MONTREAL — Since the deadly Oct. 7 pogrom by Hamas in Israel there has been a rise in Jew-hating violence worldwide. Here in Canada, Hamas supporters have shot bullets at schools; carried out physical attacks, threats and vandalism at synagogues; and have attempted to shut down events featuring people from Israel. Pro-Hamas encampments have been set up on at least 15 university campuses across the country.
These attacks have been met with an organized response, public mobilizations protesting Jew-hatred.
Shots were fired at the Jewish school Yeshiva Gedola in Montreal Nov. 9 and 12. On May 25 a Jewish girls’ school was shot at in Toronto, and on May 28 the Belz School in the Young Israel of Montreal synagogue was hit.
On Jan. 3 a Jewish deli was attacked in Toronto, and on June 19 the Falafel Yoni restaurant in Montreal was shot at and windows smashed at a nearby gym whose owner is Jewish.
Synagogues have been vandalized. On Nov. 7 an arson attack was carried out against the Beth Tikvah synagogue in Montreal. A similar attack took place at the Schara Tzedeck synagogue in Vancouver May 30.
When speakers from Israel came to speak at Montreal’s Concordia University March 4, organizers decided to move the venue off campus to the Holocaust Museum because of threats to disrupt it. Supporters of Hamas blocked the entrance to the museum and physically attacked those who tried to enter.
Encampments calling on the administration to withdraw all investments connected with Israel have been set up at the University of Toronto and McGill University in Montreal. Those there have cursed at, threatened and carried out physical attacks against Jews and others who speak out in defense of Israel as a refuge for Jews.
At the University of Toronto a woman putting up posters calling for freeing the hostages Hamas is holding in Gaza was punched in the face and her hair pulled. Others have been attacked the same way. Posters near the encampment say, “We need another Holocaust” and “Jews belong in the sea, Palestine will be free.” Red triangles have been spray-painted around campus, a symbol used by Hamas to target opponents to be killed.
Mobilizations against Jew-hatred
Countermobilizations, led largely by Jews and Jewish organizations, have been organized against these attacks. On June 9 this was a theme at the annual Walk with Israel in Toronto. According to the organizers, 50,000 people took part. The police estimated 20,000. Either way, it was the largest such march ever. On May 17 some 200 neighbors accompanied a 13-year-old Jewish student to school in Toronto because he had been threatened.
One Muslim group also responded. The Council of Muslims Against Antisemitism took out a full-page ad in the National Post entitled “Not in the name of Islam,” denouncing both Hamas and antisemitism.
It calls for Muslims to reject the “weaponization of our faith by Islamist extremists.” It also mourns the death of Gazan civilians, but places the blame squarely on Hamas, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the Iranian regime and “all those who fund, justify and glorify them.”
The Toronto school board — which oversees the largest school district in the country — voted to include “anti-Palestinian racism” in its anti-discrimination policy, but failed to do so for antisemitism. In response, hundreds protested outside the board June 18.
Hillel, the main Jewish student organization, and Federation CJA, the main citywide Jewish organization in Montreal, organized a June 17 rally outside City Hall to demand the government take action against attacks on Jews. “The antisemitism on our campuses and streets is not acceptable!!! Let our municipal leaders know enough is enough,” the call for the action said. “Call on Mayor Valerie Plante and all elected officials to bring order back to our streets and enforce the law to protect the Jewish community.”
The day before the rally, the construction site for a new Holocaust Museum in Montreal was graffitied with the words, “F–k Israel.”
Communist League members and supporters have participated in these actions. At a protest in Montreal June 25, Katy LeRougetel, Communist League candidate in the LaSalle-Emard-Verdun federal by-election, met Steven Abady, who will start a job in music therapy this fall. “Jews are the canary in the coal mine,” he said. “It starts with Jews but it never ends with Jews.”
“True,” said LeRougetel. “As we saw with the rise of the Nazis in the 1930s, the ruling rich use Jew-hatred when their rule is threatened by a rising working-class movement to whip up fascist gangs against the workers and their organizations. While this is not the situation today, the rise of Jew-hating attacks is a sign of things to come and has to be fought vigorously. This is a life-and-death question for the labor movement.”
Later, she told the Militant,“Relying on the bosses’ government and the cops is a trap. It was Ottawa and Washington that refused entry to the Jews before, during and after the Second World War. Jew-hatred can only be ended by ending the capitalist system. That’s why workers need a party of labor that can organize us in our millions to take power out of the hands of the exploiters.”