"The world is in greater peril from those who tolerate or encourage evil than from those who actually commit it."
Quote from Albert Einstein. He thought about more than physics
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Last week, I attended a rally against hate at the Pride of Israel Synagogue in Toronto. The mood in the synagogue was shock, fear, and anger. Protestors outside, who identified themselves as part of an organisation called “Jews Against Genocide,” apparently composed mostly of non-Jews, attempted to block access to the event.
The leadership of this synagogue were no fools; the place was crawling with private security, local police, and RCMP, and unruly protesters didn’t stand a chance.
Federal, provincial and local politicians took their turns at the microphone. Some politicians were cheered, some jeered. The master of ceremonies had the hardest job in the room. Some attendees could not contain their rage, shouting out politicians, and the beleaguered master of ceremonies, quite rightly, tried to give them a 15-second civics lesson. At the same time, protesters, perhaps also quite rightly, felt entitled to their outbursts at individuals they felt had betrayed the Jewish people.
Melissa Lantsman, the Conservative Shadow Deputy PM, roared like a lion, note-free, that enough was enough. No more of “If we are nice enough, maybe they will just go away.” I don’t know if Lantsman is over 100 lbs, but she is fearsome.
There is a famous picture of an infant boy, The Warsaw Boy, terrified and confused, with his hands raised as they clear out a bunker. But the “arms raised” and “if we are polite enough, they will leave us alone” Jew era is over.
The Jewish people are unified, Israel is strong, and today’s Jews will not be like the German Jews of the early 30s who couldn’t believe it could happen and said, “We are good Germans. Surely, they will not come for us.”
But on Wednesday, there was fear in the Pride of Israel Synagogue, and yes, people were wondering, could it happen again?
The audience of this community event united against hate seemed - sadly - to be mostly Jews; many were elderly. This was not a Jewish event but a community event held in a synagogue.
My question is, “Where are the Gentiles? Where are the non-Jews? Why is this still largely a Jewish problem? As the police noted at the event, if having hate crimes directed at you was a sporting event, the Jews would be batting well above their weight, with 3.4% of the population receiving 56% of the reported hate crimes. And they say Jews aren’t good at sports.
While the University of Guelph and Humber College in Toronto cower and acquiesce - and the biggest problem at the University of Guelph-Humber is still “Islamophobia” - though nobody has ever seen it - the truth is that with mobs gathering to target Jews and Zionists, many Jewish students and faculty are afraid.
I was suspended, and even the union admits that a senior administrator has a personal vendetta against me and will spend tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars if she/he can banish me forever. I am the Prince Hal of the institution, except I will not become king.
I hurt the feelings of ardent Jew haters because I told a stranger in Pakistan that I stood with Israel, even though the accusers, a professor, some students, many parents of students and indeed the top administrator at the university have compelled some Jewish faculty and students to raise their hands once again, hoping that if they are quiet, it will all go away.
Statistically, the group that has the highest percentage of antisemites is Muslim; they are followed closely by TikTokified university students, who are largely irreligious and have found their calling, which is Jew hatred.
Such students say they are anti-Zionist and pretend that there is a magic and narrow path between calling for the destruction of a nation that - sorry - was based largely on its Jewish identity (while ignoring all the bloody borders, illegitimate states, stateless ethnicities, not to mention the hundreds of thousands of Muslims killed in Jew-free zones) and anti-Semitism.
They are just mysterious creatures that quack, swim, and walk like ducks and look like ducks but aren’t ducks.
“There are no ducks here, your honour.”
My question is, though, where were the Gentiles? Where are they? Why was the synagogue, its window shattered and fear of Kristallnacht hanging in the air still largely filled only with Jews?
Why are so many Gentiles, so many “Christians” so silent? Did not Jesus live as a Jew?
I can understand the Jews at my university who have told me they are afraid to support me because they know how deeply entrenched anti-Semitism is at the University of Guelph, Humber College and the University of Guelph Humber.
It’s important to note that during the 1930s, the Nazis leveraged universities to build their brand to great effect - both amongst their faculty and in student groups. And when they fired the Jewish professors, the good Germans were largely silent; they, too, didn’t want to get involved. Seems familiar.
Where are the Gentiles?
Of course, many will not be silenced—Douglas Murray, Terry Glavin, John Ivison, and others, all prominent journalists—but I say there are not enough bakers, academics, garbage men, dog walkers, office workers, and construction workers.
Where are the Christians?
Isn’t this a Christian nation? The least anti-Semitic country in the world? Canada? Not even close. According to the Anti-Defamation League, we are 50% more anti-Semitic than the United States. The least anti-Semitic countries are Laos, the Philippines, Vietnam, and other countries; many are Buddhist.
“After World War II, it was easier for a Nazi to enter Canada than a Jew,” is former Federal Justice Minister Irving Cotler’s famous line. The government of the day, though, didn’t hesitate to create a commission, the Deschênes Commission, whose records speak to Canada’s history of “ongoing failure to bring Nazi war criminals to justice.”
However, Trudeau still refuses to unseal the report.
Irving Cotler recently needed police protection to walk around and not be free.
Yes, all this is in Justin Trudeau’s multicultural paradise.
“This is not like Canada,” Trudeau says.
Actually, it is Justin.
We need to talk about what a Canadian is, and we need to talk about immigration. Oh, immigration, oh, you Islamophobe! You racist! Alarm, alarm! To the barricades of self-righteous delusions!
We love multiculturalism so much that we don’t have a problem allowing immigrants who come to Canada dreaming of sharia law, who hate Jews, who want homosexuals tossed off rooftops, and who today howl war cries of intifada on the streets of Toronto, a city in a country that prefers pleasant myths and self-righteous delusions over reality.
Canada seems to think that there are no such things as Canadian values; they believe that when people cross the border, magic pixie assimilation dust is sprinkled on them, making them value all religions and cultures and cheer for their local NHL team, but hopefully not the Habs.
But where are the Gentiles standing up for a Jewish people under siege?
Someone who wanted to enter a business venture with me objected to me talking about it on a Jewish Facebook group, but he’s not anti-Semitic, of course not; he has his Canadian self-righteous moral purity card, which comes as a set along with the ‘we have the best health care in the world’ card and the Canadian motto - “if we repeat a lie or a myth enough, it becomes true” card.
But where are the Gentiles supporting the Jews?
How many members of my faculty association at the University of Guelph supported me when I was suspended for standing up for those Jews? Zero. My local faculty, two, but the others cry, “We’re not supposed to talk to him” - as if some tyrant on the top floor has had the almighty visit them and offer them the right to tell thousands of staff, students and faculty who they are allowed to speak with.
Strangely enough, it is largely and almost exclusively my Caribbean co-workers who have expressed concern.
The white “Christians” are silent, not my business, turn away, think happy thoughts; if we ignore ugliness and injustice, it will just go away.
My boss decided to empty my office and took my late father’s papers, cards from my daughter when she was just learning to write, and precious objects. My boss never mentioned it to me; he just apparently tossed them all in a box and, for all practical purposes, took them without permission. How could any decent, moral human do that?
A loyal student snitched on him; months have passed, and he has refused to return my things.
I may have to go through the police to get my personal effects returned at this moral university.
But he is not an antisemite.
He did sign the human rights claim against me, but he’s white, come on, and the lawyer who works for the school, some pretty white girl, she’s a Canadian, she can’t be an antisemite, she just loves threatening those who have the temerity to stand with the Jews.
But she has her Canadian virtue card, so she’s good.
The unions, one led by a Hamas supporter and the other a group who think that their union mandate is social justice and who recently voted for boycotts of Israel, are consistently non-responsive and bereft of passion. Imagine if a Palestinian professor were suspended for criticism of Israel in a conversation with a stranger in another country. Imagine if senior administration led or tolerated a defamation campaign against that professor - the unions would be furious.
They would offer legal support to their aggrieved member and probably would be picketing administration offices. But reverse it and not a phone call or meeting in nine months. Legal support, no chance. Quack. Quack
But they aren’t anti-Semitic.
Where are the Gentiles?
Yeats, in his famous poem The Second Coming, quoted by people like me who don’t know much about poetry, said,
“The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.”
The former group is non-Jewish Canadians, and the second group is throwing rocks through synagogue windows and getting hugs from their fellow travellers in University and College Human Rights offices.
The first are afraid to stand against their office mate making anti-semitic jokes; they are afraid to mention to their fellow non-white professor that maybe they don’t approve of him posting videos of comedians who joke about Jews making clothing from Gentile skin; oh no, they’ll think I’m a racist, oh no, I don’t want to get involved.
Where are the Gentiles?
They just don’t want to get involved. Maybe we should put that in our anthem. But please don’t say that while I won’t stand up for the Jews now, I would if things got bad.
No, you wouldn’t, my Gentile friend.
I heard a Holocaust survivor say that when her sister looked outside as people threw rocks at their window, the sister turned back to her mother and said,
“But, mommy, it’s our neighbours throwing the rocks.”
Who are many of the Gentiles?
They are our future rock throwers; they just haven’t started, but they are with them in spirit.
And this is why Israel must always be strong.
Well done. It takes courage to take a stand and be one of the lonely voices speaking out against the haters and disinterested, especially when you aren't even Jewish and can play it safe and turn a blind eye to the bias and hypocrisy.
“We continue to uncover German concentration camps for political prisoners in which conditions of indescribable horror prevail. I have visited one of these myself and I assure you that whatever has been printed on them to date has been understatement.”
“The things I saw beggar description…The visual evidence and the verbal testimony of starvation, cruelty, and bestiality were so overpowering as to leave me a bit sick. In one room, where they were piled up twenty or thirty naked men, killed by starvation, George Patton would not even enter. He said he would get sick if he did so. I made the visit deliberately, in order to be in position to give first-hand evidence of these things if ever, in the near future, there develops a tendency to charge these allegations merely to ‘propaganda.’”
General Dwight D. Eisenhower.
Eisenhower ordered the filming of the atrocities at the extermination camps. He prophesied one day it would all be denied.
I was taught this in school. My family fought in the Second World War, we knew.
I believe our schools have been infiltrated and social media dominated by those who willing obscure the truth.
I am horrified by the dereliction of duty when officers of the law allow Hamas / Palestinian threats to go unchallenged.
We need to be pushing our officials to take notice and respond.