“Counting Passports” by Brian Henry

It was a tough week. Canada’s Jews could use some help from our leaders.

This is what antizionism looks like. Within the space of a week, three Toronto synagogues were shot up. In the same week, antizionist gangsters also shot up the Old Avenue Restaurant in Thornhill, owned by Esther Bakinka, a well-known Jewish activist. Their message couldn't be clearer: speak against Jew-haters at your peril.

But it’s 2026. Here in Canada, shooting up a Jewish business because it’s a Jewish business, isn’t sensational enough to make the mainstream news. Only the Jewish press even noted the Old Avenue Restaurant and also YEDI, another Jewish business, were both hit the same night as Temple Emanu‑El. (here).  

Such outrages aren’t new. Since Hamas started its war against Israel on October 7, 2023, antizionists have shot up a Jewish girl’s elementary school here in Toronto three times (here) and a Jewish school in Montreal twice (here).

Beyond that, countless synagogues and Jewish businesses have been vandalized or suffered arson attacks. In fact, antizionists vandalized the Old Avenue Restaurant once before in January 2024 at its Toronto location, where I sometimes eat (here).

As always, what starts with the Jews doesn’t stay just with the Jews. A couple weeks ago, the gangsters fired 17 shots at the Saliwan Gym in Thornhill – an Iranian-owned business where Toronto-area Iranians gather to plan anti-regime rallies (here).

A pair of antizionist gangsters also recently fired shots at the American Consulate on University Avenue in downtown Toronto. That's an attack the police are taking seriously. All the other attacks, not so much. After all, this has been going on now for two and a half years. And what’s been done?

Not much.

Yet day by day, a mass casualty terror attack grows more and more likely. Recently, in Michigan, a man armed with a rifle and a car full of explosives rammed into a synagogue with 100 children inside. Fortunately, synagogue security shot him before he was able to murder anyone.

And no one has forgotten the attack on a Hanukkah celebration this past January at Bondi Beach, with 15 murdered and 40 injured – in Australia, a peaceable country very like Canada.    

We’ve also seen ISIS-inspired terrorists sexually assault and attempt to abduct Jewish women in two separate incidents this past May and June in the Toronto area (here), and Canada’s Integrated Threat Assessment Centre has been warning for the past year that a terror attack against the Jewish community “remains a realistic possibility” (here). 

Yeah, we didn’t actually need an official government agency to tell us that.

In response, the Carney government has added $10 million to the Canada Community Security Program. Ten million sounds substantial, but Canada has hundreds of synagogues, schools and other Jewish institutions that need protecting. Not to mention the thousands of Iranian, Muslim, and Sikh institutions that also have a claim on this cash.

Bais Chaya Mushka

This bit of money will buy a few more security cameras, walls and gates, bollards, steel doors, and reinforced windows. But you know what? The Bais Chaya Mushka Girls School already had all that and it didn’t stop the antizionists from shooting it up three times. 

Plus, while security hardware is pricey enough, the real expense is salaries for guards. Beth Tzedek, a synagogue I know well, already spends $400,000 a year on security. With the rise in antizionist gangsterism, it will spend more (here).

What about businesses? No grant money has been set aside for the Old Avenue Restaurant nor for our friends at the Saliwan Gym. Nor for countless other Jewish and Iranian businesses at risk.

And what about my friend who doesn't wear her Jewish star anymore? Will the feds supply her with an armed escort so she can walk her dogs and go about her life assured that she won't be harassed, sexually assaulted, or kidnapped?  

What about Jewish households with mezuzahs on their doorposts who don’t want to see them stolen as happened at some 120 apartments in December (here) or families who have taken their mezuzahs down, not wishing to be so visibly Jewish? Will our government assign a Mountie to every Jewish home in Canada?

If the feds are simply going to play defence, they need to up the budget to $10 billion, not $10 million. Even then, it's a losing strategy. 

Antizionist protesters blocking
the Gardiner Expressway
in downtown Toronto

I suppose I need to repeat the obvious: The police policy of hands-off antizionist protesters has encouraged them to express their hatred ever more violently. Blame for this lies with our police chiefs who give the orders, but also with our mayors, our premiers and our prime minister.

None of them has said, enough! Enforce the law. Arrest people who block the trucks that deliver food to our grocery stores from entering the Ontario Food terminal (here), who block streets and highways (here), who block ambulances (here), who block entrances to synagogues, and hospitals (here), who block Jewish community centres and seniors’ home (here).

Stop the intimidation. Every week, antizionist protesters dressed up as terrorists and with their faces covered gather at the corner of Bathurst and Sheppard in Toronto. Why there? 

There's no Israeli or American consulate at the corner, no MP's constituency office, no political presence of any kind.  But it is the heart of Toronto's Jewish community, so that’s where antizionists choose to gather – to intimidate and to demonstrate their Jew-hatred. 

Protestor at Bathurst and Sheppard,
one of several carrying signs with
Nazi-style caricatures of Jews  

The police do make some arrests – 154 of them since Oct 7, 2023. A third of those cases are still pending, but out of the 96 cases that have been resolved, in 94 cases nothing happened: the charges were dropped or stayed, or the accused received absolute discharges (here). 

No wonder the police make so few arrests. Our courts have decided that antizionist thuggery is legal.

But beyond the obvious of enforcing the law, we need our leaders to speak out against incitement. Sure, Mark Carney posts a Tweet when someone shoots up a synagogue. But worldwide, we face the largest and the most organized anti-Jewish propaganda program since the Nazi era.

Undoubtedly, this program of vilification against Israel and Jews has succeeded. Just look around – this is the reason thugs are shooting at synagogues.

About this, Mark Carney has said Not One Word.

Jews in Canada aren’t leaving yet (mostly), but we’re counting our passports. I've got a golden ticket: dual American citizenship. We hear Alaska's friendly to Jews (and our dogs would love it). Most other states are good candidates, too.

But some people I know just have dual British citizenship, and unfortunately, the anti-Jewish hatred is even worse in the UK. Two days ago, on March 23, antizionists torched four ambulances in north London belonging to Hatzolet, a Jewish volunteer service that services Jews and non-Jews alike (here). In October, two Jews were killed in a terrorist attack on a synagogue in Manchester Manchester, capping a record-high year for anti-Jewish incidents in the UK (here). And for visible Jews, central London has become a dangerous no-go area.

But there's also Israel. Yes, the Ayatollahs and all the terrorist organizations they fund, arm and train are doing their best to wipe the Jews off the map, but (a) the Ayatollahs are losing and (b) the Israeli government's actually on our side.

Not so here. Do you see Carney spending any political capital to come to our defence? Nope, me neither.

***

This piece will also appear this Sunday, April 5, on the Canadian Zionist Forum.

Read more of my pieces here (and scroll down). For pieces specifically of Jewish interest, see here. ~Brian