History is a stern teacher. Too frequently, its warnings go unheeded. Twenty years ago, France descended into a season of antisemitic violence that continues to this day. In 2006, when a young Jewish man named Ilan Halimi was kidnapped, tortured for three weeks, then brutally murdered by a Muslim criminal gang infamously referred to as the "Gang of Barbarians," the international community was shocked. The reason for the kidnapping, torture and murder was the old stereotype that supposedly all Jews are rich. Halimi's family could not afford to pay the 450,000 euros demanded as ransom.
Antisemitic crimes in France, however, exceeded that single event. In 2012, a Muslim terrorist attacked a Jewish school in Toulouse and murdered a rabbi and three young children.
For centuries, Jewish communities have been, with various pretexts, objects of hostility.
In Britain, the rise of Jeremy Corbyn, a parliamentarian with decades-long radically anti-Israel sentiments, to Labour Party leadership in 2015, ushered in a radical reformation. Labour became a nursery of antisemitic conspiracy theories, a podium for radical activists hijacking the language of Hamas, and a party where Jewish members were bullied, ostracized and expelled. Protests broke out across the United Kingdom, demanding "From the river to the sea" — a cry for Israel's destruction.
The media, the BBC in particular — funded by British taxpayers, including Jews — stands accused by many of fueling this hatred by misrepresenting and distorting facts, demonizing Jewish voices, and broadcasting antisemitism disguised as "anti-Zionism."
The veil of pretense was lifted on October 7, 2023, when Hamas terrorists slaughtered, raped, and burned their way through Israeli towns, committing the worst one-day massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. Within hours, the streets of London were filled with mobs of people waving Palestinian flags, celebrating the murders, calling for intifada, and calling for the annihilation of the Jewish people. In August 2024, the Community Security Trust, a nonprofit organization that works to protect British Jews from terrorism and antisemitism, reported "1,978 instances of anti-Jewish hate recorded across the UK" in the first six months of the year, "44% higher than the previous six-monthly record of 1,371 cases of anti-Jewish hate in 2021."
Jewish students at British universities were harassed, silenced and threatened physically. At the University of Leeds, the Jewish chaplain was sent chilling death threats against his children and wife. The message was unmistakable: Jews were no longer welcome in Britain.
Why does this matter?
Because this is precisely where Canada is going. Historically, Canada has been behind Europe on antisemitism by a generation, but the pace at which it is gaining momentum is now catching up. The same forces that have harmed France and the United Kingdom are now entrenched in Canada: radicalized academic environments, media that demonize Israel and downplay antisemitism, politicians pressured to appease extremists, and a Jewish community that, even as it grows more alarmed, is still unwilling to confront the reality of the threat.
At the eye of the storm is the Liberal Party of Canada and its new leader, Prime Minister Mark Carney. Many would argue that in the past decade, the Liberal government under former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau increasingly empowered antisemitic elements. In the name of "diversity", "equity" and "inclusion", it has encouraged extreme radical ideologies and runaway antisemitism. It has failed to act decisively against imams who call for the shedding of Jewish blood. It has ignored incitement on university campuses, tolerated the spread of anti-Israel and anti-Jewish libels and defamation through public broadcasters that it funds. In the process, it has encouraged antisemitic opinions to intensify and be legitimized.
Britain's and France's abuses did not happen by chance. They were the consequence of political choices. In Canada, those choices have already been made.
In the years 2023-2025, anti-Jewish violence in Montreal has escalated. Gunmen opened fire on two Jewish schools in 2023. The Congregation Beth Tikvah synagogue was firebombed twice in 2023 and 2024, causing serious damage. A Jewish community center was also firebombed in 2023.
In Toronto, gunmen opened fire in three separate attacks on a Jewish girls' school in 2024. Synagogues and another Jewish school were attacked with firebombs.
Jewish businesses and institutions have been vandalized, effigies burned, and antisemitic slogans and cries in Arabic to murder Jews heard in the streets of Canada's major cities. As in 1930s Germany, attackers have broken synagogue windows.
Jewish students have been assaulted in front of schools, and swastikas were painted on Jewish businesses and homes. On university campuses across Canada, encampments have appeared, where Jewish students and faculty are harassed and obstructed. Some in the media, politics and faculty members have excused or justified these acts. What if black students had been prevented from moving freely on campus? All hell would have broken out — or should have. Yet, when it comes to Jews, or as the antisemites like to say "Zionists," no one, it seems, has a problem.
Violence is just part of the story. Jewish Canadians face harassment at work and violent physical attacks at protests, and are harassed relentlessly online. "Montreal has become North America's capital of antisemitism," according to Professor Gad Saad, of Montreal's Concordia University. The city is quickly becoming the continent's largest hotbed of radical Islam. In Toronto, meanwhile, instead of cracking down on hate crimes, the police department has been busy producing an official podcast featuring Muslim police officers praising the October 7, 2023 attack as something that generated more converts to Islam.
Many believe that Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow has demonstrated ongoing hostility towards the Jewish community. She boycotted the two largest Jewish events of the year — the Walk for Israel, which drew over 50,000 participants, and the October 7th memorial. She later claimed she "did not get the memo" about these events. On a live radio broadcast, she boasted about standing in the rain for a few minutes while condemning one of the shooting attacks on a Jewish girls' school. This is the level of sympathy the Jewish community receives from both the Toronto police and the mayor of Toronto.
The anti-Jewish sentiment in Canada extends far beyond municipal politics. Under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, many believe that Canada repeatedly echoed Hamas's talking points. Senior Hamas official Ghazi Hamad publicly thanked Canada for supporting a ceasefire in Gaza, praising Canada, Australia and New Zealand for their "positive stance" in isolating Israel.
After October 7, 2023, Trudeau's policies marked a clear shift in Canada's foreign policy. His government quietly suspended military exports to Israel, later formalizing the decision through a non-binding parliamentary motion in March 2024. In November 2023, Trudeau urged Israel to stop "this killing of women, of children, of babies" and to "exercise maximum restraint," prompting a sharp rebuke from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
A year later, Trudeau announced that Canada would comply with the International Criminal Court's arrest warrants for Israeli leaders, a move condemned by Israel and its allies. In May 2024 Trudeau's government also imposed sanctions on Israelis and organizations in Judea and Samaria, an unprecedented step in Canadian-Israeli relations.
These policies have been welcomed by Hamas and anti-Israel activists, while drawing sharp criticism from Israel and its supporters. Trudeau also misled Canadians about key events during the war, such as the bombing of the Al Shifa hospital — which he blamed on Israel, but it was caused by a rocket launched by Palestinian Islamic Jihad — and he never apologized for what is universally accepted as an irrefutable lie. Moreover, the Liberal Party continued to send millions of dollars' worth of aid to UNRWA, even after they were shown proof that UNRWA members took part in the October 7th slaughter, torture and kidnapping of Israelis.
With Carney now as Canada's new prime minister, the Canadian government has pledged $100 million in aid to Palestinians. They claim it is for "humanitarian purposes." However, you would have to be living under a rock not to know that any aid sent to Gaza invariably goes straight to Hamas, the very terrorist organization that Canada officially labels as illegal. One could argue that Carney and the Liberals are knowingly funding a terrorist group.
On April 28, 2025, Canadians will go to the polls to elect a new federal government. Over the past two years, under the Liberal Party government, Canada has witnessed this alarming surge in antisemitism. The Liberals, and now their leader Carney, have pandered to a growing constituency of extreme radicals that has been at the forefront of this rise in violent hate. In Carney's Canada, violence, intimidation and dangerous rhetoric against Jews, like that of the Nazi sympathizers of the 1930s, are now becoming the norm.
The sad truth is that if things do not drastically change, Canadian Jews may soon have to face a reckoning. Some will leave, as tens of thousands of Jews have already left France. Others will stay and fight back. What we are seeing today, however, is not a temporary peak in antisemitism. It appears to be the beginning of something far worse.
Igal Hecht, CEO of Chutzpa Productions Inc., is an award-winning filmmaker, professor, and journalist. His newest film, The Killing Roads, can be viewed at thekillingroads.com
Kenneth Wolpert