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Dr. Lawrence Hart |
Frank Dimant |
Prof. Stephen Scheinberg |
Dr. Karen Mock |
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Dr. Lawrence Hart |
Frank Dimant |
Prof. Stephen Scheinberg |
Dr. Karen Mock |
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The annual Audit of Antisemitic Incidents is a record of reported incidents only. The Audit depends on the voluntary reporting of antisemitic incidents to the League for Human Rights through B’nai Brith offices and the nation-wide B’nai Brith Lodge network. Recorded incidents may have been reported by victims directly to our offices, or may have been reported by other sources. Experts in the analysis of crime, including criminologists and officers in police intelligence units, suggest that only a small percentage (approximately 10%) of hate crimes or harassment is ever reported to any source. The situation is akin to spousal or child abuse, both of which are notoriously under-reported.
Reported incidents are investigated for corroboration, then documented and analyzed by League staff to determine appropriate courses of action. Proper investigation is vital to determine whether reported incidents are indeed racially motivated, and whether they are antisemitic in nature. For example, harassment of a Jewish person in the workplace may be real but may not be antisemitic. As well, while general pamphleteering by a hate group will be condemned by the League, and while the League will be actively involved in countering its effects, if such pamphleteering does not specifically target Jews, then for the purposes of the Audit, it will not be included as an antisemitic incident. Finally, where an antisemitic mail campaign takes place, or where a number of Jewish businesses or people are targeted by one group or one individual for harassment or vandalism in a defined area over a defined period of time, such events are recorded as a single incident. Incidents are catalogued for the Audit in two broad categories: Vandalism and Harassment.
Vandalism is defined as an act involving physical damage to property. It includes graffiti, swastikas, desecration of cemeteries and synagogues, and other property damage, arson and other criminal acts such as thefts and break-ins where an antisemitic motive can be determined.
Harassment includes antisemitic hate propaganda distribution, hate mail and verbal slurs or acts of discrimination against individuals. Death threats and bomb threats against individuals and property, as well as any kind of physical assault are also included in this broader category. This category also includes systemic discrimination in the workplace, schools and campuses, and stereotyping in the media.
The 1996 census published by Statistics Canada reported that 351,705 of the 29.5 million people in Canada were Jewish. This amounts to only 1.2% of the entire population of the country. In 1996, Toronto and Montreal were reported to have 156,300 and 89,905 Jewish residents respectively, and no other locale had more than 25,000 Jewish residents. In fact, Jews comprise less than one half of one per cent of the population of Canada outside of the two aforementioned cities. The fact that Toronto and Montreal have the two largest Jewish communities in Canada (three quarters of the Jews in this country live in these two urban areas, with 44.4% in Metropolitan Toronto, and 25.6% of Canada’s Jews living in Greater Montreal) accounts for the overwhelming majority of reported cases of antisemitism occurring in these centres.
According to the 1996 census, Vancouver, the third largest Canadian city, had 22,225 Jewish residents (6.3% of the Jews in Canada), 1.2% of the total Vancouver population of 1,912,100. The Ottawa-Hull area, known as the National Capital Region, is home to nearly 12,445 Jews, 3.5% of the Jewish population in Canada. Winnipeg, with 14,145 Jewish residents, has the highest concentration of Jews (2.1%) of any city other than Montreal (2.6%) and Toronto (3.5%). In no other Canadian urban area do Jews make up more than one per cent of the total population.
Jews have lived in Canada since the 18th century. However, the first significant waves of Jewish immigration from Europe started in the 1870’s. Eastern European Jews often moved to Winnipeg or to rural areas to work as farmers - one of the few occupations for which immigrants were allowed into Canada.
During the Second World War the Canadian government refused to allow Jewish immigrants fleeing the Holocaust to enter this country, with one government official stating that “none is too many” when asked how many Jews would be let into Canada. However, thousands of Jewish war survivors were permitted entry in the late 1940’s and 1950’s. The impact of post-war émigrés on the Canadian Jewish community is perhaps the most significant difference between patterns in American and Canadian Jewish immigration. Holocaust survivors who came to Canada comprise a more significant percentage of the total Jewish community here than in the United States, largely because the Canadian government had restricted Jewish immigration earlier.
Until the 1970’s Montreal was regarded as the principal hub of Canadian Jewry. Although other cities had Jewish communities, Montreal was the oldest and largest, and was considered the most important Jewish centre in Canada. However, the threat of Quebec separation in the mid-1970’s was a frightening prospect for many Jews, the vast majority of whom were anglophone. Thousands of Montreal jobs were relocated to Ontario, as were tens of thousands of Montreal’s Jews. A study conducted by J. Torczyner, D. Brotman, and J. Brodbar (1995) entitled Rapid Growth and Transformation: Demographic Challenges Facing the Jewish Community of Greater Toronto suggests further shifts in the Jewish population, particularly in the wake of the ongoing Quebec Referendum debate and the increase in nationalist rhetoric. In fact, the fastest growing Jewish population is in Vancouver, British Columbia.
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To contact the League for Human Rights,
consult the B’nai Brith Staff Directory or
email us at league@bnaibrith.ca