While Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and prime minister hopeful Chrystia Freeland do Holocaust selfies, antisemitism is raging in Canada.
While Trudeau takes pictures with Holocaust survivors and Freeland posts a previous picture of her at a Holocaust museum in Israel, you still have on the streets of Toronto people being spit on for being pro-Israel or Jewish.
And a lot of other things.
Politicians do Holocaust photo ops better than they do stopping antisemitism. Spend one day in Toronto and that reality will be on full display. It was Saturday night outside the Eaton Centre, across from Sankofa Square (formerly Yonge-Dundas Square), when independent journalist and lawyer Caryma Sa’d’s photographer was capturing on camera a demonstration.
While we cannot be sure what motivated the woman, the video shows a woman wearing a keffiyeh coming into the shot, saying “oh, this guy again. F— you. F—-n trash. F—-n Zionist little pig.” She can then be seen walking toward him and spitting on him before disappearing inside the shopping mall.
It’s gross. But not rare.
“We have been spat on a few times,” said Sa’d.
In her photographer’s case, she alleges, people have tried to assault him with a goal to try to reveal his name. Other than him being Jewish, in the interest of his own safety, he tries to separate his public media work from his private life. Many of the pro-Hamas crowd who demonstrate every week and harass him are not Palestinian but are part of leftist organizations whose funding is as murky as the people in masks who cause the mayhem.
But the woman in this incident was not wearing a mask. People should be able to tell police who she is. Many in the pro-Hamas crowds have done things like this and usually get away with it, while police often focus more on elderly Jewish men wearing Jewish Defence League sweatshirts.
Not this time.
You have to give credit where credit is due and Toronto Police jumped all over this incident as it appeared on social media platforms and was shared around the world.
“Police called me this morning,” said S’ad.
She, or her photographer, hadn’t made a complaint.
“I am meeting with the hate crime unit to discuss,” said S’ad, who called it “proactive” policing.
Toronto Police spokesperson Stephanie Sayer confirmed to the Toronto Sun that “the Hate Crimes Unit are investigating.”
Stay tuned.
In the meantime, while it’s fine that Trudeau flew to Poland for the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp to get his picture taken, or post an old picture from inside the Hall of Names at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem with the faces of the slain in the background as Freeland did, there are many unsolved anti-Jewish attacks right here at home.
“With rising antisemitism across Canada and the world, I am unwavering in my commitment to stand against hate and ensure the Jewish community is safe everywhere in our country,” Freeland said in an X post.
In reaction, B’nai Brith director of research and advocacy Richard Robertson said while it’s “encouraging to see MP Freeland paying her respects to International Holocaust Remembrance Day,” if she “truly wants to support Holocaust remembrance in Canada, she should take the lead on ensuring the full and un-redacted release of Canada’s Holocaust records” and “support the release of the Deschenes Commission reports and all ancillary documents” to “enable Canada’s Jewish community to fully heal from this sordid chapter in human history.=
This is important since Jewish people don’t feel safe in Canada, said Meir Weinstein of Israel Now.
He added: “every day we have attacks on the Jewish community.”
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When you have Trudeau saying Canada would abide by the International Criminal Court arrest warrant for Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu, or Freeland saying reports on her grandfather’s background in Ukraine during the Second World War was part of a Russian disinformation campaign or that both stood there and applauded along with the rest of the House of Commons a man who would later be revealed to be a former Nazi collaborator, it’s hard to take seriously their trying to look sincere in photos on an anniversary.
But they both did their photo ops, regardless, while a photographer was spit on in Toronto because he’s pro-Israel or because he is Jewish.