Antisemitism has swept over parts of Canada in the wake of the Hamas terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oc. 7, prompting Jews to consider immigrating to the Jewish state, Israeli consul-general Paul Hirschson told JNS during an interview in his Montreal office on Monday.
“Since Oct. 7, we have seen where our friends, colleagues and neighborhoods stand in terms of their opinions, beliefs and behavior. Some of them stood where we thought they would. Many didn’t, and we can’t unsee it,” said Hirschson.
In the immediate aftermath of the murder spree that left 1,200 dead and as many as 250 people kidnapped and taken into Gaza, the number of hate crimes and incidents has skyrocketed throughout Canada.
Montreal police recorded 63 hate crimes against the Jewish community and 41 hate incidents from Oct. 7 to Nov. 14, including the firebombing of a Jewish community center and synagogue in Dollard-des-Ormeaux and a shooting attack on the Yeshiva Gedola elementary school.
More recently, police in May responded to a shooting at a Jewish school in the city’s Côte-des-Neiges–Notre-Dame-de-Grâce borough. In June, a Jewish-owned restaurant in Montreal’s Mile End neighborhood was struck by projectiles, believed to have been fired from an airsoft gun. Just last month, Hampstead Mayor Jeremy Levi shared a photo on social media showing a Jewish tombstone at the Kehal Israel cemetery in Montreal that had been desecrated with a swastika formed out of the small stones placed on graves.
With most attacks taking place overnight and very few cases of people being physically attacked, Hirschson said he believes the motive is a desire to terrorize, more than hurt people.
Unfortunately, it has worked.
“Members of the community are not happy. They feel threatened and insecure. The number of Jews who are considering moving to Israel is on the rise,” he said.
“Personally, I wish for all Jews to move to Israel, but I don’t want them to do so because of rising antisemitism in Canada,” he said. “I want them to move because Israel is the greatest place.”
Last week, Hirschson noted that an email was sent out threatening to blow up more than 100 Jewish sites across Canada.
“You simply can’t turn around and say this is just a threat, we’ll ignore it. You still close all the locations and let the police check, even if you don’t believe it,” he said.
Hirschson described the Quebec government’s attitude toward Canadian Jewry and the State of Israel in positive terms. The municipality of Montreal, however, has not been outspoken enough in its condemnation of antisemitism, partly, he said, due to its obsession with moral equivalence.
“If antisemitism is on the rise, one must condemn it. We cannot say antisemitism and Islamophobia are bad. This is not an intellectual exercise. It’s a reality; people are hurting,” said Hirschson.
“The Arab community here is five times as big, increasingly influential and wealthy. They are having a wonderful time. They have experienced Islamophobia, but that has nothing to do with current events,” he added. “The moment you link the two as morally equivalent, you’ve taken it off the streets and turned it into some belief system, some ideology, and it becomes meaningless.”
While Canada has traditionally been and remains a friend of Israel, Hirschson said Jerusalem is a little disappointed with the Canadian government’s approach since Oct. 7, which hasn’t been as steadfast as that of other longtime allies.
Canada is one of the only members of the G7 forum whose prime minister or president has not visited Israel since the Hamas attacks, and was the first of Israel’s friends, together with Australia and New Zealand, to support a ceasefire at the United Nations.
In March, Israeli Foreign Minister Yisrael Katz slammed Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau following Ottawa’s decision to halt arms sales to the Jewish state.
“Real friendship is measured in difficult times. On Oct. 7, Israel was attacked by a terror organization that brutalized, raped, kidnapped and murdered. We were dragged into war,” said Hirschson.
“You can talk about how Israel has functioned or not functioned, but you’d really think that at that point, your friends would stand with you. That’s when the real test is,” he added.
Even as the Israel Defense Forces launched a preemptive strike on Hezbollah targets in Southern Lebanon on Sunday after detecting preparations by the Iranian proxy to launch an “extensive” attack, Ottawa released a statement supporting Israel that circled back to Gaza.
“It’s true, there is a war in Gaza, but the threat came from Hezbollah,” said Hirschson. “They are simply not able to mention Israel without also referring to the Palestinians. There is this so-called ‘moral equivalence’ all the time.”
Much of Canada’s foreign policy in 2023 and 2024 has been based on the impact of local communities, including two million Muslims who vote in higher percentages than the Canadian average.
“Montreal city is almost 10% Arab. I think that the municipality and also the government in Canada definitely look internally before making policy decisions,” said Hirschson.
“Israel for the Jews is the most significant manifestation of indigenous restitution in history. After 2,000 years of diaspora, we went home and we stopped being the victim. However, in the Montreal academic sphere and other places, it’s very black or white. If we are no longer the victims, then according to that problematic worldview, we are perpetrators and the Palestinians are the victims,” he noted.
According to Hirschson, in the war for the future of Western civilization, Israel and Canada are on the same side. “We’re liberal, free, democratic countries. We have differences of opinion and different histories, but Israel is a country that embraces and respects the individual and differences. We are not perfect, and Canada isn’t perfect,” he said.
“If we don’t succeed in this conflict, Canada, the United States and Europe will suffer. Maybe not as much as us, because it’s our children who are being slaughtered, but they will suffer as well,” he concluded.
