Too Bad, So Sad, Canadian Jews

Kiva's bakery at Steeles Avenue and Bathurst Street on Wednesday, July 29, 2026.

 

"This is utterly reprehensible."

"[Incidents such as these] deepen fear and reinforce why so many in our community feel increasingly vulnerable ..."

"Condemnations are not enough. The Jewish community needs more than expressions of concern."

"It needs results." 

Michael Levitt, president,  Friend of Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Study

 

"We condemn yet more violent attacks on the Canadian Jewish community."

"These attacks are not only on Jews but on Canada's values and our democracy itself. [There has] not been a word from the advisory committee on rights, equality and inclusion, now responsible for determining the causes of antisemitism in Canada."

"As we have previously noted, this committee has members with no qualifications in issues of antisemitism and members whose prior associations should have disqualified them."

Hadassah Goldberg, CLARITY Coalition Canada 

Supporters stand in front of the pro-Palestinian protest encampment on McGill University campus, in Montreal, Monday, June 17, 2024. (Ryan Remiorz/The Canadian Press)

 

Canadian Jews have been left disbelieving. Never would it have occurred to them that the ancient pathology of Jew-hate that most Jewish antennae are attuned to would suddenly escape the confines of polite society to emerge as a storm of unadulterated antisemitism, boldly declared in the public arena, escalating to the point that the sewage of Jew-hate has become a threat to their very existence as Jews living in Canada. There is not one Canadian Jew unfamiliar with the syndrome, all have experienced it to at least a 'mild' degree from childhood to adulthood. 

 

Jews have had a presence in Canada since the 16th Century; they are not recent immigrants.  The number of Jews in Montreal warranted the establishment in 1768 of the Shearith Israel synagogue. 18th Century Quebec City had seen Jews settling in as proud citizens, along with other parts of Lower Canada. In Trois-Rivieres, Ezekiel Hart was elected to the legislature of Lower Canada in 1807, but on the basis of his religion was denied his seat. Early arrivals in the emerging Canada of today, rife with antisemitism but a home to Jews.

 

In this more enlightened era where Canadian Jews known to have made a reputation for themselves as scientists and academics, industrialists and medical pioneers, researchers and writers, the place that Jews made for themselves in Canada emerged as contributors to Canadian advances in all spheres of human endeavour. Diaspora Jews valued their lives in the countries they became citizens of throughout Europe, Latin America and North America among other destinations. With the advent of the State of Israel reemerging in its ancestral geography it became another point of pride, passion and security.

 

Palestine Youth Movement held a downtown rally from Yonge and Dundas Sts. to the Israeli Consulate on Tuesday, March 18, 2025, before shutting down the intersection to traffic. Photo by Caryma Sa'd /Special to the Toronto Sun

 

It took only a few decades for Canada to welcome immigrants, refugees and migrants from parts of the world where the religion, history, culture and heritage was one of inherited antipathy to Jews and that viral antipathy accompanied them to their new home, their numbers among the general population steadily increasing to the point where politicians sought them out as a voting bloc irrespective of their inability and unwillingness to accept Canadian law, values and culture. This, in a society that valued its concept of multiculturalism as a great benefit to the country.

 

The outcome of which has been foreign interference in a programmed and organized campaign to slander and threaten Canadian Jews, based on their links to Israel as Zionists in support of that ancient heritage forever under threat by fundamentalist Islamists devoted to the jihad of the sword -- or bombs, beheadings and mass slaughter. A public relations campaign that introduced the West to a new phobia that was to be taken up and deplored as an assault on human rights -- Islamophobia -- became the darling of Western politicians courting the Muslim vote. And nor were the media confined to neutral reportage.

 

Temple Emanu-El windows shot out, March 2, 2026, North York, Toronto Star/Getty Images

 

Public institutions and governments throughout the West developed an affinity for responding to Muslim invective against Jews everywhere and particularly Israel which soon became globally isolated every time its military responded to deadly attacks against the presence of the Jewish state. The slopover in Canada saw campaigns to delegitimize Israel, to boycott its products, services and academics in favour of demonstrating fealty to the plight of Palestinians 'victimized' by a country that would not allow itself to be attacked, its citizens murdered by neighbours plaintively calling themselves victims while attacking their 'occupiers' whose very presence 'oppressed' them.  

 

In Canada, Jewish-owned businesses are vandalized, synagogues fire-bombed, Jewish parochial schools shot at, hateful marches through Jewish neighbourhoods harassing and threatening its residents, all with complete impunity. University campuses shut out for Jewish students and Jewish professorial staff frozen out by their colleagues whose support of the Palestinian 'cause' is paramount in their progressive-left Marxist embrace. One prime minister after another disinterested in the plight of that segment of the population in favour of deploring any symptoms of 'Islamophobia' should Jews point out the campaign of disentitlement of Jews in Canada is led by Muslims. 

 

The accused, Mohamed Ilyess Akodad, said he accepted a $15,000 contract to set fire to Congregation Beth Tikvah on Dec. 18, 2024. (Simon-Marc Charron/Radio-Canada)

 

"[Should the attacks on the two Toronto Jewish bakeries be proven to be hate crimes, they would be] the latest in such attempts to harass the Jewish community and would represent an assault on all civilized Canadians."  

"Rather than shine a light on the real threats facing Canada, including Islamic radicalism and the Iranian regime's tentacles in Canada, much of the news media has instead fixated on regurgitating pro-Palestinian talking points."

Robert Walker, Honest Reporting Canada

 

"Toronto's Jewish community deserves more than just thoughts and prayers."

"Toronto is not going to remain a city where Jewish store owners sweep up broken glass."

"We will sweep it up together. Indifference is indictment."

Toronto City Councillor Brad Bradford, mayoral candidate