Yoel and Yael Eis did not uproot their four children from Thornhill, Ontario, because they felt they had to flee Canada. Their relatives were already in Israel, and the timing felt right, they told JNS at a Nefesh B’Nefesh party attended by hundreds of new olim, immigrants to Israel, on a patio outside the nonprofit’s Jerusalem offices.
“I think day-to-day, we felt safe,” Yael Eis, 40, told JNS. “We were in a bubble, part of a really nice, comfortable, easy Jewish community.”
That bubble required security around Jewish schools and an increased police presence, she told JNS. Their synagogue was among three in the Toronto area struck by gunfire in March.
In June, Toronto police said a terrorist criminal-for-hire network was recruiting young people via encrypted apps and paying them to film shootings at synagogues, schools and the U.S. consulate. A Hezbollah commander has been indicted in the United States on charges linked to the shootings.
“I don’t think we felt like we needed to run away,” Yoel Eis, 42, told JNS. “But it felt more like Europe than it’s ever felt before.”
Jews were the targets of 82% of religion-based hate crimes in Toronto in 2025, according to annual hate crime statistics that the Toronto Police Service released in May. In July, the national Canadian statistical office said that Jews were targets of 70.7% of all religion-based hate crimes in Canada in 2025. Although some 1% of Canadians are Jewish, 16.7% of all forms of hate crimes in Canada last year targeted Jews, per the official statistics.
The Eis family moved to Modi’in in August, drawn by the city’s support for children learning Hebrew and its proximity to their relatives. Yael Eis plans to continue her social work practice, but her husband is looking for work in human resources.
“We know this is where we’re supposed to be,” Yoel Eis told JNS. “We never felt a huge pull but over the past couple years, we’ve been talking more openly about it, and we just thought this is the right time. There was nothing really keeping us in Toronto, either.”
“We’re very proud Jews,” he said. “We want to live like proud Jews.”
Lauryn Berman, 36, who moved from Toronto with her husband and three children, also said that her family hadn’t fled Canada.
“We feel blessed that we were able to make aliyah,” she told JNS, as her children sat for Israel-themed face painting at the Nefesh party.
Berman worries about “our friends and family that are still there,” she told JNS.
“It’s definitely scary right now,” she said, of the for-hire terror network. “They catch people, and it’s like, sure, until the next person gets hired and does it again.”
Berman’s family found an apartment in Mitzpe Yericho, which will be available after the upcoming Jewish holiday season in the coming weeks. She came to Israel with remote billing work for an internet and cyber-security company. Her husband works in information technology.
Francesca Weigensberg, 34, who has lived in Montreal and Toronto, said that her decision to become an Israeli citizen grew from a desire to contribute after Oct. 7. She arrived in September 2024 through Masa Israel Teaching Fellows and volunteered with the Hostages and Missing Families Forum before making aliyah in November.
“I really wanted to help Israel and help the Israeli people after Oct. 7,” she told JNS. “I felt so helpless in Canada. I felt like there was nothing I could do.”
Weigensberg now teaches English at an elementary school in Jerusalem. She feels that she moved to Israel, not away from Canada, but as a liberal Jew, she “felt there wasn’t a place for me in Canada anymore.”
“It was like if you were left-leaning, you were automatically pro-Hamas, and if you supported Israel, you automatically supported the actions of every single thing the Israeli government does,” she told JNS.
In Canada, family members warned her not to carry an Israeli flag publicly or attend pro-Israel marches, but she opted to wear a yellow pin calling for the hostages to be released.
Montreal has seen a string of antisemitic incidents. In March, three Jewish-owned businesses were defaced with Nazi swastikas, and in August, a kosher restaurant was destroyed in a suspected arson attack. Fans also chanted “death to Israel” at an Israeli soccer player, and a visibly Jewish person was assaulted.
“The majority of Canadians generally do not care what goes on here,” Weigensberg said. “But there is a very loud minority that does.”
Mindy Klein, 77, moved to Modi’in from Toronto in August 2025, fulfilling a long-held dream a year after her husband died. Her daughter had moved to Israel the year before.
“I always wanted to make aliyah,” she told JNS. “I am heartbroken that my friends and family who are still in Toronto and other parts of Canada are not making aliyah.”
In Toronto, ride-share drivers sometimes failed to appear after seeing a Jewish name, Klein told JNS. From her home in a heavily Jewish neighborhood, she regularly saw Palestinian flags and nearby protests.
“Every time I looked out my window, there was a Palestinian flag flying in my face,” she said.
Her first year in Israel included the war with Iran and repeated trips to the shared protected room on her floor. The danger did not make her regret the move. It introduced her to neighbors she had barely known.
“I’m sorry to say the Iran war benefited me,” Klein told JNS. “I met the greatest people.”
“We didn’t even know each other,” she said. “Six apartments on one floor. We never knew each other.”
Klein spends her time volunteering and baking for Israeli soldiers, and she’s happy she made the move, she told JNS.
“It would have been better with my husband, but we made up our minds that no matter what, we’re making aliyah,” she said.
She brought his remains to be buried in Israel, she told JNS.
