Investigation: The antisemitism that Oct. 7 unleashed in Canada | 24CA News

A gunman shoots at a Montreal Jewish faculty. A Jewish-owned grocery retailer is ready on fireplace in Toronto. In Ottawa, police disrupt an alleged terrorism plot towards the Jewish group.

The Oct. 7 Hamas assault on Israel has sparked a dramatic surge of antisemitism throughout Canada, in keeping with a Global News investigation based mostly on paperwork, interviews and figures compiled from police forces.

Homes, companies, faculties, locations of worship, neighbourhoods and establishments have all been focused in what group leaders are calling an unparalleled spike in hate crimes towards Jews.

In addition, Canadian intelligence studies warn that Jewish group centres, day faculties, synagogues and grocery shops are among the many “possible targets” of “increasingly likely” extremist assaults.

Antisemitic incidents have jumped in each main metropolis, police figures present. (The authorities defines antisemitism as a “certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews.”)

In Toronto, they greater than doubled to 132 final yr, whereas these towards the bigger Muslim inhabitants grew to 35 from 12, and the LGBTQ2 group was focused 66 occasions.

Reports of antisemitism additionally elevated greater than twofold in Halifax, to 18 from seven in 2022, in keeping with police. Alberta’s two largest cities noticed an increase to 45 from 25 the yr earlier than.

Most had been in Calgary, the place there have been 27 incidents, up from 15, whereas in Edmonton the numbers went from 10 in 2022 to 18 — with 15 of these occurring after Oct. 7.

Ottawa’s Jewish inhabitants numbers simply 15,000 in a metropolis of 1 million, however was probably the most focused group for hate, accounting for one out of each 5 incidents within the capital final yr.

On the West Coast, there have been extra antisemitic hate crimes in Vancouver after Oct. 7 than in all of 2022, which town’s police division attributed to the Israel-Hamas battle.

“We are living in unprecedented times,” stated Nico Slobinsky, Pacific Region vice-president on the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs. “We have seen the mainstreaming of antisemitism.”

“We see it in public spaces, in private spaces. We see it in the workplace, in schools, on university campuses. We see it sometimes being manifested even in interpersonal relationships with people you consider your friends.”

Just one per cent of the nation’s inhabitants, Canadian Jews had been already disproportionately the victims of hate crimes earlier than Hamas launched its armed assault, and the Israeli army responded in Gaza.

But one thing occurred after Oct. 7 that has introduced it into the open in methods uncharacteristic of a various nation that prides itself on tolerance and the embrace of multiculturalism.

“It’s almost like a world gone mad,” stated Rabbi Menachem Karmel, principal at Yeshiva Gedola, a Jewish elementary faculty in Montreal’s Côte-des-Neiges neighbourhood.

On Nov. 9, bullets hit the varsity entrance. Three days later, it occurred once more. Students weren’t at school on the time and there have been no accidents, however the group was stunned.

The shootings triggered “a lot of panic,” stated Karmel. Police haven’t made any arrests. The faculty has needed to set up safety cameras and floodlights.

The incident was amongst 131 antisemitic hate incidents in Montreal between Oct. 7 and Jan. 30, in keeping with police.

It can also be the type of assault that intelligence officers warning about in paperwork obtained by Global News that assess the potential for violence in Canada stemming antisemitism and the Israel-Hamas battle.

In intelligence briefs launched underneath the Access to Information Act, the Canadian authorities’s Integrated Terrorism Assessment Centre stated violent extremists had been spreading antisemitic rhetoric.

Using social media as their “main pathway,” extremist influencers have praised Hamas and disseminated antisemitic content material and conspiracy theories that incite violence, in keeping with an Oct. 12, 2023 report.

“The narratives encourage hate crimes, violence and terrorism,” stated the report, titled Canada: Trends Influencing Antisemitic Violent Extremism.

A report issued two weeks later predicted the Israel-Hamas battle would “exacerbate the current steady increase in hate crimes targeting the Jewish community in Canada.”

“Violent rhetoric celebrating the Oct. 7 attack and encouraging like-minded individuals to conduct lone actor attacks could inspire individuals to conduct attacks targeting Israeli interests or the Jewish community,” it stated.

The grandson of Holocaust survivors, Karmel stated he was glad his grandparents weren’t round to witness the flip of occasions in Canada.

“To see this happening again, it’s terrifying,” he stated. “It’s hatred.”

Marcus Stiller has by no means lived in Israel, however as a Canadian Jew, he hung an Israeli flag within the window of his Vancouver restaurant, Fish Café.

“I’m very loud and proud,” he stated in an interview.

The flag triggered no issues till after Oct. 7, when his restaurant started to obtain a string of destructive on-line evaluations, one accusing him of supporting genocide.

Stiller, whose grandfather fled Greece through the Italian fascist occupation, stated he doesn’t thoughts evaluations, good or dangerous.

But this was clearly not about his meals or service. Like Jewish business homeowners in Toronto and Montreal, he was being singled out over the Hamas-Israel battle.

Things escalated when, on Nov. 19, he discovered a swastika and a far-right slogan painted on a wall behind the restaurant.

Next, he discovered a photograph in his mailbox — an image of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s head cropped onto a uniformed Nazi with a swastika shoulder patch.

“This is how things start,” Stiller stated.

“I’m not scared,” he added. “I am concerned, obviously, about the antisemitism. And I’m a little bit more concerned about my staff’s safety than mine.”

“But I’m not going to take the flag down.”

In a room above a therapeutic massage parlor that advertises “sexy hot” workers, Younus Kathrada stood at a microphone delivering a sermon a few “religious war” towards “filthy zionists.”

When he was accomplished, his worshippers exited the constructing right into a winter afternoon within the B.C. capital, and mingled on a sidewalk going through a graffiti-covered concrete manufacturing facility.

Approached by Global News as he walked to his automobile, Kathrada didn’t reply to allegations by Jewish teams that he’s spreading antisemitism.

But the Saudi-trained 60-year-old has lengthy confronted complaints over the weekly lectures he leads in Victoria and posts on social media channels.

Since the Oct. 7 Hamas assault on Israelis, he has claimed the battle is a “jihad,” and people killed combating could be rewarded with 72 virgins.

“We pray that Allah grants them victory over the criminal Jews,” he stated in a latest Friday sermon that was later posted on his Facebook web page.

A Victoria-area metropolis councillor has requested police to research Kathrada’s movies. Jewish teams have additionally filed police complaints.

“Younis Kathrada preaches hate. There’s no other way to say it,” stated Slobinsky, the CIJA Pacific Region vice-president.

The Victoria Police Department stated it had obtained a report about Kathrada that was being investigated by its hate crimes coordinator.

A South Africa-born preacher, Kathrada has by no means been charged, and has denied selling hatred or inciting his followers to do something greater than adhere to his model of worship.

In the times after Oct. 7, he posted questions on-line he stated a news reporter had requested him, and supplied responses.

“Do you think your comments are hate speech? Response: Are they serious?! Not a single word of what I have posted is hate speech,” Kathrada wrote.

Canada’s hate crimes legal guidelines exempt good religion spiritual expression from prosecution. The Bloc Quebecois launched a non-public members invoice in November that might scrap that as a defence.

The B.C. Prosecution Service up to date its hate crimes coverage on Friday to outline as “prohibited acts” the general public incitement of hatred, and the wilful promotion of hatred and antisemitism.

The modifications acknowledged that “hate crimes can cause grave psychological and social consequences that may impact one’s own self-worth, inclusion and belonging, as well as personal and collective safety.”

Meanwhile, a Global News investigation has discovered that the non-profit group that runs Kathrada’s prayer centre has obtained authorities funding.

The metropolis of Victoria acknowledged it had given $5,000 to Muslim Youth of Victoria, which operates Kathrada’s Dar al-Ihsan Islamic Centre.

The cash got here in 2021 and 2022 from town’s Cultural Infrastructure Program for native non-profits that “own or operate cultural facilities.”

Government data additionally present {that a} federally regulated charity, the Islamic Society of B.C., gave $2,288 to Muslim Youth of Victoria. Neither group responded to requests for remark.

Kathrada grew to become chief of the Dar al-Ihsan Islamic Centre, run by Muslim Youth of Victoria, in 2018. His weekly movies quickly attracted consideration.

The Middle East Media Reserarch Institue (MEMRI), a U.S. group that displays on-line extremism, started issuing studies on Kathrada that very same yr.

Since then, MEMRI has issued 60 studies on him, together with one that quotes him preaching that non-Muslims are “enemies,” and to not affiliate with them.

“I want our children to understand this well: the non-Muslims are the enemies of Allah, therefore they are your enemies,” he stated in one of many movies.

In one other video, he stated that “people of faith hate the Yahud because of their disbelief in Allah.” He outlined Yahud as “Zionists, Zionist Jews, whatever you like.” Yahud is the Arabic time period for Jews.

“If you do not hate the opponents of Allah you have no faith,” he continued. “Having said that, once again, we have not ever called toward violence toward others.”

The authorities’s Integrated Terrorism Assessment Centre took notice of Kathrada in a 2020 report obtained by Global News.

Under the heading “Online proliferation of incitement,” it cited his sermon in regards to the beheading by French extremists of college instructor Samuel Paty, whom he referred to as a “filthy excuse for a human being.”

Slobinsky stated spiritual leaders had an obligation to unite individuals, reasonably than to sow division, and that phrases have penalties.

“Words carry meaning and words can scare people, can affect their sense of safety, their sense of belonging and the sense of mental well-being,” he stated.

“The speech that Younus Kathrada uses is highly inflammatory and derogatory towards Jews. Nobody should be, listening to what he says.”

Sent a collection of questions, Kathrada didn’t reply immediately, however later wrote on Facebook that he was being harassed by “lazy misfits” who “twist people’s words.”

“Corporate media is anti-Islam, anti-Muslim and straight up dishonest. I urge them to hold their breath for a response,” he wrote.

Immediately after the Hamas assault, the University of Toronto’s Centre for Jewish Studies opened its doorways for group members, so they’d a spot to grieve.

“They sat here and they all just cried together, because they were concerned and worried about their loved ones in Israel,” stated Anna Shternshis, the centre’s director.

“But also, and this is a heartbreaking part, because they couldn’t find empathy in our university community, from colleagues, from friends, from strangers.”

Although Israelis had been the victims of the Hamas assault, with 1,200 lifeless and greater than 250 taken hostage, that appeared shortly forgotten, significantly on campuses.

As college students started to protest in help of Palestinians, Shternshis stated Jews discovered their struggling largely ignored and commenced to ask: “Are these protests condemning us?”

Jewish college students stated in interviews they felt focused, and spoke about threats and intimidation, in addition to a scarcity of help from administration.

“I personally have felt safer in a bomb shelter than in the streets of Montreal,” stated Ora Bar, a Concordia University pupil who grew up in Israel.

Last November, Bar was a part of a bunch that arrange a show in help of Israelis taken hostage by Hamas. A professional-Palestinian group put up its personal desk close by.

Videos taken on the time present a pupil shouting on the Jewish group, then grabbing their Israeli flag. A brawl erupted. Three had been injured and a 22-year-old pupil was arrested.

Across city, a University of Montreal sessional lecturer was suspended after he was allegedly videotaped at a protest calling a Jewish pupil a whore and telling her to “go back to Poland.”

“We’ve been threatened on campus by students, by fellow students. These students have been emboldened by professors,” stated Eitan Kovac, who witnessed the incident.

“They have this feeling we’re agents of the state of Israel somehow. How is that the case?”

A Palestinian pupil chief stated his group had requested members to not have interaction with Jewish college students at Concordia. “We don’t want the escalation. We don’t want tensions on campuses,” he stated.

At a latest demonstration in Montreal, protesters decried each antisemitism and Islamophobia, which has additionally elevated in main cities, though to not the identical degree, besides in Edmonton.

They stated stopping the conflict in Gaza would resolve the issues on campuses. “What is happening now, it could lead to much more tension,” one stated. “So it needs to end.”

On Feb. 12, pro-Palestinian protesters amassed outdoors Toronto’s Mount Sinai hospital, which was based by the Jewish group a century in the past.

Demonstrators climbed up scaffolding outdoors the constructing and onto a ledge, waving a Palestinian flag, whereas others loudly chanted slogans beneath a “HOSPITAL, Quiet” signal.

Shimon Fogel, CEO of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, stated even when anger is directed at Israel, it’s usually rooted in antisemitism.

“Israel has for many years now become the proxy for the Jewish people,” stated Fogel. “And for many who hold hostile views, presenting them or characterizing them as hostility towards Israel is easier, and more politically correct, than simply giving expression to hatred towards Jews.”

“But really, from our experience they’re one and the same,” he stated.

“There is a reason the Jews are being targeted on the streets of Toronto or Vancouver or Montreal. There’s a reason that schools and synagogues are being firebombed,” Fogel added.

“And it’s because the antipathy is for the Jewish people, and the Jewish state is only an extension of the Jewish people, not something, independent and separate.”

What issues Fogel just isn’t solely the hatred that has discovered voice since Oct. 7, however the place it’s coming from, notably progressives who had partnered with the Jewish group on points corresponding to LGBTQ2 rights.

“It’s really hard to wrap our heads around, the kind of alliances that are beginning to take shape,” he stated. “So in addition to being anxious about the hate being directed to us, we are profoundly puzzled by these alignments.”

The previous few months have hit significantly near house for many who lived by the Holocaust. In a press release issued by the Toronto Holocaust Museum, 19 survivors spoke of a “seismic shift” since Oct. 7.

“Our children who were raised to believe that they were far from the horrors of 1930s Germany are recognizing that the cycle of Jew hatred is not over,” they wrote.

To Fogel, what distinguishes the present wave of antisemitism from the previous is the position of presidency and police.

“Back then, it was driven by government and by officialdom within Germany,” he stated. “Here we see that the political sector, law enforcement, civil society by and large, has been unequivocal in its support for the Jewish community and its condemnation of what the Jewish community has been experiencing.”

The Mount Sinai hospital protest was condemned by the mayor, premier and prime minister. Toronto Police opened an investigation, and elevated patrols alongside town’s hospital row.

The response has been missing in lots of respects, “but the will and the determination to protect the community, to stand with the community, I think, has been articulated and expressed by all levels of government,” Fogel stated.

“And certainly by law enforcement, who have in many respects done a remarkable job in signaling that they don’t just have the Jewish community’s back, that they will be standing side by side and in front of the Jewish community as they have to contend with these particular threats and challenges.”

Stewart.bell@globalnews.ca