For Immediate Release
Toronto, July 19, 2002 — B’nai Brith Canada expressed its appreciation to Canadians across the country for the hundreds of calls and letters it has received, not just from concerned members of the Jewish community, but also from members of the general public. There has been an outpouring of sympathy from those who wanted to express their grief and outrage at the brutal murder of David Rosenzweig.
National President Rochelle Wilner noted that many of these calls have come from members of other minority groups. “These individuals have been targeted themselves in the past and therefore understand only too well the effects of prejudice and hatred that can lie just below the surface of society, only to break through at times of tension or rage. Such groups have no trouble understanding what a hate crime looks like and feels like. Painful as it is to acknowledge, there is an underground culture of hate that has had an impact on society, and Canadians must stand together to say, ‘Enough — we will not let our multicultural society be highjacked by the purveyors of hate.’ ”
Frank Dimant, Executive Vice President, stated: “How can Jewish leaders expect to reassure us by saying a Jew in Toronto is better off than a Jew in Saudi Arabia — of course we are, but is a repressive Jew-hating regime in the Middle East to be our yardstick for comparison? There was initially such complacency in France, a freedom-loving democracy like Canada, and look how anti-Jewish incidents have skyrocketed out of control over there.”
B’nai Brith’s League for Human Rights released just yesterday a mid-year Audit of Antisemitic Incidents that documented 197 incidents in just the first six months of the year, compared to 121 in the first six months of last year. This represents an alarming increase of 62.8%.
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For further details contact Rochelle Wilner at (416) 254-1010 or Frank Dimant at (416) 802-1057
B’nai Brith has been active in Canada since 1875 as the community’s foremost advocacy and volunteer organization.
The entire Audit is available online at:
http://www.bnaibrith.ca/publications/audit2002/interim2002.html
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