Crime

Canadian anti-Semitism hits all-time high

by Kaitlin | March 21, 2007 at 10:52 am

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The audit, performed by the League for Human Rights of B'nai Brith Canada, takes into account not only reported criminal incidents but all reported incidents of anti-Semitism. The dramatic leap has been largely attributed to feelings of loyalty to Hezbollah, which began a war with Israel last summer.

Their 2006 Audit of Anti-Semitic Incidents revealed 935 incidents in 2006 -- a 12.8 per cent increase over 2005.

The statistics are also four times the levels of a decade ago.

"The 2006 findings indicate that anti-Semitism continues to be an ever-growing threat, emerging from beneath the polite façade of multiculturalism to reveal open hatred against the Jewish people," Frank Dimant, B'nai Brith Canada's executive vice-president, said in a press release.

The incidents reported took place across the country in both rural and urban areas, says the report.

They included "face-to-face encounters, premeditated activities under the cover of night, and threats by mail, telephone and the Internet."

The news is shocking to many Canadians--myself included--who thought
that anti-Semitism of this magnitude was a thing of the past. Common
responses to this audit point to the "false face" of multiculturalism
and tolerance in our country. [q
url="http://www.aish.com/jewishissues/jewishsociety/Hatred_in_Canada.asp"]"With 360,000 Jews, Canada is home to the fifth largest Jewish community
outside of Israel, and America's northern neighbor has long prided itself
for its tolerance, openness, and freedom. But that legacy is now under
assault amid a spate of recent, and deeply troubling, incidents."[/q]

Canada's Jewish population, however, is not as surprised about the
audit:

Anti-Semitism has always confronted Canadian Jews. Its contemporary
threatening presence forms part of a continuum dating back
to the community's origins and was only briefly interrupted in the
early 1940s, when Canada went to war against the Axis powers.