Over the past several weeks, I have written and spoken about the escalation of antisemitic violence in Canada including a Globe and Mail op-ed, a blog post after Toronto Police finally moved to restrict protests from Jewish residential streets, an interview on CBC’s The Current, and a PROC committee appearance where antisemitism was raised. In each case, I shared the piece or clip on social media (here, here, here), sparking a torrent of antisemitic vitriol that even after months of escalation leaves me stunned. I write this post not to amplify the vocal hate that fills my timeline, but to ensure that readers who might otherwise not scroll past my original posts understand what has become normalized.
Post Tagged with: "antisemitism"
Acting on Antisemitism: If This Was Always Possible, Why Didn’t It Happen Sooner?
Earlier this month, I appeared on CBC’s The Current to discuss the escalation of antisemitic violence in Canada following my Globe op-ed and PROC committee appearance. The host asked me whether something like the Bondi Beach massacre, the December 2025 attack that killed 15 people at a Hanukkah celebration in Australia, could happen here. I replied that it was a certainty. He was taken aback and pressed me on it. I clarified that I didn’t mean a massacre was certain, but that with the relentless escalation of antisemitic violence in Canada, people would die. It was not a matter of if, but when.
That exchange has stayed with me, not because I said something provocative, but because his surprise was so revealing. What felt to me (and I believe many in the Jewish community) like an obvious, even understated observation given the inevitable endpoint of a trajectory visible to anyone who has been paying attention, registered to him as an alarming claim requiring justification. That gap between what the Jewish community experiences and what everyone else appears willing to acknowledge has been a defining feature of the post-October 7th world.
Words Are Not Enough: Countering Relentless Antisemitic Violence in Canada With Action
On a hot August day nearly 32 years ago, I was married at the Shaarei Shomayim synagogue in Toronto. My Globe and Mail op-ed notes that I leafed through my wedding album this weekend as I grappled with the news that gunfire targeted the synagogue on Friday night, the third such attack on a synagogue in Toronto in a matter of days. The photos of my grandparents – Holocaust survivors who rebuilt their lives in Canada – looked back at me as if to warn that the risks are real.
The gun violence sparked the usual political tweets denouncing the shooting, pledging support, and unconvincingly stating that antisemitism has no place in Canada. Yet the predominant emotion that would have once greeted this news – shock – is no more. Over the past two-and-a-half years, Canadian Jewish communities from coast to coast have faced relentless antisemitic incidents: schools hit with gunfire, synagogues firebombed, community centres and old-age homes vandalized, hospitals protested, summer camps threatened, Jewish students and campus groups vilified, and Jewish-owned businesses boycotted.
The Year in Review: Top Ten Posts
This week’s Law Bytes podcast featured a look at the year in review in digital law and policy. Before wrapping up for the year, the next three posts over the holidays will highlight my most popular posts, podcast episodes, and Substacks of the past year. Today’s post starts with the top posts, in which two issues dominated: lawful access and antisemitism. While most of the top ten involves those two issues, the top post of the year featured an analysis of the government’s approach to the digital services tax, which ultimately resulted in an embarrassing climbdown by the government.
Confronting Antisemitism in Canada: If Leaders Won’t Call It Out Without Qualifiers, They Can’t Address It
The devastating consequences of the rise of antisemitism is in the spotlight this week in the wake of the horrific Chanukah Massacre in Australia over the weekend. In addition to my post on the issue, I appeared yesterday on CBC Radio’s syndication, conducting 14 interviews in rapid succession with stations from coast to coast [clip here]. Most of the interviews followed a similar script, focusing on the rise of antisemitism in Canada as documented by Statistics Canada, lamented the troubling range of violent antisemitic incidents (including the Ottawa grocery store stabbing and the Toronto intimidation marches in Jewish neighbourhoods), and described life as Jew in Canada in 2025, which invariably necessitates a police presence at schools and synagogues alongside measures to hide Jewish symbols and identity in public.











