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There is a specific brand of cowardice in watching a mob scream, “Go back to Europe” at Jewish residents while the Toronto Police stand by clutching clipboards and “notices.” We have seen this script before – a historical tragedy we’ve collectively sworn to “never forget,” yet one our current leaders seemingly refuse to stop. Since the immediate aftermath of the October 7 Hamas massacres, Canada has witnessed an unprecedented explosion of Jew-hatred that has transformed from heated rhetoric into firebombings and shootings at religious institutions and Jewish girls’ schools. This is no longer a fringe movement; it is a breakdown of the Canadian social contract.
The numbers tell a story of a nation in freefall. In 2023 alone, B’nai Brith Canada recorded a record-breaking 5,791 antisemitic incidents, a 109% increase from the previous year. Data for 2024 and 2025 suggests the fever has not broken. From the firebombing of a synagogue and community center in Montreal to three shootings at a Toronto Jewish girls school, the message is clear: Jews are not safe here. This is not mere “protest”; it is a systemic campaign of intimidation intended to make Jewish life in Canada untenable.
The escalation is increasingly real. Earlier this month, three Toronto synagogues – Beth Avraham Yoseph, Temple Emanu-El, and Shaarei Shomayim – were targeted by gunfire in a single week. Every weekend in the Bathurst neighbourhood – a predominantly Jewish neighbourhood often referred to as the “longest Jewish street in the Diaspora” – anti-Israel and anti-Jewish rallies curdle into targeted residential harassment. Mobs descend upon Jewish neighborhoods, not to debate policy, but to hunt for a reaction.
“Go back to Europe” isn’t a mere taunt or academic debate. It is a nativist slur designed to “other” a community, stripping them of their history and their fundamental right to exist in Canada. It is a verbal eviction notice served under the guise of activism. We know, with absolute certainty, that this would never be tolerated against any other minority group. If a mob descended on any other ethnic enclave to scream, “Go back to Africa” or “Go back to Asia,” the hammer of the law would have dropped by sundown on Shabbat.
In Toronto, the rules of civil society have shifted. Mayor Olivia Chow speaks of “balancing” Charter rights as if harassment is a protected hobby. The Toronto Police Chief leans on “Strategic De-escalation,” a hollow phrase that serves as a shield for inaction. The Criminal Code of Canada isn’t a suggestion; it’s a mandate. Between Causing a Disturbance and Intimidation, the police have every tool necessary to make an arrest the moment a resident is harassed on their own sidewalk.
Instead, we get the Public Order Unit and information pamphlets. We’ve actually had the stomach-turning sight of police officers handing out coffee and donuts to the harassers while residents are left to fend for themselves – something the Chief was forced to embarrassingly apologize for.
The result is clear: the mayor’s office is functionally vacant. After three synagogues were shot at, the leader of Canada’s largest city opted for a Polar Plunge photo-op instead of a Jewish community press conference. This is a total vacuum of character.
The rot is being institutionalized at the federal level. In a move signaling a total surrender of moral clarity, the government recently abolished the office of the Special Envoy on Preserving Holocaust Remembrance and Combatting Antisemitism. By folding this vital role into a generic “Advisory Council on Rights, Equality and Inclusion,” the federal government has effectively told Jewish Canadians that their safety is a secondary concern, best managed by a committee rather than a champion.
This happened despite the abrupt resignation of the previous envoy, Deborah Lyons, who reportedly left the post with a “heavy heart” over the impossibility of getting leaders to speak with clarity. For a brief moment, Jewish Canadians had a dedicated watchdog; now, we are buried under bureaucratic platitudes. As David Baddiel made clear, Jews Don’t Count. This is dismantling the smoke detector while the house is ablaze.
Contrast this with the rare flashes of actual leadership. While Toronto Council “studies” 20-metre bubble zones – a distance so small you can still spit slurs into a sanctuary and hit the Bimah -Vaughan Mayor Steven Del Duca passed a 100-metre “Safe Access” bylaw with $100,000 fines. He understands that the right to protest does not grant the right to terrorize people at prayer. Del Duca is practically begging the Prime Minister to meet the Jewish community and see the reality on the ground. It is 2026, and a Canadian Mayor must plead with the Prime Minister to acknowledge the plight of his own citizens and to meet with his Jews.
Even in Windsor where I live, Mayor Drew Dilkens has moved to protect the city through proactive measures and public safety investments. Windsor isn’t waiting for the fire to burn down the house before buying the extinguisher.
Too many elected officials are too busy counting votes to count the bullet holes in Jewish community centers and synagogues. They are so terrified of the ballot box that they’ve abandoned their duty. They treat the safety of Jewish children as a “complex issue” with “two sides,” when there is never a second side to a drive-by shooting at a school.
This is Canada today because we’ve allowed it to be. We’ve allowed mezuzahs to be mass ripped from doors, not once but twice, and firebombings to be met with a shrug. Our leaders tell us “this isn’t who we are,” but their silence proves otherwise.
To those shouting “Go back to Europe”: You couldn’t gas the Jews out of existence, and you won’t harass them out of Canada. We aren’t going anywhere. This is our home, and we have outlasted empires far more formidable than a mob with a megaphone and comment section.
But to our political leaders: Neutrality is a choice, and it has consequences in blood. Jew-hate doesn’t vanish because you issued a “Notice to Protesters.” It vanishes when you stop straddling the fence and start enforcing the law.
An elected official who cannot define “unacceptable” has no business defining our future.
Canada is at a crossroads: we can either be a nation of laws or a nation of mobs. It’s time for our leaders to decide which one they represent.
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