What would you have thought if, a decade ago, we told you Jews had been pushed out of a country’s public life? What if we told you it happened not in some remote backwater society—but in Canada?
It would have sounded absurd. And yet.
A viral piece by Jesse Brown in The Atlantic this week describes how antisemitism has seeped into nearly every level of what was once considered one of the world’s most progressive societies. It has manifested not only in synagogue attacks and shootings—of which there are many—but in the quiet withdrawal of Jews from Canadian society “without any glass or bones being broken,” simply because the evidence that they are no longer welcome has become overwhelming.
What does that look like? It looks like a Holocaust commemoration ceremony at a Montréal college—held annually for more than 30 years—being canceled this week because of what administrators called a “volatile geopolitical climate.” It looks like 80 percent of Jewish doctors and medical students in Ontario experiencing antisemitism at work since October 7. It looks like the McGill Law Students Association voting this week to boycott Israeli universities following years of escalating campus hostility, including activists telling Jewish students to “go back to Poland,” and graffiti stating “kill all Jews” on bathroom stalls.
