistance has set a new precedent for the Palestinian struggle – our right to resist the occupation, to defend the land, and to free our prisoners are the utmost priorities. We call on our people in Montreal and in the far diaspora to celebrate the resistance’s success, to uplift their calls, and to march this Sunday Oct 8 at 2pm at Dorchester Square.”

McGill’s provost condemned the club’s celebration of the October 7 and hostage-taking, just as its president, Deep Saini, condemned the “Summer Youth Program” poster: “This is extremely alarming…It has attracted international media attention, and many in our community have understandably reached out to express grave concerns — concerns that I share.”

But, despite all the protestations, the SJP chapter calling itself SPHR remains a recognized and supported club at McGill University.

Next: what is the “Summer Camp” program?

In their explanation, rife with errors, SPHR/SJP write: “We pledge to educate the youth of montreal [sic] and redefine McGill’s ‘elite’ instutional [sic] legacy by transformining [sic] its space into one of revolutionary education. The daily schedule will include physical activity, Arabic language instruction, cultural crafts, political discussions, historical and revolutionary lessons.” The camp would be offered by students, community members and McGill faculty, SPHR/SJP say.  

The first week will focus on “the history of the Palestinian resistance.” The second, “the ongoing Nakba” – Nakba being the Arabic word for catastrophe, and what Hamas has said is the “natural extension of the Palestinian people’s right and resistance.”

Week three will be focussed on “different fronts of the movement.” The final week is about “media after October 7.” It is worth noting that the SPHR/SJP chapter at McGill called Hamas’ slaughter of 1,200 men, woman, children and babies on October 7 “heroic,” quote unquote.  The university and the student union insisted that SPHR/SJP remove “McGill” from their name after that.  But, as noted, they have allowed it to remain a recognized club – and do not disclose how much funding it has received via the university and the student union in the past.

Who, then, are the six people pictured on the poster for the camp?

The photos are members of the Fatah faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), when the PLO was considered a terrorist organization.  The photo was taken in Jordan in 1970.  The group are showing interest in Mao Zedong’s words, presumably, because the Chinese Communist party supported the PLO at that time.

Asked by the media about the image of masked gunmen advertising a “Summer Camp,” a co-ordinator of Concordia’s SPHR/SJP chapter, Zeyad Abisaab, shrugged, saying people should stop focussing on the photo. “It’s a space for people to learn. It’s an educational space,” he said of the camp.

Two final questions, then: is it legal to advertise a camp where the use of weapons is promoted? And what, if anything, are the authorities doing about it?

These questions are the easiest to answer. The only place where firearms training is legal in Canada is with accredited Canadian Firearms Safety courses, approved by the RCMP. Since 1977, no one – other than the police or the military – may possess automatic weapons, full stop.  Sentences for those convicted of possessing a light machine gun like the one in the “camp” photo range up to ten years in federal prison.

Finally, what are the authorities doing about the SPHR/SJP “Summer Camp,” with its wilful promotion of hateful words and images?

Nothing.  Nothing at all.  Camp started this week.

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It’s the tale – the tell – of the tape.

You’d think after Rodney King, the anti-Israel cabal would know: everyone carries a camera and a camcorder in their pocket, these days. And, if you do something bad – cursing at an elderly Jewish woman, say, or vandalizing a sign for a Jewish religious group, or peering through the windows at a Zionist writer’s home – you’re likelier to be caught than in 1990.

In the very next year, 1991, Rodney King was nearly beaten to death by four Los Angeles police officers, at gunpoint, during a traffic stop. Someone videotaped the beating, which put King in the hospital for days. The four officers were charged with multiple offences because of the tape, then acquitted by a jury without a single black person on it. Riots started, and dozens of people died in the aftermath.

So, videotape evidence of hateful acts have become pretty important since Rodney King.

Ask Soheil Homayed and Hussein Salame, of the Canadian sales firm YESA, for example. A few days ago, these two hulking men showed up at a pro-Israel rally outside the big shopping mall in Belleville, Ont. They started to curse at an elderly Jewish woman, who looked to be about 90 pounds soaking wet. Here’s what they said to her, while someone else recorded the exchange off to the side.

Homayed, holding up his phone and apparently filming the woman, sneers at her: “You support genocide!” Salame, standing beside him in a YESA hoodie and sunglasses, repeats the allegation, then says: “You stand for murder!”

Both yell “F— Israel” a few times, and someone, possibly another person, seems to tell the Jewish woman to “go back to Israel.”

The elderly Jewish woman is completely unfazed by Homayed and Salame, who tower over her.

“We’re not bothering you! Go over there,” she says, pointing at a group of pro-Palestinian protesters who have set up down the block.

Homayed and Salame curse at her some more and then slouch away.

Since they were wearing YESA insignia and employed there, we contacted the company.

“Both of these gentlemen received corrective and disciplinary actions of a serious nature,” a spokesperson said, refusing to say what the “serious nature” discipline was.

She wouldn’t say if they had been dismissed, either, although photos of the two men are (for now) not found on the YESA website. Asked about the apparent “go back to Israel” comment in emails, Homayed did not respond.

Another incident was also caught on tape. on Monday.

Just 24 hours after 50,000 Jews and allies marched up Bathurst St. in Toronto for the UJA’s Walk With Israel, two masked men appeared on Bathurst. One was holding a Palestinian flag. As cars and trucks go by, they commenced vandalizing a sign promoting a pro-Israel event hosted by the Jewish Charity Chabad Ontario.

A resident happened to be at the corner of Bathurst St. and Wilson Ave. and started filming. In the resulting video, the pair can be seen crossing out the word “Israel” with black marker and drawing an inverted red triangle below it, along with the words, “Free Gaza.”

Why the red triangle? Because it’s a symbol of Hamas. Hamas use the red triangle to identify Jews who have been marked for a targeted killing.

So, one day after 50,000 Jews celebrated being together, anti-Israel types show up to literally promote assassination of Jews. In broad daylight.

Facts Matter, a group that opposes anti-Semitism (and which was founded, in part, by this writer), notified Chabad Ontario and the Toronto Police Service, who are now investigating.

Final example of video evidence, closer to home: while I was at the Walk With Israel event, an unidentified man was caught on tape peering in windows at remote and unlisted rural home – and, later, moving in and out of the home of a “neighbor” who has publicly accused Israel of genocide. The OPP are investigating that, too.

Moral of the story, for Canadian Jews and their allies: always keep your phone close, and always be ready to capture some video.

You never know when it might come in handy.

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 One by one they were all becoming shades. Better pass boldly into that other world, in the full glory of some passion, than fade and wither dismally with age.

Twenty years ago right about now, my brother Kevin called me from Kingston General Hospital to tell me that our father was dead. “He is with Nanny and Pappy,” Kevin said.

I rushed to the hospital and ran up the stairs and stood at the doorway of the tiny room in which Dr. T Douglas Kinsella MD, OC, had died, very early on June 15, 2004. It was a small room, and my father had refused an offer to put him in a larger one, in the very building where he had saved and healed lives many years before. Better that someone else use it, he had said. He was like that.

I couldn’t look at him, but I couldn’t not look at him. No one spoke. I loathed Father’s Day after that, because I had lost mine.

Through the window of his room, if you were at the right angle, I recall you could see shiny, tiny white sailboats bouncing on Lake Ontario, like little flickers of light. I felt angry at the sailboats, that morning. Why couldn’t they be still? Didn’t they know this great man who had died? How could they not know? Why were they not in mourning, as we were?

Because he was a truly great man; he was. When I was young, I assumed that everybody had a Dad like that. But I eventually learned that they didn’t, and that my brothers and I were very, very lucky.

What a man he was. What a giant in our lives he was!

He came from a poor Irish family in Montreal. As a boy, he overcame rheumatic fever, and decided that he would become a doctor to help those who experience that affliction, and other afflictions. He served in the military, won distinction at Loyola and McGill, and he married my Mom – this radiant, boundlessly-beautiful, dark-haired artist from the East End – and they raised us four boys in Montreal, then Dallas, then Kingston, then back to Montreal and then on to Calgary. He published papers and books. He won awards. He received the Order of Canada.

Some nights at the dinner table, when it got quiet, he’d offer the same piece of advice to me and my brothers and my best friends: love people, and be honest. He always followed that advice, without fail. Me, not so much. I think about that whenever I think of him, too.

And what would he think of the life I have had? That is something that every son wonders about every father, whether they admit it or not. I certainly do. And what would he think of two of my sons, or two of the women I lived with? Would he think less of me, or them?

Even though it has been 20 years, I can still hear his voice; I can still see his handsome face. And, like so many sons of so many departed fathers, I would truly give anything to spend an hour with him again. To ask him what he thinks, to ask him what to do.

About my fight against bigots and haters, seemingly everywhere in these dark days, I think that he would tell me to keep going, but to be careful. About my writing and art, he would tell me to never let those things go, I think, because they offer a bit of life after death. About those I loved and now despise – he would tell me to forgive.

Father’s Day, my father’s final day: I have no acquired wisdom to pass along to you, even after 20 years have slid past. Just the obvious, the thing that you have heard one hundred times: that life goes by so quickly, like a bit of cloud on a blustery day. It arcs across the sky and is gone before you know it. So, cherish every moment of joy. Hug those you love. Dance, sing, laugh. Forgive, if you can.

A couple of nights ago, I was on the 401 and signaling to go into the slow lane and exit at Cobourg, when I saw – in the corner of my eye – a truck barreling towards me at what look like double the posted speed. I swerved and he missed me by maybe a foot; I almost felt it on my skin, it was so close. I exited, and this madman continued rocketing up the 401, moving in and out of traffic until he was out of sight. I hoped he didn’t hurt anyone.

It was only when I stopped that I realized I had come pretty close to getting killed by him. And, when I thought about it – maybe a bit shaky,  certainly a bit breathless like I was at the door to that hospital room 20 years ago – I thought I came within a foot of seeing my Dad again.

And I regretted that I had lost that chance, because he is an angel now – on this, my Father’s Day.

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Their heroes take hostages.

So, now, they’re doing likewise.

Right now, today, that’s what us happening at California State University in Los Angeles: a pro-Hamas gang – after illegally occupying university property for weeks – have taken hostages. As I write this, somewhere between 50 and 100 “protestors” have blocked the ground floor exits at the Student Services Building at CSU, and set up barricades around the building.

They vandalized the inside of the building, stolen equipment, and used trashed vehicles to set up a barricade at the front of the building.

And they took hostages, just like their Hamas heroes in Gaza.

The school’s president, Berenecea Johnson Eanes, was “sheltering in place” in her office on the eighth floor on Wednesday and Thursday. And an unknown number of staff were being held inside the building, too. Meanwhile, outside the building, university employees were told to leave, quickly, because of the potential danger.

CSU spokesman Erik Hollins said: “I can confirm that there are still a small number of administrators in the building. We are working through options to bring this fluid situation to the best resolution possible.”

Across Canada and the United States, there are dozens of illegal occupations of university campuses like CSU. They claim to favor divestment of dealings with Israel. But – after a certain number of assaults of Jews and Hitler salutes and displays of Hamas symbols – everyone knows that just isn’t true, anymore.

After witnessing months of well-funded, well-organized “protests” at places of so-called higher learning, we all now know the truth: if you are wearing a mask at an “encampment,” chanting about genocide by the Jewish state, you are an antisemite. Full stop.

So who is overseeing this antisemitic madness on North American campuses? Who is really running the Jew-hating show at Canadian campuses like U of T and McGill, and American campuses like CSU and Columbia?

Picture a flowchart, with Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at the centre. It is the ringleader. It is the not-so-hidden hand. And it has hundreds of chapters across Canada and the United States, and now controls antisemitic and anti-Western activity at those campuses.

SJP’s activities are overseen by a shadowy group called National Students for Justice in Palestine (NSJP). The NSJP was created by something called American Muslims for Palestine (AMP). SJP is the offspring of NSJP, in effect, and NSJP is the child of AMP.

And AMP, as described in pleadings filed in the state of Virginia a few weeks ago, is “Hamas propaganda division” in North America. Anyone watching the insanity at places like CSU and McGill – which also saw a university building occupied a few days ago, until Montreal police drove them out with batons and rubber bullets – isn’t surprised by that. SJP, NSJP and AMP are pretty open about what they do, and how they do it.

But AMP, the grandparent of all this, is very, very circumspect about its ultimate parentage: it is a creation of the Muslim Brotherhood, which is behind every Islamic terrorist organization on Earth.

The Muslim Brotherhood created a Palestine Committee in the U.S. in 1988. That committee was itself made up of several organizations, like the Holy Land Foundation, the Islamic Association of Palestine and the American Muslim Society. All of them, it turned out, were working directly with Hamas on public relations efforts in North America.

But they all got caught. They were found criminally and civilly liable for aiding and abetting a terror group. They were shut down.

And then, just a few years later, a new alphabet-soup of pro-Hamas organizations rose out of the ashes of the old ones. They were led by most of the same people, at the same offices, doing the same things: AMP, NSJP, SJP. Except, this time, they’re being careful. They’ve learned their lesson.

Lane Kendall is a researcher and academic in the U.S. and has worked to untie the new web of pro-Hamas front companies and organizations. In an interview, Kendall said: “If you look back far enough into how SJP came to be, it connects directly to the Muslim Brotherhood. And the Muslim Brotherhood is very much a terrorist organization that is at the foundation of every terrorist movement in the Middle East. Without the Muslim Brotherhood, the SJP doesn’t exist. So that’s why we all should be concerned about SJP – because they’re very much in bed with, and funded by and organized by, the same people that are funding and organizing Hamas and Hezbollah.”

But why do terrorists bother with privileged, inexperienced white college students in the U.S. and Canada? Says Kendall: “The organizational power of students is underestimated. I’d be willing to bet, for example, that the Liberal Party of Canada depends very heavily on young voters. And if the Liberal Party has to cater to young voters, and all of a sudden young voters have the same policy that terrorist organizations have? Well, now you have terrorist organizations able to directly influence policymaking decisions at the highest levels.”

And, now, they’ve become so bold – and so indifferent to the rule of law – they’re taking hostages and shutting down public institutions. Concludes Lane Kendall: “We need to get to the bottom of the funding and the control of these organizations. Right now.”

Will we? Or will it take another hostage-taking – or a killing – to force us to finally act?

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Fifty thousand people.

Fifty thousand!

By any standard, that’s a lot. That’s about the population of Belleville, Ont. or Saint-Hyacinthe, Que.!

This week’s Walk for Israel was perhaps the biggest event of its type – ever. Bigger than the Covid-era protests, bigger than the Black Lives Matter rallies, bigger – in particular – than most of the anti-Israel, pro-Hamas hatefests that have been polluting Toronto streets for months.

The UJA Federation of Toronto, and the Toronto Police Service, deserve a lot of applause for pulling off an event of that scale – with little to no trouble. Just a bit of rain, but no one seemed to mind.

The 50,000 walked up Bathurst Street on Sunday morning, then gathered at the UJA’s leafy Sherman Campus, a little bit South of Finch. There was dancing, singing, play areas for kids – and lots of solemn displays to remember the victims of the October 7, 2023 massacre.

Some pro-Hamas types tried to disrupt the proceedings at a couple spots along the route, but Toronto police and private security the UJA hired kept them at bay. One pro-Hamas group even tried to break in to the festival area, but police caught them and sent them packing.

Lots of federal, provincial and municipal politicians were there. But Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow, notably, weren’t among them.

I spoke to some people about that. “I’m really mad at Olivia Chow,” one woman told me, citing Chow’s claim that it was “divisive” to acknowledge Israel’s flag on that country’s Independence Day. “But she should be here.”

Trudeau’s name was met with a lot of eye-rolling, too. His government has bobbed and weaved on Israel’s justifiable war against Hamas for months, trying to please all sides – and ending up pleasing no one. But he, too, should have been there – particularly with a crucial by-election in the Toronto St. Paul’s riding coming up soon.

So why weren’t Trudeau and Chow present?

They might have had other engagements – that’s an excuse politicians regularly (and falsely) deploy. But missing out on an opportunity to sway 50,000 voters to your side? Not smart.

Chow and Trudeau’s apparatchiks might also claim that there was no point in showing up – they’d get booed. They’d get yelled at.

Maybe. Perhaps. But anyone in public life knows that brickbats always accompany the bouquets. It’s part of the job. And, besides, there’s an easy way to avoid it. Just heed Democratic Party legend Tip O’Neill’s advice: “Never get introduced at a public event.” Simply show up and shake hands. That’s it. Word will get around.

Chow has falsely claimed the sight of Israel’s flag is “divisive,” as noted. Trudeau has wrongly accused the Israeli government of war crimes. By showing up, they’d be implicitly lending their support to the Benjamin Netanyahu government, their people might claim.

But again, they’re wrong. Showing up at a party with bouncy castles isn’t expressing support for a government waging a war seven time zones away. It’s showing support for a Jewish community who have been vandalized, defamed and firebombed in Canada in recent months. A community that feels isolated and unwanted. Showing support for people under siege is being a leader.

But Olivia Chow and Justin Trudeau aren’t being the leaders we expect them to be. They just aren’t. Increasingly, it seems they believe in a Canada where some citizens are more equal than others.

At the end of the Walk for Israel, as people walked to transit or their cars or their homes, some important things were achieved.

One, fifty thousand people showed up. That is a lot. That is a huge, massive success.

Two, there was no trouble. It was a joyous, pro-Israel, pro-Canada event.

Three, the people who mattered came out. The ones who don’t, didn’t.

Four, the walk sent a clear message: Canadian Jews and their allies won’t be intimidated. They won’t be silenced. They won’t give up.

And those things made it a very good day, indeed.

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Good guys: 2.  Bad guys: 2.

No, that’s not a statistical summary of the Stanley Cup Final.  The Edmonton Oilers and the Florida Panthers are just getting started.

It is, however, a fair summary of the past week.  And, as with just about every single week since October 7, there has been a confrontation between those who favor democracy and decency on the one side – and those who favor Hamas and rank antisemitism on the other.

The victories seem to be hard to come by, in these dark and dangerous times.  But our side has actually had some wins, and both came on Thursday.  

One was at McGill University in Montreal, where the first anti-Israel/pro-Hamas (take your pick) “encampment” was set up. For weeks, the Infant-fada has occupied a large area near McGill’s fabled Roddick Gates, falsely accusing Israel of genocide and displaying signs like this one: “ON OCT. 7 ISRAEL KILLED ITS OWN PEOPLE & COVERED IT UP TO JUSTIFY GENOCIDE.”

This week, the “protestors” – CBC called them students, but the university has said 80 per cent of them aren’t – stormed into McGill’s administration building.  They forced out anyone who worked there, barricaded doors, destroyed furniture, and unfurled banners mocking the Holocaust.

Hours later, riot police arrived, quickly cleared them out – and, once outside, charged at them with batons and tear gas.  The mob faded away, but not before fifteen were arrested. Score one for the good guys.

Down the 401 at York University, masked Israel-haters decided to ape the McGill cabal and set up an “encampment” of their own on Wednesday.  “Our tuition funds genocide,” their signs said – which would be news to everyone with a functioning brain, because Palestinian population growth regularly dwarfs Israel’s by about 35 per cent.

Undeterred by pesky facts like that, the Hamas horde set up tents in the Harry W. Arthurs Common at York’s Keele campus.  As at McGill, most were “persons unknown to the university,” York said.

The university did not mess around: it served trespass notices on the aspiring campers on Wednesday, and Toronto police cleared them all out within ten minutes at 8 a.m. on Thursday.  One Hamasnik who wandered back was arrested.  Another win for the good guys.

Not all the news has been good this week, however.  

Around the same time that McGill and York were doing the right thing, Toronto city employees were apparently doing the polar opposite in the St. Paul’s neighborhood, which has a significant Jewish population. On Tuesday evening, city workers were photographed hacking down posters of Jews (and non-Jews) who have been held hostage, or murdered, by Hamas.  The city workers left untouched posters advertising free landscaping estimates and a Strawberry Social.

The city workers used a machete-sized blade to remove the posters, which were in front of the newly-opened Cafe Landwer on Spadina – a restaurant which is owned by Jews, and which has been targeted for anti-Semitic attacks in recent months.  When one of my readers objected, the grinning city workers said they were “following orders,” which has a certain Nuremberg ring to it.

The reader – her name is Hannah, but she did not want to give her full name because she fears retribution – wrote to her Toronto city councillor, Josh Matlow, to say: “Why in the world were they doing such a HORRIBLE thing?…With firebombs, shots fired at Jewish schools, (need I even go on?) you ought to be keenly aware of the heinous levels of anti-Semitism in Canada.  This hostage poster removal project lends itself well to the disgusting violence against the Canadian Jewish community which YOU have permitted to continue.”

When I contacted city media representatives, they said posters about “local community issues” were acceptable, but others – hostage posters, apparently – were not. Hannah was told the same thing by a Matlow staffer after the Sun started making inquiries.

Over at CBC, scores of CBC employees this week issued a letter decrying (wait for it) “Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian racism within CBC.” 

Leaving aside the fact that Palestinians are not a “race,” the signatories claimed that CBC has a “pattern of anti-Palestinian bias, Islamophobia, and anti-Palestinian racism within the corporation’s news and documentary culture.”

That would certainly be news to many Canadian Jews.  As Canadian Jewish News has written, CBC has long been a repository for anti-Israel “distortions, biases, and clichés,” with “distorted and harmful portrayals” of Jews and the Jewish state. Meanwhile, as Robert Walker has written for Honest Reporting Canada, “CBC completely ignores Hamas” and its crimes.  

A CBC spokesperson said they “welcome the feedback,” adding: “The tensions we are experiencing at CBC are a microcosm of what’s happening all over the world and that’s to be expected; this is such an emotionally charged topic, personal as it is divisive.”

So, a wash of a week.  Two victories for the side of decency, two wins for the side that seems to be indifferent to the fate of Jews.

Two steps forward, two steps back.

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And never forget that the fight against hatred isn’t over.

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You’re Canadian. You have a regular, normal life.

Imagine what it feels like when someone throws a bomb at your place of worship. Imagine that. It’s hard to, isn’t it? Of course it is. This is Canada, not some place in the Middle East.

Maybe you don’t go to church. Maybe it’s been a while since you’ve gone somewhere to pray.

But, if you’re a Canadian, chances are that you’ve been to a wedding or a funeral or a baptism or something like that. Chances are you’ve been to a place where people go to pray. It’s normal. It happens a lot in Canada, still.

When you’re there, you look around. Apart from the clothes they’re wearing, and maybe a book of prayers or hymns, nobody is carrying anything special. Nobody is carrying a gun or a knife or pepper spray or a fire extinguisher. That’s for certain.

You don’t need those things when you go to a place of worship in Canada. You go there for solitude or to be with other people. And, perhaps, when you’re there, you become faintly aware of something: you are totally, completely vulnerable. You’re defenceless, like everyone else is. There’s no security because you don’t need it. Not in Canada.

At the Schara Tzedeck synagogue on Oak Street in Vancouver, they need security. Since October 7, and before it, there’s been trouble. There’s always trouble, actually. As far back as 2016, the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver was tripling how much it spends on security for Jewish places of worship.

That didn’t stop someone from throwing a bomb at the lovely inscribed doors of the the Schara Tzedeck synagogue last week, however. People were inside, praying, when the bomb slammed against the doors, bursting into flame.

So, imagine that. You’re somewhere in Canada, praying, and someone throws a bomb at you. What does that feel like? Can you even imagine it?

Aron Csaplaros doesn’t have to imagine it. He lived it. Aron is the British Columbia Regional Manager for B’nai Brith Canada. He’s a good guy.

Aron’s job is to advocate for the Jewish community in the Lower Mainland. He does that by fighting antisemitism and hate – hate in all its malevolent forms, not just against Jews – and to help out when one or some of Vancouver’s 27,000 Jews need a hand.

Aron takes antisemitism seriously. Along with being a Jew living in Canada post-October 7, Aron is the grandson of Holocaust survivors. Asked if he’s feeling targeted in Canada for being a Jew, Aron says: “Every day.”

On the night the firebomb hit the front doors of the synagogue, he was not far away. The synagogue is in a nice Vancouver neighborhood, just a bit South and East of Granville Island. Aron describes what happened next.

“The second I received a frantic call about a fire at the synagogue, I jumped in my car, not knowing what to expect. This is the synagogue I attend weekly and that I first attended when I was ten days old.”

When Aron arrived, there were only a few congregants there – one of them had thrown his coat on the fire to put it out – and a lot of officers from the Vancouver Police and Fire Departments. Aron made his way over to the police to find out what he could.  

He describes the scene. “Over time, more and more people started to arrive. Rabbis from different synagogues, people who don’t attend this particular place of worship, and of course many of the synagogue’s congregants. Needless to say, the community was stunned, horrified and disgusted that such a large Jewish institution would be targeted in such a violent and dangerous attack.”

He pauses. “It was especially concerning that someone harbors so much hate for Jews that they would be willing to try and burn down a synagogue – where people pray for peace every day, where volunteers pack food boxes for the needy.”

Aron had known some of the people there for years, decades. He tried to speak to all of them, to comfort them.

He told them he and others would be working “with the police, to ensure that the perpetrator is found and brought to justice, and that we do not see an escalation of these types of violent, antisemitic attacks.”

Except, there has been an escalation. There has. A big one, right across the country. In the same week, in fact, schools for little Jewish kids in Montreal and Toronto had been sprayed by bullets. Asked about that, Aron says:

“[The Vancouver synagogue attack] comes just days after two Jewish schools in Montreal and Toronto were hit with gunfire. The question I’m asking myself is ‘what’s next?’ We are far, far past the need for words and condemnations. If our leaders do not immediately act, it is only a matter of time before people are injured, or worse. The violence and incitement must end now.”

Will it? Will the violence targeting Canadian Jews end now?

It hasn’t. Given the pathetic responses to date of some politicians, police and prosecutors, chances are it won’t.

Next time you are at your place of worship, think about that. Next time you are praying, think about that.

Then think about what you’d feel when a bomb hits.

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