Not sure if this is exactly the right place, but it. is anti-Jewish terrorism in Canada ...
from the Globe and Mail:
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Multiple Jewish organizations across Canada receive bomb threats, police evacuating some buildings
Police in multiple cities across Canada are responding to bomb threats that were sent to Jewish organizations, synagogues and some hospitals on Wednesday morning.
B’nai Brith Canada says more than 100 Jewish institutions received an identical e-mail at 5 a.m. ET threatening explosions, including at B’nai Brith offices in Toronto and Montreal.
“It’s incredibly disheartening and concerning for Jewish institutions across the country to wake up to a bomb threat saying an explosive device will be detonated at their institutions,” said Richard Robertson, director of research and advocacy at B’nai Brith Canada.
Mr. Robertson said the mass e-mail warned institutions that black backpacks containing explosives had been planted and would be set off in a matter of hours.
Synagogues, Jewish community centres and hospitals in Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa are among those that confirmed they received the threat.
With the investigation continuing, Mr. Robertson was unable to share the entirety of the e-mail but said a portion of it read: “You will all end up in a pool of blood, none of you deserve to keep living.”
In a post on X, Toronto police said it was aware of the threats and has taken the precaution of evacuating a number of buildings in the area of Bathurst Street and Sheppard Avenue West.
“We are continuing to address the possible impact in Toronto,” the police service said in its post. The Globe and Mail has reached out for further details.
Ottawa police say they are on site at several hospitals in the capital, but indicated the RCMP is taking the lead on the investigation.
A spokeswoman from the Queensway Carleton Hospital in Ottawa said the police determined the situation was “low risk” but an extensive sweep had been carried out at the hospital and grounds.
Mr. Robertson said although law enforcement became immediately involved to ensure the safety of the community, now is the time to ensure something like this doesn’t happen again.
“It’s important that people understand the gravity of this threat. It’s incredibly callous in nature,” he said.
More to come.
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Of course there are many non-Muslim anti-Jewish organizations, too, including e.g.
Diagolon.
Robyn Urback,
writing in the Globe and Mail, chimes in and says it's a very Canadian thing:
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A mass bomb threat against Jews? Who could have seen that coming?
If only there were signs.
If only we could have foreseen – somehow – that the climate in Canada would become so toxic toward Jews that now, in August of 2024, more than 100 Jewish institutions would receive a bomb threat, warning that the buildings’ occupants “will all end up in a pool of blood.”
“None of you deserve to keep living,” it read.
How did we get here?
If only there were signs. Like, say, weekly protests that
regularly included antisemitic chants about sending Jews back to Europe or
celebrations of terrorist groups.
If only there was a way to know that the most extreme rhetoric expressed by participants – including those who shouted “Long live October 7″ and “October 7 is proof that we are almost free” – were not simply errant opinions. Maybe we would have noticed it if some people cheered, in
Vancouver and
Ottawa, when speakers celebrated the deaths of Israeli civilians. Or if a gathering was held in
Toronto on Oct. 7 “to honour and celebrate the Palestinian resistance.” Or if, after Israeli forces killed Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, a group assembled in
Ottawa to engage in a “prayer in solidarity with our assassinated resistance freedom fighters.” Perhaps then we might have seen that a rogue voice expressing hatred for Jews wasn’t actually so rogue after all.
If only there were signs that Canadian Jews were being maligned for the actions of a foreign government. Like if, for example, protests against Israel somehow routinely ended up on a
highway overpass in a heavily Jewish community in Toronto, or if they migrated
outside a Jewish community centre. Or if Jewish-owned
restaurants in Montreal were listed for boycott. Or if a
menorah was destroyed outside a Toronto Jewish cultural centre. Or if Jewish kids were being
bullied at school.
Maybe we could have foreseen that things would get violent if someone
shot at a Jewish school in Montreal in November, or
firebombed a Montreal synagogue that same month, or
vandalized a Fredericton synagogue in January, or
shot at a Jewish elementary school in Toronto in May, or shot at a Jewish
school in Montreal days after that, or
lit the door of a Vancouver synagogue on fire the following day, or threw
rocks through the windows at two Toronto synagogues one month later. Maybe then this mass bomb threat wouldn’t be so shocking.
How could we have known that antisemitism would become so entrenched in Canadian society? Perhaps a clue would have been if a Victoria theatre
cancelled a play set in Israel, or if a Vancouver comics festival
banned an Israeli-American artist because of her past service in the Israeli Defence Forces, or if organizers of an Ontario International Women’s Day event
disinvited a keynote speaker for the same reason. Maybe if pro-Palestinian encampments popped up at Canadian universities, where gatekeepers demanded ideological conformity for admission, and some called for
globalizing the intifada. And maybe if this was just allowed, for weeks, as if it was normal and acceptable, we might have had some indication that antisemitism – even overt displays thereof – would be tacitly condoned.
Maybe if York University teaching assistants claimed in
written materials that their university’s tolerance of the campus group Hillel, which engages in such divisive activities as hosting Shabbat dinners for students away from home, was evidence of its complicity in genocide. Maybe if the president of CUPE Ontario
celebrated “the power of resistance” a day after Hamas’s mass slaughter of Israeli civilians, and if he shared an antisemitic
video in August. Possibly then we might have been able to recognize that antisemitism had infiltrated some of our highest institutions.
But even then, what would have given someone such a sense of impunity that they would threaten 100 Jewish institutions at once? Was it Winnipeg’s mayor
taking down the city’s menorah, or Moncton’s mayor
doing the same? Or Calgary’s mayor
skipping the city’s menorah-lighting ceremony, or Toronto’s mayor
declining to attend the Walk with Israel? Was it the empty words offered by Canadian politicians, over and over again, in lieu of action each time a Jewish institution is attacked?
Or maybe these individuals were emboldened by the national indifference this country has shown toward the targeting of Catholic churches, dozens of which have been set
ablaze over the course of the last few years? Maybe it was the constant dismissal of the concerns of Jews feeling unsafe in Canada, because, as
many havetaken to saying now, why should anyone care about hurt feelings here, when people are dying in Gaza?
If only there were warnings, beyond the threats, violence, vandalism, harassment, cultural exclusion, institutional antisemitism, empty words and constant gaslighting. And when – not if – someone gets seriously injured or worse, we’ll wish there had been more signs, too.
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I agree with her.
www.thecanadianpressnews.ca
