#jews in canada

[askjumblr]

How are Canada or Ireland like for Jews? More specifically, trans Jews?

Thanks for re-wording anon!

[tweedsmuir-library]

May is Jewish Heritage Month in Canada

Celebrate Jewish Heritage Month in by learning more about the Jewish people, Judaism, and the history and culture of Jews in Canada and around the world. Come down to your School Library to find out more.

[princesserica84]

As a Jewish Canadian, I'm scared.

For anyone who may not know, today at the Toronto Metropolitan University, a number of Pro-Palestine (antisemitic) protestors set up outside the Hillel Centre (which is a centre for Jewish campus life) and were screaming things like "shame". They were verbally aggressive and yelling at the students. They chose this spot because they are blaming these Jewish students for a war they had zero involvement in, for a war on the other side of the world. They are blaming them simply because they are Jewish. This is the definition of antisemitism. And if you are not Jewish, shut the fuck up because you do not get to decide if I am offended as a Jewish person.

If this was towards people of color, or LGBTQ+ people, everyone would be talking about it. But they aren't, and yet it's the same. Let me be perfectly clear:

BLAMING PEOPLE FOR THE WAR IN GAZA SIMPLY BECAUSE THEY ARE JEWISH IS ANTISEMITIC

And yet, this is what those Pro-PalestineHamas protestors are doing. They are just students going to school. What is wrong with people that they think this is okay? Why is it that only Jewish people seem to be talking about this?! Jewish people take up less than 2% of the Canadian population. Why is it that the other 98% is not saying anything?

I'm scared because this country is my home. I'm scared because I know there are people here that hate me because I am Jewish.

I'm scared because the last time Jewish people started being treated this way, 6 million of us were tortured, starved, and gassed to death.

This post is not about Palestine or the war, so please don't yell at me about that. This post is about antisemitism in Canada. This post is to inform you that Jewish people are scared and we are angry that so few Canadians seem to care.

[secular-jew]

[eretzyisrael]

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[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

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[matan4il]

Daily update post:

Another Palestinian terrorist attack today, this time we're talking about a shooter, who opened fire at an Israeli minibus, and managed to injure several people, at least one is critically wounded, and 2 are in serious condition. The terrorist has been neutralized after a 5 hour chase, and his identity has been confirmed. His past includes both having served time in an Israeli prison for terrorist activity, and having served in the Palestinian Authority chief's guard. According to the army, he was using a snipers rifle, and had prepared in advance several organized sniping posts.

Iran, the country which funds at least 3 of the terrorist organizations currently attacking Israel (Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis), and which has directly targeted Israelis as well (through cyber and physical attacks), has had its ambassador summoned over Iran's suspected complicity in the attempted synagogue attack by a German Iranian in 2022.

The US brought a resolution to the UN security council, which suggests an immediate ceasefire AND an immediate releasae of all the Israeli hostages. 11 countries voted for it, only Russia, China and Algeria voted against it. But because Russia and China used their veto, the resolution was rejected. Next time you hear an official from Russia, China or Algeria claim to care about the lives of those in this conflict, please remember they could have saved people on both sides of it (including kidnapped Israelis of Russian or Chinese descent), and chose not to. Russia's excuse for it is especially ludicrous. If Hamas had released the hostages immediately, then Israel would have been obligated by this resolution to cease fire, and then there'd be no operation in Rafah.

After Canada, Sweden and Australia, now Finland has announced that it would renew its financing of UNRWA, the UN agency whose employees are complicit in the Hamas massacre, and in having symbiotic ties to Palestinian terrorist organizations. That's while some countries have never stopped funding UNRWA, and Saudi Arabia has even announced an increase in it. And I will mention each one as often as I can, for their complete disregard of Israeli lives, because this IS a STAIN on the so-called morality of these countries.

Speaking of Canada. The same country happy to continue financing an organization complicit in anti-Israeli terrorism, which shows a complete lack of care for the lives of Israeli civilians, has also been doing a lot of posturing as if it's oh so moral, and therefore will no longer sell weapons to Israel. So here are a few reminders of why it's indeed nothing more than posturing:

As I mentioned, Canada is fine with resuming the funding of UNRWA, without this UN agency being properly investigated, and without any assuraance that the Canadian money going to it, won't end up responsible for the murder of innocent civilians in Israel, including ones with Canadian nationality.

Canada has resumed its sales of military-used systems to Turkey, despite the fact that its known these systems have been used against ethnic Armenians, simply because Turkey agreed to Sweden joining NATO, not because it promised to change in any way its use of these systems.

3. Canada isn't actually selling weapons to Israel, it's selling components for weapons, for an annual worth of about 22 million dollars. Meanwhile, Canada is buying weapon systems from Israel at an annual worth of about a billion dollars.

4. According to Israeli reporters, about 99% of Israel's weapons and weapon components are bought from 3 countries, Canada is not one of them. In other words, Canada's sales to Israel don't make up even 1% of Israeli military imports, and make little relative difference for Israel's ability to continue its war, but it does mean that while Canada says Israel has the right to self-defense, in practice it acts like Israel doesn't, which begs the question, why does the Canadian government think Israeli civilians don't deserve to be militarily defended from a genocidal, antisemitic terrorist organization? (to make the below screenshot clear: it shows the countries Israel has bought munitions from between 2019 and 2023, with Canada being just one of the countries that compose the yellow block of 1% of Israel's puchases. See how well you can spot it)

(here's a screenshot slightly zoomed in on the yellow block, to give you kind of a better view)

I'll add to this that Israel has already dealt in the past with full or partial weapons embargo from the US, France and 3 times from the UK. And Israel's still here, still with one of the strongest armies in the world (because we have no other choice). So yeah, that's how likely this embargo is to make a noticeable difference.

5. Here's an interesting op ed, suggesting that the ban was kind of in place anyway, explaining why Canada was selling so little to Israel in the first place, and that this official ban has more to do with internal Canadian politics, than whether Israel deserves the ban or not.

As US President Biden continues to berate Israel for not conducting our military operations well enough, obviously based on his extensive experience from his many years of not serving in the army, let alone leading one, I got to hear on TV an Israeli expert on our relations with the US reminisce on about the time when Biden was the Vice President, and in 2010 berated Israel for intending to take over a sailing ship by having IDF soldiers propel down ropes onto its deck. "You guys need to come here and learn from us how it should be done," Biden said, according to this expert. Israel took the suggestion seriously, and prepared a delegation of army seniors, ready to fly to Wasngton, meet up with US army seniors, and learn from them. Not long before the plane was about to take off, they got a phone call. "Don't come. Our apologies, but we've checked, and there's no other way our people would do it, either."

This is 22 years old Libby Cohen Meguri (on the left side of the pic) with her mom, Shelly.

On Oct 7, Libby was at the Nova music festival. Together with friends, she was fleeing the scene in a car, when the terrorists got to them. She managed to call her parents, and tell them that one of her friends is dead already, and she's been shot as well. "My biggest regret," Shelly said in a recent interview that I will never forget, "is that I didn't realize it was the end. I was screaming at my husband to do something, to save her, and that's how my daughter died, hearing me screaming instead of hearing me telling her that I love her. I'm not angry with myself for not understanding back then, because the truth is, I still don't understand. But I do regret it. Libby understood that it was the end. She was calm, she asked to talk to each one of us, to tell us all that she loves us. Then another group of terrorists got to the car. Her body was found outside the vehicle, with dozens of bullets in it. Killing her and her friends wasn't enough, they had to desecrate the bodies, too. But I'm not going to let those terrorists take being Libby's mom away from me. We work and do everything for our kids, so that's what I'll continue to do, I'll keep working to make sure that people know her, know who she was as a person. Libby's sister knew her IG password, so we turned her account into a commemoration page. Please, to anyone listening, go and have a look at it. Remember that such a wonderful girl as Libby existed. It would mean everything to us." I found Libby's IG page here.

(for all of my updates and ask replies regarding Israel, click here)

[proudzionist]

This is gross and evil anti semitism and I won't pretend it's not .

This is Jew hatred !

[girlactionfigure]

[my-unorthodox-life]

not to be an angry punk on my love and light blog but FUCK MAN i really can NOT take non-jewish (or jewish adjacent like me) liberals seriously anymore with everything going on. you can tell them that news outlets have admitted to favoring palestine and that people in israel are also being killed and yanno suffering from their country being at war, and bring up hundreds of thousands of examples of antisemitism ALL OVER THE WORLD and how (for us americans) we DONT want to leave despite the election because while it's uncertain safety here we at least have our community and wouldn't be STARTING OVER IN A NEW COUNTRY WHERE ANTISEMITIC VIOLENCE IS WORSE THAN WHERE I'M AT and they'll sit there, with their "i'm a good ally" listening face to all of that just to turn around and say

"well yea but what about gaza? there's no excuse for that"

like there's a fucking excuse for all that israel and jewish people everywhere have been going through these past few years

[lizbethborden]

For some reason I want to do this so. At risk of losing my limited "good Jew" credentials:

1. Jews have historical and genetic ties to the Levant. Pretending we don't is just willful stupidity. Pretending that the Hebrew names for cities in Israel are evil and fake is willful stupidity. Shit's in the damn Bible. People who talk about "indigeneity" re: this issue are trying to utilize a framework that emerged from the study of modern colonized peoples. Meanwhile we have been diasporic and colonized for over 2,000 years and I don't believe that this framework is valuable in this specific instance. So I am simply not going to wade into any part of that, especially bc I have a strong impression that people use the term "indigenous" in purely buzzword fashion on this issue.

2. Jews aren't going anywhere. I'm sorry, but the population of Israel is not going to get up and "go back where they came from," not least because we're talking about multiple generations now that were born in Israel. There is also no "back where they came from" for the Jewish populations of other countries that fled to Israel, much less for the descendants of Holocaust survivors whose homes and property were stolen by gentiles. "Go back to Poland" is hateful, idiotic, and antisemitic. If you wouldn't tell an Italian American dude to "go back to Italy" in the name of US politics you can understand why this is stupid, but with Jews it is a side order of denying our history, which makes it antisemitism.

3. The majority of Jews all over the world believe that we, as a people, are the people of Israel. "Israel" is a collective noun for Jewry and has been for thousands of years. Even Jews who do not believe the state of Israel should exist typically do acknowledge that our culture and history originate there. These beliefs do not come from some "manifest destiny" type thinking. They are historical facts. They're digging ancient stele with Protohebrew on them out of the ground every day in Israel. If you deny any of these legitimate, established historical facts regarding the history of the Jews in Israel, you are an antisemite. Period. This is why many Jewish people consider "antizionists" to just be flat out antisemites, given the rampant misinformation and denial regarding Jewish history in the Levant. This is also why there is broad distrust of "antizionists" as the general antizionist standard is that Jews shouldn't even think of themselves as related to Israel historically.

If you're about to ask me some question or send me some gotcha related to Palestine, please examine that urge and ask yourself why your assumption is that these statements are incompatible with a belief in Palestinian human rights. Ask yourself why the Italian American dude saying his ancestors are from Forli gets a pass from you and you don't make him disavow Mussolini to prove he's not a fascist, but a Jew says their ancestors built Jerusalem and you're suddenly telling them their responsibility is to disavow the atrocities of the IDF to prove they're not a Zionist. Thanks.

[talisidekick]

Canada had a Nazi collaborator invited to sit in on, and honoured in, our House of Commons by the Speaker of the House.

If you don't know how Canada's government works, our House of Commons is where all 338 Members of Parliament (MP's) gather to discuss proposed bills, argue specifics, and vote on passing those bills. It's where our political, economical, and social decisions get made into law. It's kind of the last place you want a Nazi collaborating piece of shit being invited into.

Reasonably, people are pissed, none more than the Jewish community. Yom Kippur is a high holiday of remembrance for the Jewish, and just days after it, having this happen is just ... I want to say un-fucking-forgiveable but that's not a statement that cuts deep enough. I'm not just upset, I'm beyond enraged. Giving these people, Nazi's, any fucking recognition, even on accident, is appalling.

It's for damn good reason that there is now a call for the Deschênes Commission's Report conducted around the 1980's to be declassified and made public. This report was the results on an inquiry on the War Criminals and Nazi collaborators allowed into Canada post WWII. The people, especially our Jewish residents, deserve to know what activities these people were up to.

I'm fully on board with this myself. Why? Well if you can't tell, it's a bit fucking personal. No, a lot fucking personal. Nazi's have shown up to anti-transgender rallies, we've seen Nazi's show up to the truckers rally that happened during COVID. They've openly waved their flag in public. Jewish people, if you happen to pay any attention at all to their online presence and communities, have expressed an increasing fear of how unsafe public life is becoming for them. There is a very real fear of a repeat of events, which is why we fucking cannot give anyone with previous history with the Nazi party the time of day.

The moment a tiny piece of legitimacy is given, and it was given this time with a standing applause, these Nazi bastards will push for more. They will try for more. It's how these bastards work. They'll appropriate anything to give themselves shreds of legitimacy. Canada needs to make a clear fucking point that we do not support them in any way.

Part II of the Deschêntes Commission's report needs to be made public. People deserve to know. The Jewish community deserves to know.

And if it isn't apparent: fuck Nazi's and everything they stand for. Fuck fascists too. Stay the fuck off my blog if you're either. You're not welcome here.

Jewish side of tumblr: if I fuck something up about you or your history, please correct me. Your faith is one of the few I respect in this world.

[deadpanwalking]

My wife’s family also went through the Vienna-Rome pipeline. Did your family also get pressured to move to Israel instead of America by the international aid organizations? She says there is a lot of animosity in Israel for Soviet Jews who didn’t choose to immigrate .

I mean, all Soviet Jews literally had to use Israel’s Law of Return as a pretext in order to leave since going to the US was out of the question, my family included. Despite Jewish communities existing in the European part of Russia since the early medieval period, the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union designated Jews as a nation, and required that they identify themselves on internal passports and legal papers. The rationale was that Jews qualified as a nation rather than just a religion because they were an ethnic group, with shared language (Yiddish), cultural practices, and historical ties that distinguished them from “real” Russians; the reality is that Jews were isolated socially (as well as geographically) and subjected to discrimination, restrictions, and pogroms. We weren’t Russian Jews so much as Jews who lived in Russia.  Do you see where I’m going with this? 

Lenin—correctly—disparaged Zionism as bourgeois nationalist ideology, but thanks to centuries of antisemitism, this played perfectly into the preexisting concept of Jews as a nation and complemented centuries of antisemitism in Europe.  As such, they were presumed to be inherently Zionist, disloyal, and counterrevolutionary (on the heels of being presumed to be Communist radicals plotting a Revolution against the Tsar).  Under Communism, all Jews were ostensibly granted full rights as Soviet citizens, and antisemitic restrictions on movement and professions were officially lifted but categorizing Jews as a distinct nationality allowed the state to better regulate Jewish life and manage the "Jewish question" in Soviet society. It facilitated antisemitic policies around population registration, migration, and designated us as targets for civilian and state-sponsored violence.

Soviet Jews were not allowed to emigrate until after The Six-Day War in 1967, then the restrictions were lifted slightly after both international orgs and countries in the West put pressure on Russia to let its Jews, who had lived there for over a millennium, make Aliyah to their “real” ancestral homeland, a country formed less than 20 years prior, in a region which their actual ancestors hadn’t set foot in since before the destruction of the Second Temple. This way, the Soviet Union didn’t even have to admit that its Jews were fleeing from political and religious repression, they were simply “repatriating” and reuniting with their heritage.

Anyway, in order to secure the exit visa, you had to get a vyzov (formal invitation letter) from a “family member” in Israel—this could be literally anyone, ours came via a random guy my dad met via the shortwave radio thing he did.  That vyzov got Soviet Jews as far as Vienna, and then all bets were off. There, Soviet Jews were given the first actual choice in their adult lives: where they wanted to live.  At Vienna station, we were met by a lot of different agencies that could help us get where we wanted to go—the big ones were HIAS, JDC, and Nativ (the Israeli liaison bureau). There was pressure from Nativ to make Aliyah in that it was incentivized: we could leave directly for Israel from Vienna instead of moving to Rome to deal with the American immigration process, we would be granted full citizenship on entry, there was government funding for programs specifically designated for Soviet olim ("those [Jews] who ascended") that could help with everything from transportation to immediate housing, education, and employment service, etc.  The derisive name they had for families like mine and your wife’s was “noshrim” (dropouts), we were seen as abandoning the mission of Aliyah and undermining the Jewish state, since Israel had invested considerable diplomatic and financial resources to secure emigration for more settlers vulnerable refugees—by choosing the US, we really were, as the Russians had always said, disloyal and rootless.

[secular-jew]

What are these ingrate Islamists doing in Canada? Have they been arrested?

[eretzyisrael]

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[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]