The fire bombing of the Schara Tzedeck Synagogue on Oak Street last Thursday was a terrorist act. Plain an simple.
According to B’nai Brith, the attack targeted “the oldest Jewish congregation in the city and one of the largest in Vancouver”. (You can read the details of what happened here: https://www.bnaibrith.ca/bnai-brith-canada-outraged-after-fire-set-at-entrance-to-vancouver-synagogue/.)
There were also violent attacks on Jewish institutions recently in other Canadian cities as well: “shots were fired at a Jewish girls school in Toronto and bullet holes were found in a Montreal building housing a Jewish school and synagogue,” the National Post reported.
And acts of vandalism, anti-Semitic attacks in Canada have been steadily rising …even before the Oct.7 Hamas terrorist attack against Israel.
According to the National Post, a B’nai Brith report on anti-Semitic violence in Canada found “a massive spike in 2023…. the report found there were 5,791 documented acts of violence, harassment and vandalism aimed at Jews that year, more than twice the 2,769 incidents logged in 2022.”
Nor has the increased violence by “haters” been restricted to Canada’s Jewish comunity.
A study by the Angus Reid Institute last July revealed more and more Asian Canadians reported “ongoing abuse, harassment and poor treatment in 2023”.
“One-in-five Chinese and East Asian Canadians say they have regularly faced negative reactions from other Canadians as a result of the political tensions between the Canadian and Chinese governments. The data shows about 20 per cent say harassment has happened “repeatedly,” the Reid survey showed.
Muslim groups have also reported a “skyrocketing” number of Islamophobia attacks in Canada.
“The National Council of Canadian Muslims reports a 1,300 per cent increase in the number of hate incidents since Oct. 7,” the Montreal Gazette wrote in mid-November, and that number has now grown even higher.
What the hell is happening in, and to, our Canada!!!
This is no longer just a few nuts running amok. This is outright hate being carried out, often by “educated” people who do know better, or at least should!
You don’t have to have a PhD in sociology, geography or history to know/realize very, very few of any race, ethnicity or religion living in Canada have much influence, let alone participatory links, to conflicts in their ancestral lands.
In fact, most Canadians’ ancestors left those places because they wanted better lives and freedoms AWAY from those conflicts!
To blame anyone from any racial, ethnic or religious group here for something going on thousands of miles of away is simply idiotic.
Yet the “haters” among us are getting bolder, nastier and more dangerous … sowing anxiety, fear and hurt throughout several communities, well beyond those unfortunate enough to directly experience firsthand their vile attacks.
Why?
Because there are rarely any really serious consequences, even if they ever do get caught.
An Ontario man pleaded guilty in April, 2022 pleaded to four counts (two counts of criminal harassment and two counts of impersonation with intent) of sending hate mail, which included swastikas, images of Adolf Hitler and calls for a second Holocaust to a Jewish organization and also offensive hate mail to a Canadian Senator.
Think of the hurt, anxiety and fear the recipients of this individual’s mailings went through, each time they left their offices or their homes, went shopping or into a parkade … never knowing if that nutbar would physically attack them.
It took almost two years to get him finally sentenced this past January: seven months in jail (less, with time off for good behaviour?) and then three years of supervised probation.
In light of the increasing and violent race-based attacks Canada has experienced lately, that clearly wasn’t much of a deterrent.
In Vancouver, an Asian woman was violently grabbed and pushed while walking on West Georgia Street; another was struck at the back of her head with a pole near Dunsmuir and Cambie and in February, charges were “stayed” in the case of a man arrested in a bear spray attack on an 87-year-old Asian man.
A Quebec Court did better: “A Montreal neo-Nazi who was found guilty of wilfully promoting hatred against Jewish people has been sentenced 15 months in jail and three years of probation — one of the harshest sentences given for the crime in Canada,” the CBC reported.
That loser had spent years writing hundreds of articles in neo-Nazi publications and had also recorded/broadcast several hate-promoting podcasts.
But as the number and intensity of violent attacks against minorities are on the rise by these individuals, it’s Canada that is getting the real black eye.
We who live here, from coast to coast to coast, know the real Canada and real Canadians are repulsed by the miscreants carrying out these crimes.
Canadians today are overwhelmingly a tolerant, even welcoming, people … regardless of race, ethnicity, religion or sexual orientation.
How ironic that this week, we will commemorate the 80th anniversary of “D” Day … the Normandy World War II landings that began the liberation of Europe from the violence and hate that had become official policy among the Axis powers.
We must NEVER forget … or let today’s “haters” win.
Parliament must toughen the laws and penalties to send a message to the “haters” they will pay with serious prison time for their acts of domestic terror; and, the Courts must start imposing lengthy sentences to those found guilty of hate crimes, especially those involving violence.
And if any of those convicted are found to be landed immigrants, international students or on Visitor Visas of any kind, they should be deported from Canada as soon as they have completed their sentences.
With NO exceptions for those who have tried to cover their asses by marrying a Canadian citizen or by having children born here, while they stained our land with their “old-country” hates and violence.
Harv Oberfeld
(Follow @harveyoberfeld on “X” for FREE First Alerts to all new postings on this Blog.)