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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