Anthony Housefather
National Post, Nov. 6, 2023
“To say that many within the Jewish community are traumatized and demoralized would be an understatement. They’re fearful for Israel, but also fearful that Canadian society has changed for the worse.”
I have spoken at a number of rallies over the last month. These rallies were held to express solidarity with Israel, our friend and ally, and demand the release of the hostages kidnapped by the terrorist organization Hamas during its murderous rampage of Oct. 7.
At one of the rallies, I was approached by a man in his late 90s, a Canadian veteran of the Second World War. What he told me was jarring. He has lived his whole life in Montreal and said that he had never seen antisemitism like this since the 1930s.
Like him, and most Jewish Canadians, I have been bewildered.
We are incredibly loyal Canadians. This is our country. Most of us have been in Canada for generations and never lived anywhere else. But we care about Israel, the only Jewish-majority state in the world. Jews are indigenous to Israel. It is our biblical homeland. Some Jewish Canadians have relatives in Israel, many have friends there and almost all have traveled there at one point or another.
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