Don’t ignore anti-Semitism. It’s lethal

Swastikas are spray painted on schools and sidewalks, while a Jewish school is vandalized with anti-Israel slurs.

Online, Jews are defamed and threatened while police hate crime statistics mount.

So-called progressives on campuses, unions and churches boycott and slander Israel and the Jewish people.

White supremacists plaster communities with newsletters and march, yelling “Jews will not replace us.”

Islamists hold “Al Quds” rallies calling for the destruction of Israel — the embodiment of the Jewish people

The antisemitic mural at York University in Toronto still hangs. But does any of it matter? 

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There is a failure of understanding by the community at large that anti-Semitism is a multi-faceted scourge that permeates society. Universities excuse it — calling it free speech; authorities choose to look the other way when it comes to anti-Semitic demonstrations; hate crime laws continue to be decimated by inaction; and church groups and unions call it social justice — when in fact, they are emboldening a rising anti-Semitic narrative. 

There is no single factor that contributed to the hate and ignorance that transforms a person into a white supremacist and then a killer. It is a combination of ideologies, of beliefs, of conspiracy theories and stereotypes that infect people and bring them to heinous crimes.

From time immemorial, Jewish people have been accused of poisoning wells; murdering Christian babies for their blood in order to make Matza; trying to control the world (Protocols of the Elders of Zion); and for being part of any social ill-conceived by humanity. They are at the same time labelled communists, capitalists and socialists — whatever libel works on any given day — to dehumanize them. 

For these defamatory mythological accusations, we have been driven out of our lands and murdered and raped over centuries. We were driven from our ancient homeland (Israel) over 2,000 years ago — we were driven from Spain and Portugal in the 14th and 15th centuries (Spanish Inquisition); suffered through pogroms and we were accused of treason (Dryfus Affair) when we were in fact and as always patriotic to our nation. All this culminated in the worst genocide known to humanity — the Holocaust — the wholesale murder of 6 million Jewish children, women and men. 

The Holocaust did not only happen at the hands of the Nazis through its system of 42,000 concentration camps across Europe. Catholic priest, Rev. Patrick Desbois, has carefully interviewed and documented over 2,700 mass shooting sites across Europe, mostly in small villages. What he found was shocking — ordinary villagers who lived with Jewish neighbours for decades and sometimes centuries participated in the wholesale murder of their Jewish friends. 

By today’s standards, we cannot fathom this kind of racism and discrimination. People of all faith groups have reached out in support in the aftermath of the Pittsburgh synagogue murders. But let’s be honest here — it’s 2018 and we are seeing unprecedented levels of anti-Semitism. 

Several years ago, the Anti-Defamation League ran a global study finding that over 1 billion people on the planet hold anti-Semitic attitudes. In Canada, my organization, the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center, commissioned Nanos Research to find that 15 per cent of Canadians hold anti-Semitic sentiments. That’s over five million neighbours.

Given these factors, the manifestation of an anti-Semitic killer is hardly surprising. What is surprising is the wholesale community allowance of the multi-level indicators of anti-Semitism described above. Individuals who are involved in promoting everyday anti-Semitism as described above and otherwise — they are complicit in its compounding effect. 

They are aiding and abetting its permeation and acceptance into society. Anti-Semitism targeting Israel, as the embodiment of the Jewish people, and anti-Semitism targeting the people through white supremacist ideology — it’s still anti-Semitism with the same effect. 

Anti-Semitism is lethal. Everyone must pay closer attention. 

Avi Benlolo is the president and CEO of Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies.