
Rochelle Wilner President	Frank Dimant Chief Executive Officer	Prof. Stephen Scheinberg National Chair	Ruth Klein National Director of Advocacy

1998 Audit of Antisemitic Incidents

ANTISEMITISM IN CANADA — REGIONAL CLIMATE AND TRENDS

The Climate in Quebec

Overall Incidents
Compared to last year, 1998 was relatively quiet as far as antisemitic incidents go, particularly in the media and on university campuses. The total number of incidents reported to the B’nai Brith office in Quebec was down by 1 from the previous year, but unlike past years, the numbers for 1998 do not include reports made to the police. Affecting the gathering and analysis of hate crimes statistics in 1998 was the restructuring of the MUC Police. With the change in Director and the important transition to neighborhood police stations, it was explained to B’nai Brith that the former hate crimes division ("liaison securité") did not operate with the same resources as in the past and thus was not able to prepare the same sophisticated statistical analysis. The police did, however, report a lump sum of 25 incidents that were categorized as hate motivated, but did not break them down into specific target groups as in the past. The police anticipate that with the move to community policing and with a greater emphasis on outreach programs to local communities, the result will be a much greater sensitization of the population at the local level to hate-motivated crimes. Representatives from the MUC police have expressed the hope that they will be able to reestablish the same methods for breaking down the data for the coming year, once this period of restructuring and transition is complete. The overall total of 25 hate-motivated incidents in Montreal represented an increase of 16% from last year. Based on our previous experience of corroborating our statistics and comparing them with the police reports, it is likely therefore, that the number of antisemitic incidents reported to the police in 1998 would have increased the B’nai Brith statistics by 3, or approximately 14%.

Schools, Colleges and Universities
University campuses in Quebec reported no incidents of antisemitism to B’nai Brith in 1998. Anti-Israel initiatives were reported as negligible, except for one discreet display at Concordia University showing Israeli soldiers clashing with Palestinians. There were several reports, however, emanating from CEGEP (Junior College) and high school campuses. Teachers at Western Laval High School in Chomedey expressed concern about disturbing anti-Jewish and anti-Black comments from students as well as ugly graffiti. There were also reports of antisemitism at Vanier College, with swastikas being painted on the doors of the Hillel student office. What is equally disturbing in many of these cases is an unwillingness on the part of the administration to deal directly with the problem, but instead, to sweep it under the rug, to avoid negative publicity, suggesting that this sort of problem is limited to only a few individuals.

Students in a Lubavitch Rabbinical College made the news because of their weekly demonstrations against the deceptive "House of David", a messianic Christian group aggressively targeting Russian Jews for conversion. The most serious antisemitic incident took place in September, as a group of students from a Jewish high school were beaten up by a gang of youths. The perpetrators were arrested. The Commanders of a number of neighborhood police stations have been very active in bringing concerned citizens together to combat "taxing", the increasing trend towards group violence by gang-related youth that makes minority youth feel particularly vulnerable.

Politics and the Media
The political climate was also very quiet in terms of antisemitic rhetoric characteristic of past years. The Jewish community has historically opposed the separation of Quebec from Canada, harbouring certain fears about separation’s potential consequences. Prior to the provincial election of November 30, 1998, the Jewish community therefore had concerns that the reelection of the sovereignist Parti Québecois government would give greater impetus to the separatist movement. This did not materialize, as Jean Charest’s Liberal Party, despite losing the election, won the popular vote, a development that slowed any momentum for the sovereignty movement of Quebec. The election result was a relief for many in the Jewish community.

There were no specific complaints this year about antisemitism or stereotyping sparked by controversial media stories, possibly because politicians and journalists were more careful in their commentaries than in previous years.

National Capital Region

Overview
The Jewish population of Ottawa is about 12,000, constituting approximately 1.2% of the total population of the National Capital Region. Jews work primarily in the public service, in local small businesses, in the professions and in the high-tech sector. The number of Jews laid off or taking early retirement from the government has created a larger pool of individuals involved in consulting or in other businesses.

Ottawa is the National Capital of Canada and, as such, incidents occurring here are covered in media across the country. Thus Ernst Zundel’s aborted appearance in the Parliamentary Press Conference Room received national attention, as did the debate on the proposed creation of a "Holocaust Gallery" in the National War Museum. Some anti-Jewish statements were made on Parliament Hill while others were made on the property of the Federal Government during an event sponsored by the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade. Although many of these events do not impact directly on the local Jewish community, they do have national significance.

The number of antisemitic incidents reported to B’nai Brith’s National Capital Region in Ottawa in 1998 was 35, showing a 40 percent increase over the 25 incidents reported in 1997.

There were a number of factors influencing this increase, namely the increased visibility of the B’nai Brith office, increases in anti-Israel rhetoric crossing the line into antisemitic canards, and competition between right-wing and anarchist groups. The Internet has facilitated the international spread of hate and impacted on the National Capital Region as well as other parts of Canada.

Increased Visibility
The B’nai Brith office was more visible in the National Capital Region in 1998 than in 1997. The visibility centered around activities of the B’nai Brith Ottawa office, and featured stories in local media on issues ranging from the pursuit of Nazi war criminals, to calls for an end to racism in employment, to appearances before the Senate Sub-Committee dealing with the proposed "Holocaust Gallery" at the Canadian Museum of War, to calling for the banning of Holocaust denial as hate speech.

Anti-Jewish communications were made to the office and to the home of the Director of Government Relations on these occasions. This reactive activity is important because it reveals the ongoing nature of antisemitism. The prejudice against Jews which these incidents revealed was always present. The higher profile activity simply gave some individuals the excuse to express their dormant or latent feelings. As one caller noted about the proposal to ban Holocaust denial, “Fuck you, you stupid goddamned kike bastards. You run the media, that’s good enough.” There were many anonymous calls received regarding a proposed Holocaust Gallery in the Canadian War Museum. The proposal was a local initiative involving some individuals who were Jewish and others who were not. It was never a request from the organized Jewish Community. While only one of the calls was blatantly antisemitic, the intensity of the emotion and the assumption by all the callers that this was a "Jewish Lobby", illustrated some of the fundamental attitudes that exist. Veterans called to say that they feared that because “the Jewish community is pushing in where it is not wanted, antisemitism could increase.” An antisemitic incident occurred at the Senate Committee Hearing itself when Holocaust denial propaganda was distributed to the audience. The Chair took note of this and confiscated the material distributed.

Middle East Issues
Palestinian student activities, while aiming to boost the cause of Palestinians, stepped over the bounds of legitimate debate into the promotion of hatred against Israelis and Jews. On days purporting to express solidarity with Lebanon and with Palestinians at the University of Ottawa and Carleton University, antisemitic propaganda, reminiscent of age-old blood libels, was distributed repeating the claim that Israeli doctors had injected 300 Palestinian children with the AIDS virus. Inflammatory banners calling Israel "a cancer on the Middle East" were prominently displayed. Other inflammatory stories such as "Who is the Jew?" and slurs about Ethiopian Jews selling drugs were also widely distributed. University administrations were contacted by both B’nai Brith and the local Jewish Community. Both University administrations agreed that they needed to reexamine their guidelines for such days, but it remains to be seen whether they will have any effect on campus activities on similar commemorative days in 1999.

Similarly, activities organized on Parliament Hill have twice engendered anti-Jewish incidents. An ad with respect to one such activity appeared in the Ottawa Citizen urging people to “stop the Holocaust against the Palestinians”. In December, a speaker at one of the meetings on Parliament Hill claimed that the main reason Canada had not recognized Palestinian rights was “the organized Jewish community”. The speaker went on to talk about the above-average incomes of the Jewish community in Canada and to claim that the Canada Israel Committee controlled Canada’s foreign policy in the Middle East.

The speaker favourably quoted a former ambassador who, in a panel presentation marking the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Lester B. Pearson Building, allegedly stated that the main reason Canada had not achieved more in the Middle East was because of “the presence in Canada of a very large and very influential Jewish community” balanced by Canada’s need for oil and desire to trade with the Arabs. It is to be noted that Jews constitute 1.2% of the population. It is also to be noted that the former Ambassador referred to the simple "presence" of the Jewish community and not to its activities, and that the Canada Israel Committee is actually a small community-based NGO. The implication is that the very existence of the community is bad.

Local Graffiti Wars/Posters
A number of incidents were related to a graffiti war which appeared to break out in early 1998, involving anarchists, some neo-Nazi supporters and others. Swastikas and other racist symbols were drawn or painted over previously existing anarchist graffiti and were then painted over by others. Swastikas were reported throughout the downtown area on bridges, the sidewalk, traffic control boxes, newspaper boxes, mailboxes and downtown buildings, both inside and outside.

At least two counterfeit posters were found trying to implicate Muslim groups in anti- Jewish activity. One called for a meeting of the "Ottawa Muslim Brotherhood Discussion Group" at the Main Library where members would learn, among other things, how to kill Jews and homosexuals and how to tell a Jew by smell.

Another called for a similar meeting at the local Somali Community Youth Resource Centre and used parallel language to the first one. These posters were sent to police and left in conspicuous areas in an apparent attempt to stir up trouble. These incidents were considered to be both antisemitic and anti-Muslim. B’nai Brith alerted the Ottawa Muslim Community Association and has maintained contact on this and related issues.

International Spread of Hate Themes
Much of the anti-Jewish and anti-Israeli material distributed by Palestinian students in the National Capital Region appears to have been downloaded from the Internet. Indeed, while the allegation of the injection of the AIDS virus in Palestinian children spread like wildfire around the world to Palestinian groups everywhere, the fact that the allegation has been withdrawn has not been made widely known. Web sites such as Radio Islam are basically dedicated to Holocaust denial and antisemitism and are linked not only to unofficial Hezbollah and Hamas sites but to white supremacists, Holocaust deniers and antisemites.

There is an ongoing tacit sharing of antisemitic tactics, strategies and information among these disparate groups. It may be recalled that the bombing of the Jewish Community Centre in Buenos Aires in 1994 appears to have been the result of a cooperative effort between Hezbollah and extreme right-wing elements in the Argentine secret police. This type of unholy alliance has great potential for harm and any steps in that direction should be closely monitored in Canada, as elsewhere.

Indeed, conventional stereotypes appear to be so broadly accepted that speakers who repeat them are often not interrupted or brought to task. The speaker on Parliament Hill was not taken to task for his exaggeration of Jewish power and influence. The former Ambassador was not asked to clarify his comments about the “presence of a very large and influential Jewish community”. To date, the Department of Foreign Affairs, which sponsored the event at which these comments were made, refuses to take any responsibility for them and states simply that they do not reflect departmental views.

In one instance, a large picture of a smiling Paul Reichman was published in the Ottawa Citizen under the heading “Poor starve to repay rich”. The headline had nothing to do with Reichman and news editors were either unaware of, or indifferent about whether such a juxtaposition might be pandering to stereotypes. Indeed, the author of the article was unaware of the juxtaposition which had been effected without his knowledge.

The B.C. Report

The Year in review
1998 was a significant year in B.C. in which great strides in human rights advocacy were achieved.

In January, the little town of Oliver in the Okanagan Valley near the U.S. border became internationally scandalized as the "hate Capital of Canada" due to Bernard Klatt’s Fairview Technology Centre, which gained notoriety as the principle Internet service provider for Canada’s racial extremist groups.

According to the Victoria Times Colonist, (January 16, 1998) Fairview provided access to more than 20 web sites that appeared to clearly violate Canada’s hate laws. Fairview was again in the news in February, implicated in 13 arrests in France and England of people charged with hate promotion, uttering death threats and desecrating a grave.

In March, the City of Oliver cancelled a room rental booked by Klatt in the town community centre, that was to have been used to host a veritable Who’s Who of Canada’s professional racists. And the townspeople themselves came out in force to protest.

In April, David Matas, B’nai Brith Canada’s senior legal counsel, successfully convinced the BC Telephone company to compel Internet providers as "common carriers" to take legal liability for the content of the web sites that they host. This effectively drove Mr. Klatt out of business in Canada.

Also in April, B.C. and the rest of Canada recoiled in horror at the news of the racially-motivated death of a Surrey B.C. caretaker. He was allegedly beaten by 5 white-power skinheads. Alan Dutton of the Canadian Anti-Racism and Education Research Society (CAERS) used this occasion as an opportunity to expose the B.C. organizer of the Heritage Front, a violent extremist group who, according to police, were linked to the alleged murderers.

Use of Public Library meeting spaces by hate groups continued in Victoria in 1998; but in June, a multi-party community anti-racism coalition was formed, and a crowd of over 400 angry citizens protested Doug Christie’s Canadian Free League meeting in a Victoria library. In the wake of this concerted community action, a multi-party B.C. human rights complaint has been filed, whose partners include organized labour, a women’s advocacy group, and the Green Party, as well as the Jewish Community of Victoria. Several of the community leaders in this coalition, Jewish and non-Jewish alike, have been harassed by antisemitic hate mail.

In July, the League’s B.C. representative, Harry Abrams, had a successful B.C. Human Rights tribunal hearing into charges of antisemitism perpetrated by controversial columnist Doug Collins and the North Shore News newspaper of North Vancouver. The League, represented by Marvin Kurz, National Legal Counsel, intervened in the case. The Tribunal decision came down in February 1999, ordering the North Shore News to pay $2,000 to Harry Abrams “for injury to dignity and feelings of self-respect” and to print a summary of the decision as to why it was determined that the series of articles promoted hatred against Jews.

1998 saw a huge increase in community activism, pro-active partnerships with law enforcement and education, and for the first time, evidence of efficient anti-discrimination policies in the workplaces of British Columbia. However a set-back for the anti-racist movement in B.C., indeed across Canada, came with the court’s finding in favour of Eileen and Klaus Pressler in their defamation suit against Dr. David Lethbridge. The Salmon Arm couple sued CHBC (a Kelowna television station) and Lethbridge, a psychology professor and human rights activist, on the basis of one eight minute television news story in 1993 that allegedly impugned their reputations by “unfairly casting them as white supremacists and neo-Nazi hate mongers”. These are the same people who, under the rubric of the "Council of Public Affairs" regularly sponsored Holocaust denier David Irving’s Canadian speaking tours prior to his being deported, and are well known as harbouring and espousing Holocaust denial and antisemitic views. As Lethbridge’s lawyer, Irvine Epstein. Q.C. put it: “This case is about the right, and indeed the duty of a concerned citizen to inform and educate others in opposition to those who preach racial hatred, bigotry and intolerance.”

The B’nai Brith Lodge and League in B.C. continue to provide moral and financial support to Lethbridge through a province-wide and national fundraising campaign. An appeal is planned as the eyes of the anti-racism and human rights community are on this very important case.