“Continuing to keep the Jewish community safe is my one and only mission,” Magen Herut founder Aaron Hadida told JNS on Tuesday.
The organization, comprising volunteer patrol groups in Toronto, Canada’s Jewish communities, is an offshoot of Herut Canada, which provides educational programs, immigration assistance and security services to Jews across the country.
“We’re here to ensure that our students can go to class and that those attending synagogue services are given the right to pray without 25 protesters screaming outside,” said Hadida.
“What we do is multifaceted. It includes night patrols in Jewish neighborhoods, by synagogues, schools and Jewish institutions—are getting their windows broken, shot at or graffitied,” he explained.
“Deescalation is our most important principle. We do not want to fight anybody or make things worse. We want to stop it before it becomes too heated,” he said.
Magen Herut was created in the wake of Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre in Israel and the ensuing tidal wave of antisemitism that has washed over the globe amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. The organization currently has 50 members, most coming from a security background, and many more volunteers.
Magen Herut is active near the University of Toronto, Toronto Metropolitan University and York University. Members of the organization remain off campus but are looking to recruit students to secure schools more thoroughly.
The organization is planning to launch in other parts of Canada and expand to the United States.
“After Oct. 7, we created WhatsApp groups with hundreds of volunteers and split them up into areas. Our people were patrolling 15 different zones at all times,” said Hadida. “When there were bomb threats in Hebrew schools, the police investigated inside and we patrolled outside,” he explained.
“I never imagined that this would be full time, but protesters are not letting students, whose parents have taken loans out to pay for their education, walk into campuses simply because they are Jewish. This is very wrong and can’t happen,” he added.
Last year, campuses were overrun by pro-Hamas encampments, in some instances preventing students from attending class. As the new semester begins, Hadida said that pro-Israel groups have been attacked.
“Protesters were chanting and throwing smoke bombs so that Jewish students couldn’t go near recruitment tables. I saw that and I said not on our watch,” he said.
“I took a crew and we surrounded the tables, which were in a public space, making sure the Jewish students could do what they needed to. We handed Jewish groups our hotline number and let them know we were nearby,” he said.
“We’ve had one case in which three Middle Eastern-looking men walked up to a Jewish daycare with babies inside, threatening security personnel for no reason. They need to understand that it’s a new day,” Hadida added.
Joining Magen Herut means committing to hours of physical training, including Krav Maga self defense classes at the group’s dojo with instructor Ilan Rosenberg, as well as learning CPR, various safety protocols and a strict code of conduct.
To join, one must be ideologically aligned, love Israel and the Jewish people and have some sort of policing, security or military background.
“Even a volunteer needs a class D security license in Toronto, it’s 40 hours of online classes. We encourage everybody to get this,” Hadida said.
“We also partner with JForce, a professional agency, to secure large Jewish events, and depending on what’s needed elsewhere we decide whether to send volunteers or security professionals,” he continued.
Most people, Hadida said, are receptive to the mission.
“Personally, I don’t like that the majority of these protesters are chanting for my people to die, but I’m not there as an advocate to debunk their lies,” he said. “I am there to de-escalate and make sure members of the community are safe at all times. But if a person crosses a boundary where it’s lawful for me to defend myself and my people, I will do that,” he continued.
Hadida made clear that the organization’s goal is to provide people with the tools and resources to defend themselves, in hopes of never having to.
“A person who walks a certain way, carries themselves, has confidence that no one will get to them—and that either way they can handle it—generally, those people don’t get attacked,” he said.
