VANCOUVER, British Columbia—Masha Kleiner sits at a campus café, a Star of David necklace prominently displayed against her sweater as well as another necklace showing the map of the State of Israel.
A year ago, she would have never imagined herself as a public figure standing against pro-Palestinian demonstrations with homemade signs or documenting antisemitism across Canada in weekly reports.
Born in the Soviet Union, Kleiner immigrated to Israel in 1990 when the USSR collapsed. After living in Israel for 18 years, she moved to Vancouver in 2008, drawn by the city’s outdoor lifestyle.
“I love challenges,” Kleiner said. “I love skiing and mountain climbing. Vancouver seemed like a nice adventure because it’s an ideal place for both.”
Her life in Vancouver was quiet. Her daughter was born in Israel, her son in Canada. She worked from home in software development and had little involvement with the Jewish community.
“I wasn’t involved with the community at all,” she explained. “And very few Canadian friends, honestly, because I worked from home. Everything was really nice and pretty relaxed.”
Then came Oct. 7, 2023.
In the initial days, the Hamas onslaught on Israel seemed like a terrible crime that had happened in a faraway place. But soon, her perception shifted dramatically.
Q: When did you start to feel that something was changing in Canada?
Kleiner: Gradually—I don’t remember a specific moment. Within about 10 days or a week, it became very clear that something terribly frightening was happening here.
The feeling that Israel is all alone in Canada, especially under the incumbent Liberal government, has come to the limelight recently ahead of the federal election set for April 28.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lashed out at his Canadian counterpart, Mark Carney, on X after the latter appeared to agree with a heckler at a rally that Israel was committing genocide in Gaza.
“Canada has always sided with civilization. So should Mr. Carney,” Netanyahu wrote. “But instead of supporting Israel, a democracy that is fighting a just war with just means against the barbarians of Hamas, he attacks the one and only Jewish state. Mr. Carney, backtrack your irresponsible statement!”
Although Israel is not a major issue on the ballot, the differences between Carney, who has continued Justin Trudeau’s frostiness toward Israel, and his main rival, the Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre, could not be starker.
Poilievre has become a darling of the Jewish community and has vowed to protect Israel and support it in the fight against its enemies, including Iran.
Carney, on the other hand, not only made the gaffe at the rally (although he later said he was not agreeing with the word “genocide,” which he supposedly didn’t hear, just on the need to end the war), he has also for the first time publicly declared an arms embargo on Israel, and over the past weekend, issued a Passover greeting online without mentioning Israel.
Q: What was the first indication of trouble you noticed personally?
A: The situation at the University of British Columbia campus. In one of the early days of October, I saw a video of a demonstration where they were walking with this big banner with a hammer and sickle on it that said, “Intifada until victory.” That was a real shock. I called the police. I was sure they would come, clear them out, and put them in jail.
Q: What was the police response?
A: I ran to tell the campus police that people were demonstrating, and I asked if they knew what “intifada” meant. They told me, “OK, I understand this is upsetting to you, but this is just fundraising, not necessarily violence.”
We talked for about an hour. I got nowhere. They told me, “This is a Marxist club that has been active at UBC for 30 years. They say extreme things; it’s not a big deal. You need to get used to it.”
Q: When did you start becoming more actively involved?
A: As I started researching more, I found out there was already a packed pro-Hamas demonstration on October 8, [2023], in the Art Gallery square downtown. I learned that there is an organization based in Vancouver with its leaders connected to all the local neo-Nazis. They were behind all the demonstrations.
Q: So how did you move from concern to activism?
A: At first, I didn’t know anyone. I joined a pro-Israel WhatsApp group and met some people here and there, and started to understand what was happening.
I did various things—I really enjoyed sending emails to all kinds of news media like Globe and Mail, Vancouver Sun, The Province, The National Post, telling them, “Here you lied, here you lied.” Of course, none of them sent a response to me.
Q: Were you surprised by the media bias?
A: The media being so against us didn’t surprise me that much. I remember even from 2015 seeing coverage where there was an attack in Israel where seven or eight people were stabbed in a synagogue, but the outlet wrote about it as “Two Palestinians killed by Israeli police.
It was only in the very last sentence of the last paragraph that they mentioned the terrorist stabbings. So, I knew this happens, but the scale was surprising. And the politicians too—most said it was terrible what happened on October 7, but very quickly they changed their tune.
Q: Can you talk about specific politicians’ responses?
A: Compared to all the European prime ministers and U.S. President Joe Biden, Trudeau took an extra week to replace his first statement, which was very weak. Politicians who had initially said, “This is terrible” quickly changed their messaging.
Kleiner, who has led regular solidarity marches in support of Israel, most recently on April 6 to mark 18 months since the Oct. 7 atrocities, stresses she is hardly the most important Jewish advocate in Vancouver.
“I do my share; I have my niche and these are the things I can speak to best. But there definitely are organizations and individuals working hard on other things.”
Q: How did the idea for the flag walks start?
A: On Israel’s Independence Day last year, in one of the WhatsApp groups for community security volunteers, someone threw out the idea at 2 p.m. that we should go support the city because they had agreed to light up the Burrard Bridge in blue and white.
There was a huge fight about it because they’d received so many threatening messages not to light it blue and white. But in the end, they did light it, and we said we’d go with flags to support them. By 6 p.m., we were there, about 60 people with flags.
Q: What was the reaction?
A: I had this tiny little speaker—really small, just for playing music—and what surprised us was how much more support we got than hate. We got 92 positive reactions and only nine negative ones.
Pro-Palestinian demonstrations in Vancouver lack any energy now, with the events often transformed into activities such as “Kite-Flying in Solidarity with Gaza.”
In that sense, Kleiner and the rest of the Jewish organizations can feel vindicated that the momentum is on their side, despite the prevailing narrative in the Canadian mainstream media.
Q: You mentioned divisions in the Jewish community. Can you elaborate?
A: There’s a whole spectrum. Some are openly hostile, such as Independent Jewish Voices, which in the United States is Jewish Voices for Peace. They are two sides of the same coin.
The media and politicians really love them and always amplify their voice: “Look, Jews said this.” Then there are those somewhere in the middle who say, “We really love Israel, we’re Zionists, but Israel is doing this and that.”
Kleiner said that after the successful blue-and-white lighting of the Burrard Bridge, the city received a backlash from pro-Palestinian groups. The rules have since changed, she notes, and she says the city no longer allows light displays on the bridge if they are part of a political message.
Q: How has Vancouver’s city government responded?
A: The mayor [Kenneth Sim] is not super pro-Zionist, but in terms of supporting our community, I think he’s doing what he can. He’s received many threats, and there was even vandalism at his house with violent messages painted on his fence.
Q: Because of his support for Israel?
A: Yes.
Q: Tell me about your petition against teaching the nakba [the Palestinian term to denote the “catastrophe” of Israel’s creation] in schools.
A: In March, I created a petition against nakba education in schools. Plus, the teachers’ union in November sent $50,000 to UNRWA [the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees], whose employees allegedly helped Hamas on Oct. 7.
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation [CBC] interviewed me, but it was a joke because they threw out everything I said and kept only one sentence mentioning I was from Israel.”
Q: Have you had any personal safety concerns from your activism?
A: It’s a bit frightening sometimes, but I don’t really focus on personal security. I have received no personal threats that I could take to the police.
Q: Do you see any hope in the situation?
A: When I walk around the city with a sign that says “I’m a Zionist, ask me questions,” I get different reactions. What’s most interesting is that many people, even a year into the war, say, “I don’t know anything about this conflict.”
Q: Are you optimistic about the future?
Kleiner smiles.
A: No comment. I don’t know. It depends day by day. The planning horizon is very short now.
Originally published by Israel Hayom.