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Rochelle Wilner |
Frank Dimant |
Prof. Stephen Scheinberg |
Ruth Klein |
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Rochelle Wilner |
Frank Dimant |
Prof. Stephen Scheinberg |
Ruth Klein |
The 2003 Audit of Antisemitic Incidents in Canada is being released by B’nai Brith’s League for Human Rights against the backdrop of a continuing increase in antisemitic incidents across the globe, in terms both of numbers and severity. In the age of the global village, events in Canada can no longer be viewed in isolation from developments abroad, and a wider perspective is necessary to identify home-grown influences, as well as international trends that have shaped developments on the Canadian scene.
The year 2003 will be remembered for an unprecedented rash of terror attacks on individual Jewish communities worldwide. On May 16, 2003, which is marked in the Jewish calendar as the special day of Lag B’Omer, locally recruited al-Qaeda-affiliated terrorists in Casablanca killed 54 people and wounded more than 100 others in a series of suicide attacks, which included Jewish-linked targets. On November 15, 2003, Jewish synagogues in Istanbul were targeted for destruction by al-Qaeda bombers, who murdered 20 and wounded more than 300. Still other planned attacks against Jewish institutions were thwarted, including a car bomb attack on the Charleroi synagogue in Belgium and a strike against the Jewish Museum in Berlin (see details on global antisemitism in Section V).
These events have contributed to an exceptional level of concern in the Canadian Jewish community, which continues to receive bomb threats against its institutions, as well as death threats against individuals. Jewish houses of worship, schools and community organizations in Canada currently have to implement special security measures, a situation not only unnecessary, but unthinkable, for any other religious group in this country.
Although other countries have borne the brunt of the continuing rise in antisemitism, with its emerging linkages to international terrorist groups, this year’s Audit indicates that Canada has little reason for complacency. In fact, there is significant cause for concern on several counts, indicating that Canadians in the 21st century will have to be especially vigilant and creative in responding to the ongoing challenges to our values of diversity and multiculturalism.
The principal causes for concern are four-fold. First, it appears that ingrained prejudices based on traditional antisemitic stereotypes are re-surfacing. Second, antisemitic messaging is being imported into Canada from abroad, sometimes in the guise of anti-Israel propaganda, but more often in less subtle ways over the Internet or through foreign language ethnic publications. Third, there are indications of a cross-pollination between fringe elements in the far Right and in the far Left, which borrow freely from each other’s imagery and rhetoric, as well as from the motifs of the rejectionist front of the Arab world. Finally, the greatest threat to the security of Jewish community institutions is no longer from the neo-Nazi groups as in the past, but rather from elements linked to international terrorist groups. All these elements are reflected in the data from 2003.
The release of this Audit follows closely on the debate engendered by Mel Gibson’s controversial film “The Passion of the Christ”, which has fuelled discussion over whether reviving age-old anti-Jewish stereotypes through the mass media will lead to an increase in antisemitism. Early evidence based on initial reports to the League’s Anti-Hate Hotline, lends credence to the concerns of those who anticipated that Gibson’s movie could inflame susceptible members of the general public, and give license to those with already ingrained anti-Jewish prejudices. The U.S.-based Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has noted negative activity connected with the movie.
Given the significant increase in reported incidents in Canada that the League has documented for 2003, it is evident that the debate over the causes and consequences of antisemitism is far from over.
The unique role that the League’s annual Audit of Antisemitic Incidents plays in reporting on antisemitism in Canada has been widely recognized, as described by Statistics Canada in “Overview of Issues and Data Sources Relating to Hate Crimes”:
“Due to the constancy in definitions and criteria used in determining how incidents are classified and recorded, these statistics may be the best data available on the incidence of hate crimes of a particular category. As a result, these data provide a unique historical record of a particular form of hate activity in Canada ...” i
Authoritative reports from outside Canada also rely heavily on the Audit’s findings as a dependable research tool. This year’s International Religious Freedom Report published by the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, cites the Audit in order to assess the climate of antisemitism in Canada ii. Similarly, the survey Antisemitism Worldwide, which is published by Tel Aviv University’s Stephen Roth Centre for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism and Racism, uses the data from the Audit for its chapter on Canada. iii
Scholarly texts also cite the Audit in discussions of the lack of accurate data on hate crimes and hate-based activity in Canada. In a discussion of the contemporary and future challenges to the Canadian criminal justice system, University of Winnipeg expert Professor Colin Goff, laments “the absence of any national mechanism with which to collect statistics” [on hate crimes], and comments:
“Aside from statistical data gathered by some municipal police forces and human rights groups such as the League for Human Rights of B’nai Brith … no obligatory collection of hate crime statistics currently exists to determine the scope of such activity.” iv
The League’s recommendations on this core problem will follow in section VI.