Bomb threats sent to dozens of synagogues and other Jewish institutions in Canada this week have left some community members shaken, with several Jewish Canadians telling CBC News they’ve recently experienced antisemitism on a level they haven’t seen before and changed how they go about their daily lives.
Several respondents to a CBC News request for people to share their experiences did not feel comfortable telling their stories on the record out of concern for their safety and that of their families.
They said while there has always been underlying antisemitism in society, they feel it’s become more open and aggressive in the nearly one year since the militant group Hamas led attacks on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and the start of Israel’s war in Gaza.
Some described what it’s like to take their children to school or daycare with security or police officers present. Others said they have stopped wearing symbols that make them easily identifiable as Jewish out of fear they could become targets for verbal or even physical intimidation.
Jeffrey Hendren, 40, of Saskatoon said he stopped wearing his kippa in public because it made him the target of harassment, recounting one occasion when he walked through a crowd of pro-Palestinian protesters as he tried to enter a local mall.
“These ladies were shouting at me, calling me a murderer and a genocider,” he said, explaining that he tried to engage in polite conversation, but the situation escalated to the point where he began to feel unsafe.
People who contacted CBC News said they don’t feel safe being a Jew in their own communities. The threat messages sent to more than 100 Jewish institutions this week only exacerbated their concerns, even though authorities did not find evidence indicating there was any actual risk to anyone.
“What do we do when something does happen?” said Cogie Cogan, a student at Western University in London, Ont., who spoke to CBC News from their hometown in Winnipeg.
“All it takes is one person who wants to harm others,” Cogan, 22, said.
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Jewish institutions vandalized
Cogan said they feel the need to censor their views on Israel, the Oct. 7 attacks and the war in Gaza because they and other Jews face retaliation and even the severing of relationships when they speak out.
They suggested people are turning a blind eye to antisemitic behaviour and what people in Jewish communities are facing.
The Hamas-led attacks on Oct. 7 killed about 1,200 people in Israel and saw the kidnapping of another 250, according to Israeli tallies. Israel’s retaliatory response has killed more than 40,000 Palestinians, Gaza’s Health Ministry says, and destroyed large sections of the enclave.
Amid tensions over the war in Gaza, there have been several instances of Jewish schools, centres and synagogues across Canada being vandalized, having fires set outside and even shot at.
But Cogan said everything from microaggressions to “vilifying Jewish people for what is happening in the Middle East” is indicative of antisemitism becoming more prevalent in daily life.
“I’m feeling a shift in the communities around us and what is considered acceptable or, in some cases, what people think is justifiable behaviour,” Cogan said.
As reports of hate-motivated crimes skyrocket, CBC’s Ioanna Roumeliotis explores how the divisiveness of the Israel-Hamas war is playing out on the streets of Toronto and gets exclusive access to the police hate crimes unit to find out how it’s responding.
Different views in Jewish community
There are people in the Jewish community who haven’t had the same experiences as Cogan, Hendren and many others.
Amir Fleischmann, 30, of Toronto, said he doesn’t doubt the seriousness of rising antisemitism in Canada over the past year and that it was upsetting to see the news of the mass emailing of bomb threats this week.
But he said he has a hard time seeing a batch of false threats sent to Canadian Jewish organizations as comparable to what’s happening to Palestinians in Gaza.
“We experience threats of bombing. But in Gaza, people are actually being bombed,” said Fleischmann, who is finishing his PhD at the University of Michigan remotely from Toronto.
He’s attended anti-war protests and said he believes there are a lot of misconceptions and misinformation about the pro-Palestinian movement that may be fuelling unease in the Jewish community.
“I think the waters are also muddied when leaders of the Jewish community are quick to condemn any speech or action that supports Palestinian rights as antisemitism,” said Fleischmann, who also has Israeli citizenship. “It makes it very difficult to determine how much antisemitism there actually is right now.”
He said he doesn’t want to invalidate anyone’s lived experience with antisemitism or tense encounters they may have had at pro-Palestinian demonstrations.
Fleischmann said he has been welcomed at pro-Palestinian demonstrations and that the only hostility he has experienced has been from pro-Israel protesters who have called him a “self-hating Jew” to his face.
He said while he believes there is legitimate outrage at people who are supporting Israel, it doesn’t justify taking out anger on regular people walking down the street.
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Refusing to be intimidated
The response from Jewish organizations to bomb threats was that the Jewish community in Canada would be vigilant but not menaced by such an effort to spread fear.
“All indications [point] to these threats being nuisance emails designed to disrupt lives,” the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs said in a statement on social media. “We will continue to take part in Jewish life.”
UJA Federation of Greater Toronto said in a social media post that Jews in Canada are “resilient, prepared, and proud — and we refuse to be intimidated.”
Hendren, of Saskatoon, and other Jews who spoke with CBC News said despite their safety concerns, the best way for them to counter antisemitism is to continue to come together within their own communities and be proud of their Jewish heritage.
“We’re such a small community. We are a fraction of the population,” Hendren said. “From that terrible negativity and the attack on Israel, it’s actually brought us closer together. We are more tight knit.”