transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:05] Hi, everybody. Welcome to a new episode of Ask Haviv Anything. Thank you for joining us. Today, we're going to take a look at Canadian Jews. The Jews of Canada are going through what is probably an unprecedented wave of anti-Semitic attacks. I mean, shootings at synagogues, things we haven't seen before, things that a lot of Canadian Jews are telling us they can't remember ever experiencing. And a government that many are saying isn't protecting them, isn't present, isn't doing what it needs to do. We're going to dive today not just into the present, but into the history of Canadian Jews. When did Jews come to Canada? What brought them? What's different about Canadian Jews when compared to people who speak a very similar English to them, which is American Jews, but nevertheless, they live in a culture that's very different in many ways. And then finally, why has the situation in Canada soured? Why are they experiencing this wave? What exactly is happening? A lot of people hear occasionally the news reports, but we don't actually know much about this community, even if we think we're talking to them, even if Canadian Jews are Hollywood actors that we learn to love. Our guest today to talk about all these issues, what's happening to Canadian Jews is Dr. Casey Babb, the Director of the Promise Land Project with the MacDonald-Laurier Institute in Ottawa, an International Fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv, a fellow with the Royal United Services Institute in London, England. He's one of Canada's foremost experts on confronting the hatred of Jews. He is well-published also. Listeners to this podcast might know his byline from the Wall Street Journal, from the Free Press and elsewhere. Before we get into it, I want to tell you that this episode was sponsored by Josh Sheptow, and is dedicated to the memory of Amnon Zilberspitz. Amnon was taken to the extermination camp at Auschwitz at age 20, with his brother and sister. He's the only one who survived the war. After the war, he arrived in 1947 at Kibbutz Dorot. On the Kibbutz he met Sara, the love of his life. A brief time after the War of Independence broke out, Amnon enlisted to fight. He was the last of his family when he fell in the Battle of Beit Guvrin at the tender age of 24. May we be worthy of Amnon and of all those who gave the only life they had to make the miracle of Israel possible. You can learn more about Amnon in a video by Ofer Winter and Shimon Engel, produced by the Dov Abramson Studio for the Beit Avichai Memorial Project, which we will include in the show notes. Thank you very much for that sponsorship and for that dedication. I'd also like everyone to join our Patreon community if you like what we do here. If you're interested in asking the questions that guide the topics we talk about, that's where you ask those questions. There's a great discussion forum there where I and listeners have been talking about episodes, the news of the day, sharing resources, and you get to take part in our monthly live streams where I answer your questions live. We have a great time there. Please join us at www.patreon.com/askhavivanything. That link is also in the show notes. Casey, how are you?

Speaker 2:
[03:21] Good, Haviv. How are you?

Speaker 1:
[03:24] I'm good. I want to start this by just saying, even most engaged Jews outside of Canada don't really know much about what's happening to Jews in Canada right now. I have interacted with the Montreal Federation and a wonderful educational project that they're leading. I've interacted with Jewish communities and actually visited in Vancouver and elsewhere a couple of times, and that has opened a window for me into a world I really didn't know about. But Canadian Jews are so similar in so many externalized ways to American Jews that they didn't realize how much I didn't realize. I didn't know that I didn't know. Besides the news reports about a violent protest in Toronto or the unbelievable shootings at synagogues over the last two years, I want to get into that. That's really important. And I'm so glad you agreed to come on the podcast and we can talk about that. But first, let's take a step back, bring us up to speed on who this Jewish community is. It's a quarter million Jews we are not familiar with. I hope that number is relatively correct. Can you tell us where this Jewish community comes from, who they are, how they're different maybe from American Jews? Just so that we're all on the same page when we start to talk about what it is that they're going through.

Speaker 2:
[04:41] Yeah, of course. First of all, thanks for having me. I love the show and I'm a big fan of your work. So on the number quarter million, it's actually probably a little bit higher than 400,000. And so the Jewish population of Canada is one of the largest Jewish populations in the world. I think it's the fourth largest after Israel, the United States, France and then Canada, I believe. And the Jewish experience in Canada, as you noted, is very similar to the US experience in a number of ways. And you feel this and you can sense this even today, as you alluded to. But it's different in other ways as well. And the evolution of Jewish life in Canada has been different, in particular, in a few ways that are very distinctly Canadian. And we'll get into that. But when people think of Jews in Canada, I think the average person probably thinks that, you know, Jews started coming here after the Holocaust. And that is true to a certain extent. But the largest number of Jews, while they did start coming here, you know, at the beginning of the Holocaust, in the 30s and following the Holocaust, Canada's Jewish population here actually goes back to the 17th and 18th century. And we are actually among the oldest ethnic groups in the country. And that's not talked about very often. And again, while people probably think that Jews came to Canada because they were, you know, running from something, I'd argue that in large part they were actually running to something, you know, to an opportunity. You know, the earliest Jews in Canada, you know, they were merchants, they were explorers, they were orphans, they were fishermen, they were traders, they were military supply contractors. And this kept up for decades. And really, there was a tremendous orientation of Canada's Jewish population in those earliest years towards trade and commerce, something we still see today. And because of that, you know, you can look at the contingent of people that were part of the British Army and their capture of Quebec City in 1759. And forgive me, I might get my dates wrong, and Montreal in 1760. So there were Jews that were part of that as well. So this is really a storied history that we're talking about. And, you know, before the synagogues, the massive synagogues, before real community building, you know, before the dreams of our ancestors sort of materialized, there were just individual Jews here. And you can read about them, just as you can, you know, with the Israeli experience, with the US experience, just individual names that you will come across in the literature. Who came here in the British Americas that became part of the Dominion of Canada, who were, generally speaking, just, you know, trying to make it. And...

Speaker 1:
[07:51] Can I ask, in America, you see these waves. So you have the very, very early Jews, colonial Jews, pre-colonial Jews, really the first Jews in the early 1600s that meet Peter Stuyvesant, the governor of New York under the Dutch, right? There's a couple dozen Jews there, but then you get this big wave of German Jews in the middle of the 19th century, and then the enormous wave of millions in the 1880s through 1910s. Does Canada follow that same model? In other words, as Jews are fleeing west from the pogroms, is that what the bulk of Canadian Jewry is, is that what the bulk of American Jewry demographically really is?

Speaker 2:
[08:30] I think that's fair to say, yeah, in large part. But you were talking about unknowns and what we don't know, or what you don't know at the beginning of the top of the show. Because of the flows of people, the migration patterns, even cross-border flows of people for relationship building, looking for a spouse, some of the earliest Jews in Canada were just single guys who wanted to marry Jewish women. There were no Jewish women, so they were going to places like Philadelphia or New York, or they're going to Britain. Because of these sorts of things, trade flows, there's a lot that we don't know. You'll hear that when you talk to Jewish families. They'll say, well, my Babi or my Zadie came from here, but they were originally in this part. It gets a little murky. But yes, generally speaking, I think that part of the American experience is very similar to the Canadian experience.

Speaker 1:
[09:29] So characterize for us the relationship today. One of the interesting parts of my experience with the Montreal community was that they were writing a history curriculum for schools that will be out or has been to some degree finished. I don't know exactly where it stands. And one of the challenges the Montreal community had in writing a history curriculum for the Jewish day schools is a beautiful one, which is that they had a Sephardi school and a Ashkenazi school and a religious school and a Bundist sort of secularist school and who the heck are Canadian Jews just sociologically, culturally? How diverse are they? Are they as liberal as American Jews, less liberal? Just tell us sort of lay out for us the lay of the land of this community.

Speaker 2:
[10:17] Well, I think it's a really diverse community in some ways. And again, very similar to America and the US. Jewish population. And I'll answer that question in a minute. But just to situate things a little bit for the viewer, and I think this could be an interesting way for people to conceptualize the Jewish experience and the evolution of that experience, is I would maybe break down the Jewish experience in Canada into three to four periods in time. What I've talked about already would be sort of what I characterize as the years of exploration and new beginnings. Not necessarily unlike America's experience with the Jewish population. Then the years leading up to the Holocaust and surrounding the Holocaust on either end, years of rejection and renewal. Then we have what our grandparents and maybe some of our parents experienced and were brought up in. It's the golden era of conditional Jewish living. Key emphasis on the word conditional. Then Haviv, and we'll get into this of course, the modern period of Jewish life in Canada, which certainly didn't begin on October 7th, but which became well-known and very much realized on the afternoon of October 7th, 2023. That is what I would call the era which we're living in now of remembrance and retreat. Some of this is very much connected to what you're asking me about who are the Jews of Canada. We're very similar to the US Jews. If we were American, we would probably be mostly Democrats. We are mostly Ashkenazi. There is, of course, a spectrum of people who are, I was brought up in a Bagels and Seinfeld house, but I'll go speak at synagogues or community events and meetings where it's, the Orthodox community, very Orthodox. So there is a spectrum there. But what's interesting, and this goes back to one of the waves of Jewish experience, you mentioned Montreal. That was one of the things that is, if you look at the literature on the experience of Canadian Jews, one of the great things that is distinct in terms of Canada's experience and the American experience, and I don't mean great in terms of it being good, I mean it being significant, is French-Canadian nationalism and the presence of the French Catholic Church and what that meant for the Jewish experience in Montreal. So there are huge differences, though.

Speaker 1:
[13:12] I'm sorry, what did it mean? How are Montreal's Jewish experience, how is it different from Toronto or Vancouver?

Speaker 2:
[13:22] Well, very different in the sense that the Quebec dimension is unique, not just in terms of Canada, but in terms of most other Jews in the world. The presence of a very large and powerful French Catholic society. This created a dynamic where there is no American equivalent. Quebec nationalists in the early 20th century really quite frequently embraced explicitly anti-Semitic rhetoric. And in fact, Jewish children-

Speaker 1:
[13:58] Drawn from France, drawn from Vichy France? Or where does it come from? Why would they be so different than Anglophone Canadians in this regard?

Speaker 2:
[14:08] Well, then we're getting into a larger conversation of Quebec nationalism, dreams of Quebec sovereignty, the history of French Canadians. But I can tell you, for instance, that Jewish children in Montreal faced a very bizarre legal situation where they were classified neither as Protestant nor Catholic for school board purposes. And so this led to separate Jewish schools and really generating decades of legal battles. So the experience, it's almost for want of a better way of framing it, like a state within a state. And so that experience for Jews in Quebec has been one of the most unique things that separates the Canadian Jewish experience from the American Jewish experience.

Speaker 1:
[15:02] Would you, so, you know, American Jews got this promise at the founding of America in this letter by Washington, but also generally from the founders, where they were basically told, be a loyal citizen and you are one of us. Because America was founded without a state religion and there was in a very individualistic society. And that promise, it was often held up. It was not fulfilled. Goodness knows America had problems with minorities and integration and racism and all of that. But by and large, over the long arc of Canadian, excuse me, American history, the promise was fulfilled. That's the great story. The great story is that American Jews are more integrated than any Jews had ever been anywhere in the history of Jews, probably. I mean, I can't literally tell you that that's true of every, you know, I don't know what kingdom in what became Iraq, right? But basically, that is the basic truth of American Jews. Are Canadian Jews part of that story of deep integration and acceptance? Or are they different? Are they more of a European story? Where do Canadian Jews stand? Are they more like the story of Europe? Are they more like the story of the US.? How integrated does the average Canadian Jew feel? And maybe it's different in Quebec from everywhere else. But what is that experience of being a Canadian Jew?

Speaker 2:
[16:27] I think this is really at the heart of this latest era of Jewish living that I reference, which I'm particularly interested in is people are starting to really question their place in this country, to what level they've been accepted. Has it been an illusion or have they been delusional this whole time? I would argue that to a certain extent, we have been. So I think Haviv is probably a mix of a bit of both the flavor of America and Europe. When we talk about the differences between the two countries, if you look at Jewish immigration to both Canada and the US, the Jewish population of America grew far faster and far larger than Canada's. And by the early 20th century, as you know, cities like New York had Jewish communities that numbered into the hundreds of thousands. We're only at that point now in Canada, and we're talking about the whole country. And so with that, there came all these cultural ecosystems. There became political influence. There became newspapers and theaters and labor movements and synagogues. And really, the Jewish spirit became part of America's identity. And you can see this everywhere from pop culture to within the great institutions that sort of underpin the United States. Here, we have that but to a much smaller extent. Our communities in places where they're very concentrated, like Montreal, Toronto, Winnipeg, significant impact, of course, but that cultural output, that political influence is much less. And so I think a lot of that is really coming to the forefront of the Jewish psyche after October 7th, because we were already a minority. And now we're becoming even more of a minority because of things like immigration. And we don't have that strong sort of presence in terms of the national identity and being part of the fabric of the country in the same way or to the same extent that you see in the United States.

Speaker 1:
[19:06] So let's get into it. On October 7th, we began to see in Canada the same way we saw in London and New York and elsewhere in the West, mass protests. Some of the protests were about, we've talked about this ad nauseam, about Palestinians, about occupation, about war. A lot of the protests and a lot of the people who drove the core activists, who drove a lot of the protests and organized them, were much, much more radical, much more concerned about Jewish community, much more committed to a kind of vision of anti-Zionism that would see Israel eradicated and see every Jew who might support Israel, simply because it's half the Jews, be shamed and excluded from society for that feeling, for the feeling of belonging to that larger Jewish community. All of that happened all at once. What was October 7 like in Canada? Can you maybe compare and contrast to what it would have been like in the United States or London as much as you're aware. But what did it feel like to be Canadian on October 7? I'm not talking about the Jewish response to what's happening to the Jews in Israel. I mean, in Canada among Canadians, what was that experience?

Speaker 2:
[20:22] Well, I mean, this ties in very well to what we've been discussing in terms of numbers and influence and cultural output and our presence in the country relative to what we see in the United States. The experience for Jews Haviv in Canada, and I think this could be said, potentially to a lesser extent in the United States, the experience was really one characterized by a combination of horror, profound isolation and loneliness and a profound sense of betrayal. Because the reaction outside of the Jewish community ranged from everything from nuanced characterizations of the mass rape, murder and kidnapping of Jews as something that should be contextualized as just sort of a natural outgrowth or reaction to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. So it went from everything from being, well, this is just another sort of flare up to outright celebrations. And we saw this with protests, quote unquote pro-Palestinian protests, which really gave off very serious pre-Pogrom vibes in cities like Ottawa and Toronto and Vancouver and Montreal. I mean, we're talking about people taking to the streets on October 7th. So, it was really a spectrum of almost justifying it in a very sort of highbrow sort of way in universities and in the media to just frankly barbarically celebrating it. And for the Jew in Canada, probably the most painful period, and it continues to a certain extent to this day, in a generation. But just a combination of shock and horror and real deep, deep loneliness.

Speaker 1:
[22:36] One of the things that we've seen, one of the things that I've learned from your writing on this is that October 7 saw a spike, a massive spike of anti-Semitic incidents, some of it genuine outright brutal violence, a huge amount of it online abuse. And we're now talking about, I fundamentally disagree with the Netanyahu government, or even accusations that the war in Gaza was, was war crime or genocide or anything like that. I'm talking about Jews are evil, Jews are a conspiracy to take over the world. How dare the Jews need to be kicked out of Canada. Explicit anti-Semitism that we can't pretend is something else. All of that spiked massively and never returned to the old baseline. It spiked and it stayed high and it remains high to this day. And there is data on this where 2024, 2023 was the first spike, 2024 was higher, 2025 was higher still. That's true in Jewish numbers, neighborhood Canada numbers. That's true in police numbers. Again, I learned this from, I think you've written about this for the FP. It just, it's not going down and it's not going down. And Jewish communities are now, I actually, you know what, let me read a couple of sentences that you wrote about this and just have you tell us how much this reflects the lived reality of ordinary Canadian Jews. And, you know, we're going to get emails and I would like to get emails. People tell me this is way too far. It's not that bad. Or people telling me this is exactly what I've experienced. You wrote, Menorahs are lit in the back of the house, not in the front, on Hanukkah, Hanukkiyot in other words. Judaica, including necklaces and kippahs, are left on nightstands. Mezuzahs are taken down from doorposts. Hebrew is whispered if it is spoken in public at all families. Now routinely skip services at synagogues for fear of violence. A woman recently told me that she has reverted to using her maiden name because it sounds less Jewish and that friends of hers are doing the same. Casey, it doesn't have to be 100 percent. I mean, no experience Jews go through is 100 percent. Ten percent of the Jews are part of the anti-Zionist protest, not noticing that they are walking in a line with anti-Semites. Is this the experience of half, of 40 percent, of 80 percent? Is this the experience of a significant group of Jews in Canada?

Speaker 2:
[25:05] This is definitely the experience of a large number of Jews in Canada. I would say of the majority of Jews in Canada. Now, what I have picked up on in the last couple of years is that there is a gap between what we might consider to be the Orthodox community who have created a community for themselves. Let's say we go to Toronto and you go north of Toronto, all of a sudden you're driving along and it's like, oh, where am I right now? I mean, it almost feels like you're in Israel, like you're in a Jewish part of town that numbers in the tens of thousands, where it is a predominantly Jewish part of the city. Are they feeling all of these things the same way that, say, Jews who are scattered throughout maybe the urban cores of Toronto and Montreal and other cities are feeling? Maybe not, you know, this is just a sort of anecdotal bit of information, but very shortly after October 7th, this is probably in the winter of 2024, maybe the spring of 2024. I went out for coffee with a Jewish friend of mine, you know, Orthodox Jew, modern Orthodox, however you want to describe this person. And I said to this person, you know, things are really, really bad. You must be really, really worried, worried about your kids. What have you been experiencing? How are you feeling? And the attitude, the response was sort of, are things that bad? So there was a bit of a disconnect there because this person lives in a Jewish neighborhood surrounded by Jews. So there could be some difference there in terms of what people are feeling, everybody is acutely aware of this. And still, despite that, I would say, the majority of Jews are feeling this way. And this is exactly what I was talking about when I characterized the current era of Jewish living as being one of remembrance and retreat. Because for the last two and a half years, and it's hard to believe that we're going to be at three years before we know it, Jews have been reminded of the fact that they're Jews in this country. And with that comes a certain place on the totem pole. And with that comes a certain level of conditionality. They've been reminded that they're Jews, and because of that, they are retreating inward. And you can feel this. Those examples that I provided in the free press, those are real examples. And Haviv, I talk with Jews literally every day across the country, and I speak to audiences in person across the country. I just spoke in my hometown of Halifax last month. And you know what this is like. You go speak at a live event, and you're there to speak about a specific topic. But people will stand up in the audience, and they will just let it out. And it's just the emotions are flowing, and you can tell that this has been pent up, and they're talking to you about something that you're not even really there to talk about. They're just letting it out. And that happens with me every time. When I was in Halifax, a young man stood up in the back of the room, and he said, I can't do this anymore. I feel like I'm just pouring from an empty cup. There was a nurse who stood up and said, I have to hide my identity at the hospital when I'm working. When people ask me where my accent is from, she's Israeli-Canadian. She doesn't tell them. She doesn't let the star of David slip out of her shirt. People are saying that they don't know what this country is anymore, because it's certainly not the country, and you hear this all the time, Haviv, that our grandparents helped build and that our mothers and fathers grew up in 30, 40, 50 years ago. Totally different country today than it was not long ago.

Speaker 1:
[29:20] Who are the perpetrators? Before we sat down to do this, I looked up hate crime data from Canadian police. Jewish organizations have reported something like 6,800 incidents in 2025, three times 2022 levels. That includes the bulk of it, 90 percent of it is online, although almost 100 incidents are violent incidents, and as we mentioned, there were three shootings at synagogues, targeting synagogues. But one of the interesting thing that came up, and the police record many, many less incidents than Jewish organizations. But even in police data, Jews are the most frequently targeted religious group in Canadian hate crime statistics, targeted more than anybody else, anybody else who they're progressives, have an ideological commitment to care about, or than anybody else. The perpetrators in the police data, they're overwhelmingly male. Most of the time, the police won't record details about who the perpetrators are, which to me is amazing and also striking. But when they have identity recorded, they're overwhelmingly male, they're overwhelmingly young, teens into the 30s. A lot of these cases, what's really fascinating is I can't find statistics for who is doing this beyond that they're young and male. In other words, the police in Canada don't record ideology, they don't record ethnicity, they don't record how much of it is coming from Muslim immigrant communities, which is a phenomenally important question because there's a lot of anti-Semitism in a lot of Muslim countries. Is that being imported or is most of the anti-Semitism that Jews are experiencing in these huge spikes part of white progressive politics? Or is this far-right anti-Semitism, which historically was the major driver of anti-Semitism in Canada back when it was in its lower amounts over the generations. I can't find in Canadian data where the anti-Semitism is coming from. I don't even know how much it's about October 7, how much it's about progressive ideologies, how much it's about immigration, how much it's about any of that. Can you enlighten us, who's doing this unbelievable explosion of anti-Semitic incidents to the point where a Canadian Jew cannot go online and express themself as a Canadian Jew without facing anti-Semites? Who's doing it, as far as you can tell?

Speaker 2:
[31:58] I'm so glad that you asked this question and I know many, many people who are going to watch this, who are going to go, thank God that he asked that. Because this is one of the major issues that the community is feeling today. And one of the issues that is really affecting and polluting the Canadian experience for Jews and non-Jews alike. In Canada, we are intoxicated by a myth. And that myth is that our identity is to accept everyone of all persuasions in their entirety. And all of that diversity is our strength, even if that diversity and those characteristics are completely at odds with our values and the institutions that we've created in Canada. Immigration is good, therefore more immigration is better. And this is at the heart of the problem. So, that's a roundabout way of saying, you're asking a question that you almost aren't allowed to ask in Canada, because we have destructive levels of tolerance in this country. To answer the question as clearly as I can, Haviv, most of the anti-Semitism in this country, which is really linked to a deep and profound issue that we have here with extremism, with Islamic extremism. I would say Islamism in Canada is probably as bad, if not worse here in Canada than it is in most other Western countries in the world. Most of the anti-Semitism is coming from the Muslim community, as well as this sort of progressive community that you've mentioned. And both of them, both of those camps right now have found a home and some comfort within each other's ideological camps. And of course, that will run out in time when they inevitably, eventually eat each other in one way or another. But right now, it is those two camps, a camp of really Islamic extremists, which is not a significant number of people, sorry, not an insignificant number of people, combined with sort of this progressive ideology that is rooted in anti-Zionism. So it's all of them. But all of this is tied to our identity crisis. We don't know who we are as a country. We, like I said, we have this real acute sense of suicidal empathy. And people here are petrified, petrified to be labeled something. People in Canada are more afraid to be labeled something than they are of what's happening to our country. Because if you talk about these things, you could be labeled bigoted or racist or, God forbid, the worst of the worst, Islamophobic. And that's why the issue is not going away, Haviv, because no one feels like they can talk about it. Even our Jewish-

Speaker 1:
[35:20] That extends to police data? I'll just be specific about this. The Montreal Synagogue, Beth Tikva firebombing in December 2024. And the same synagogue was attacked just after October 7th. And a young man was arrested, 19 years old, first name Muhammad. Now, in other cases, like the Jewish school shootings in 2024 in Toronto, there were two arrests, a 17-year-old and a 20-year-old. I can't find their names. And you might say you'd withhold the name of a minor. Why would you withhold the name of a 20-year-old who shot at a Jewish school? And you go through and the police won't classify, won't give- Why is immigration status not fundamental to knowing what the heck is happening with crime? Why is this not a policy question? We're going through the major things, right? The synagogue hate crimes, I mean, the arson, the shootings. There's a 32-year-old man charged in multiple attacks. We don't have names. Media won't- Police won't release names. When police do release names, not every media report is willing to run the name. This is a level of suicidal empathy, as you called it. I mean, in American progressive spaces, they'll still mention and then they'll grapple with it and feel guilty about it. But the name is published. We don't know who's doing this because there's literally a kind of commitment in Canada not to talk about it. Am I crazy or is this like-

Speaker 2:
[36:53] No, this is a real issue.

Speaker 1:
[36:54] I can't find these. Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[36:56] Yeah. This is a real issue and people are starting to talk about it more. There's still a great hesitation and fear about talking about these issues. But really, the matter of it being miners or not, there are legalities surrounding whether or not you can release a miner's name. But I will say this, the fact that we're seeing so many miners involved with these incidents, Canada's spy agency has come out and talked about the fact that there is a not insignificant number of miners who are now becoming increasingly involved with extremism and the terrorism-related attacks that have been thwarted here, thank God. But really, to answer your question, we don't talk about names and ethnicities and religion of the perpetrators of these crimes. Because if we did, we would then have to admit that something's wrong. Not just with sort of the national ethos of welcome everybody as they are, and we're all just going to be one big happy family. But at the individual level, people who have for decades have considered themselves to be progressive or accepting of everybody or liberal or left-leaning. If they really own this particular issue, which is connected to actually intolerance, terrible public policy, and so on and so forth, they then will find themselves grappling with who they are, and what their belief system is, and they will have their own period of remembrance and potentially retreat. That is what they're most afraid of. Like I said earlier.

Speaker 1:
[38:45] Why, maybe I'm crazy, maybe I'm Israeli, maybe those are synonyms. Why is a contradiction to be welcoming of everybody, right up until a community arises in your country? It could be centered on a mosque, it could be centered on a church, it could happen to Jews, it could happen to anybody, but wherever it happens, where you have radicalization to the point of mass violence and terrorism, why isn't it part of a policy of welcoming everybody to crack down massively and with clear eyes and clear heads on that kind of a phenomenon? In other words, to me, welcoming everybody is noble. I don't change Canada. But if you have a serious Islamist network radicalizing young people to open fire on schools, and you don't crack down on that, you know what that's going to do? That's going to hurt your ability to be open to everybody in the future. This is self-demolishing of the progressive political space. What they're doing to Jews now, they'll learn to do to everybody else. I'm sorry for the stupid question. Why is this hard? Why is this hard? Why can Canadian media not publish the exact names, exact identities, conduct serious investigative journalism, find the mosque where these people are radicalized, or the Reddit channel where these people are radicalized, or the Twitter feed where these people are, and have a serious conversation about what's going on? Schools are being shot at, synagogues are being shot at. It's not one incident, it's not three, it's not five, it's not 10 at this point. When does this become something that Canadian police, Canadian authorities, the Canadian prime minister, while he's busy visiting China, actually deals with in a serious way?

Speaker 2:
[40:36] Well, I don't think that's a stupid question at all. I think that's a question that millions of Canadians are asking, and they're not finding an answer in that. Not everybody is thinking about these issues in that way. And like I said, while many people are scratching their heads about all this and going, why wasn't the name of the individual released, even though they're not a minor? Why do we have to ask for that? Why is leadership not coming out and taking a clear, unequivocal stance on combating this hatred? And addressing an issue in the Muslim community, which is in your face. You can't ignore it. And Douglas Murray, he's a lot more clear spoken than I am. He's a lot more eloquent than I am. But he spoke on a talk show, I think in the UK, that even a small segment of that population, if we say it's 1% or 5% or 8% or 10%, even if that is the segment of that population that is really a threat to Jews and non-Jews alike or to any community, you got a hell of a problem on your hands. But again, this goes back to our identity crisis. We're afraid to talk about these things. And then we're also dealing with, and this goes back to the Canadian Jewish experience and just differences between Canada and the United States. Another issue here that's, and I talked about this on a podcast with the Free Press, is we deal with settler colonialism and that idea here in a way that's not as pronounced in America. And so, we wanna take these issues seriously, but at the same time, we're doing land acknowledgments before graduation ceremonies at universities, before virtually every major government meeting, before political conventions begin, before the national anthem is played.

Speaker 1:
[42:38] So, Casey, I want you to take me a step back. Land acknowledgments are fine. I mean, my problem with land acknowledgments is that they cost nothing. And if it costs nothing, you're not actually doing anything. I'm okay, I'm okay with this whole Canadian discourse on settler colonialism. I'm okay with the Canadian grappling with the way the Native Canadians, First Nations were treated. We all have read about it. It's all what it is and genuinely horrible and despicable. And it's good that Canada is learning and thinking about it. If you have right now criminal organization in Canada, and you are culturally incapable of looking it squarely in the eye, what is that? Again, it can't be about land acknowledgments. Muslim immigrants are not land acknowledgments. Far-right extremists are not land acknowledgments. Progressives who are so progressive that they're violent against Jews. That edge of that movement is not land acknowledgment. Erwin Cutler is a Canadian Jew I have known for many, many years, admired for many years, interviewed as a journalist, author of Canada's Bill of Rights basically, who always talked about Canada as a place that knew how to balance these things. Now I see a Canada that doesn't know how to balance these things. It's gone over the deep end with land acknowledgments. Again, I'm a big fan of land acknowledgments if they also amount to real actual benefit to the people you're acknowledging. If they don't, I don't trust you. But it's gone over the deep end in one direction doing that. And on the other direction, there are shootings at synagogues full of people. Some of the attacks on these schools, on these Jewish schools were done at night. There was no one in the school. Some of the shootings at the synagogues, the synagogues were full. They were on Shabbat. People could have died. If people had died, what? Then the Canadian Prime Minister would have pulled this. What the Australian Prime Minister had to start doing after Bondi Beach, going to the hospitals, but refusing to meet the Jewish victims because they didn't want the press and you don't want them yelling at. It's all stupid, petty, cowardly politics while a violent thing is brewing. Where is this incapacity coming from? I'm yelling at literally the last guy on earth who is at fault for this. I apologize. But it's a stand in at the moment for the entirety of Canadian civilization. How are they so bad at this? What's the problem? What's the concern? What's the fear? If there is a Muslim problem, why isn't the Muslim community desperate to root it out? It's going to hurt Muslims more than it hurts anybody else. What's the problem with getting to the bottom of this?

Speaker 2:
[45:09] Well, I mean, there's so much there to get into. It's not a small insignificant problem within the Muslim community and you raise an excellent question. Where were the protests, the counter protests from the Muslim community in Canada saying, We do not condone any of this. What happened on October 7th, what's happened to Canadian Jews in this country since October 7th, it is not us. It doesn't represent us. We're totally against it. There hasn't been one.

Speaker 1:
[45:35] There hasn't been one. They've been silent?

Speaker 2:
[45:36] Silent.

Speaker 1:
[45:37] The Muslim leadership has been silent on all of this?

Speaker 2:
[45:39] Silent, silent.

Speaker 1:
[45:40] Shootings at schools and synagogues?

Speaker 2:
[45:41] Silent. And if they haven't been silent, you know, there could be, I'm sure there would be somebody that watches this and says, well, did you see the press release that was released by so-and-so?

Speaker 1:
[45:53] The one decent imam and they exist and they're wonderful and we love them, but are they representative?

Speaker 2:
[45:59] Yeah, or the one association that no one knows about in the country, or that gets no airtime, or that's never in front of the podium, or that's never on the TV. Yeah, I'm sure it's those ones that came out and have spoke out against all of these things. But to the land acknowledgments, it's not the land acknowledgments, Haviv, it's that we're teaching people two things at once. One, that we have to be welcoming of everybody and all of them, and that we're a post-nation state, which the former prime minister said, I believe in the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal, 10 years ago, which is really, that's an issue that we're grappling with here. So we're teaching people, let everybody in, all of them, doesn't matter what they're like, we're tolerant of everybody. Not only are we looking at people who want to come here and deliberately harm us and our allies, and saying, that's fine, come on in as you are, we'll accept you, we're all good. We're not going to make an issue out of any of this. It's not just that we're doing that, we're actually holding the door open for them and saying, come on in. And then at the same time, we're teaching our children, we're teaching this generation of people that, the house that you live in, you probably don't deserve to live in, the land that you live in or live on is not your land, it never has been and never will be. And that the sins of your ancestors are your sins too. It's why we play land acknowledgments before the National Anthem. How are people supposed to have pride in anything? Why would people be incentivized to fight for something? If we're killing them, it's not worth fighting for in the first place. So it's all of that, it's the immigration, it's our identity crisis, and it's people, a lot of people, millions of people, being afraid to talk about these things. Because we've taught them that the worst thing in the world that you can be labeled is racist or bigoted or intolerant or Islamophobic. And people are more afraid of that than they are of their grandchildren having to move out of this country for a better place.

Speaker 1:
[48:01] But not anti-Semitic. Somehow it didn't fit into that category of things you can't be.

Speaker 2:
[48:07] Well, I mean, people here, the average person, I don't think understands anti-Semitism. And now we're getting into this murky area of anti-Zionism. People, the average person, they don't know about any of these things. And part of that-

Speaker 1:
[48:21] Shootings at synagogues, shootings at schools.

Speaker 2:
[48:24] I think the attitude is largely, you know, whatever, it's crime, it's this, it's that, it's part of the Arab-Jewish conflict, it's enduring conflict, you know, it's an indifference. I think there's some delusion there. I think there's some denial as well. And then there's also just not knowing and not understanding it. And so it's a combination of things, Haviv, but right now we're left with this really, really toxic environment. And, you know, at all levels, including the Jewish organizations, right? And this is key. And if you're listening to this and you work at one of the big Jewish organizations, don't start with me, OK? Maybe do your job and fight back against the madness instead of, you know, texting me or emailing me about what I'm about to say. None of the Jewish organizations, no politicians, no anybody asks the question publicly and talks about the question publicly that you asked. Who is responsible for the anti-Semitism? None of them talk about the Muslim community. None of them talk about the Arab community. None of them talk about the progressive community and the sickness that's crept in in that community in terms of anti-Semitism and intolerance, paradoxically. And so my question to all people who are out there, who are part of the Thoughts and Prayers crowd, is how the hell are we going to make anti-Semitism a part of the past, a part of history? How are we going to fight back against it if we can't have honest and open conversations about it? We have to start there.

Speaker 1:
[50:02] Is there data on anti-Semitism in different communities in Canada? Is it polled? We have, there are pupils in the United States that poll Blacks and Catholics and Protestants and Hispanics and Muslims, all these different kinds of groups. They subdivide, they section and we actually can see and learn a great deal. I have had conversations with Black friends and Black leaders in America even, about Black anti-Semitism, and they look at these numbers and they say, yeah, problem is there. We're having a conversation about it because the hard data is public. From Pew, from Gallup, you can't run away from it. Is there such data for Canada? It's not easy to find. I didn't do a PhD research project on this, but it's not available. You can go to your favorite AI. I think JetGPD has replaced Google for me because Google searches are so terrible now. I'll search there and then I'll search another one just in case the one first AI I start with is hallucinating and it's not available. It's not easy to find. No, it's not there. Is there data like that? Do you know levels of anti-Semitism among the Muslim community in Canada or other immigrant communities or anything of that sort or the far right in Canada?

Speaker 2:
[51:21] Which is another issue, but I would say that it's less of an issue than people make it out to be and that's not me excusing the far right or white nationalists or right-wing extremists. We certainly have those in the country and they're an issue as well. But when you look at the anti-Semitism that's exploded in this country, go to one of these process in Montreal or Ottawa or Vancouver or Toronto or Halifax, who's at these protests? These hate-filled protests because that's what it is. I think that's what anti-Zionism is and that's what this sort of whole new era of anti-Semitism is. It's a hate movement. Most of it is emanating from young Muslim community, young Muslim individuals from the Muslim community, young Arabs, and their brethren in the progressive world who believe that Israel is the evil of all evils and that we're not anti-Semitic, we're just anti-Zionists. But the data of Haviv isn't really out there because we're not allowed to do that. We couldn't do that. That would be so un-Canadian. I mean, it would be just too much for the media to handle, for scholars to handle, for politicians, if it came out that way.

Speaker 1:
[52:46] There are decades of polls in the Muslim world on anti-Semitism.

Speaker 2:
[52:52] I know.

Speaker 1:
[52:52] By the most respected pollsters. One big one is ADL does this thing every few years, Pew does it, and there's data in America, and there's data by Jewish organizations, and then there's data by emphatically non-Jewish organizations who just poll for elections. There's so much in Canada. There's Angus Reed, a Canada-wide survey, asked Muslims in Canada whether Islamophobia is a major issue, and 48 percent said it was. I'm like, okay, but I'm asking about anti-Semitism in the Canadian Muslim community. All the caveats are legitimate. I want to give these caveats. There are Canadian Muslim organizations that have against anti-Semitism in their title and they have spoken out on every attack. All of that is a bit great. Also, how much anti-Semitism is actually in the community?

Speaker 2:
[53:47] I will say-

Speaker 1:
[53:48] I can't find it.

Speaker 2:
[53:50] I would say as well that probably the majority of Canada's Muslim community is a great part of this country. Some people might disagree with that. I think they're a great part of the fabric of this country. But there's a not insignificant segment there that people need to really start talking about. But the data, I think it goes back to really what I'm saying, Haviv, is that Canadians are really afraid to look in the mirror. This is institutionally, politically, culturally, socially, we're afraid to look in the mirror because we've always told ourselves that we don't really have issues. One of our major pillars of our identity is being not America, down south, that's where all the issues are. I think it's all of that. And so you're not going to get the data that you want because people are afraid to look at the data to actually undertake those studies. It's just like when you go to a university, you know, when I started my PhD, and there were certain topics I wanted to look into, people pull me aside and say, Casey, that's right. I wish we had answers for that. I wish you could do a dissertation on that. But you'll never get funding for that. Like, you're not allowed to even ask that question. So you won't get funding and you will be sort of banished in academia. So it's the same thing when it comes to data and all of this is that we're, you know, we're talking about people being afraid. And basically, the message is look away, look away from that and everything will just work out, but everything will not work out. And that's why you're seeing Jews looking elsewhere, looking for an exit strategy and not insignificant numbers.

Speaker 1:
[55:28] So the only data point I could find was a survey titled from 2025 an academic study from York University, Canadian Attitudes Toward Jews and Muslims, in which 52 percent of Canadian Muslims expressed at least some negative attitudes toward Jews. And interestingly, the correlation to negative views of Israel is only moderate. It isn't a perfect overlap. It isn't that hatred of Israel turns into hatred of Jews. There is hatred of Jews there. That has nothing to do with the Jews, with feelings of Israel, and it's 52 percent of the community. This is huge. It's not going away.

Speaker 2:
[56:08] No, no. That's not.

Speaker 1:
[56:09] And if Muslim community doesn't deal with it, it'll come back to haunt them. And if the Jewish community doesn't say it out loud. So that brings me back to the point you were making about the Jewish leadership. What is the Jewish leadership of Canadian Jewry doing? And almost every sentence that we have to say in this conversation is unfair to somebody. It's the nature of the conversation. But overall, yes, there's some doing a lot of work. I was in Vancouver, I was in Toronto. I met people worried about this, thinking about this, lobbying on this, talking about this, teaching about this. Nevertheless, what should Canadian Jewry be doing facing? I happen to focus in a focused way, to look up Muslim, because I think that some... I suspect, from a few data points I have, that the police of Canada refused to give me more of, that Muslim community is producing the more violent expressions of anti-Semitism that Canadian Jews face now, that are genuinely terrifying. The arson, the bombs, the shootings. And to find a 52% number from an academic study is terrifying.

Speaker 2:
[57:15] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[57:15] Now, what is the Jewish community doing about that? How is it activating Canada? Do you really, you just connected for us this self-abnegation of Canadian identity with the inability to look squarely in the eye at the potential bigotries and violence of certain communities, of certain minorities. Maybe you have to tackle that. Maybe it's time for Jews to say Canadians have to be patriotic or they're not going to be able to fight the bad and liberal tendencies in some minority communities, which by the way will make the future of those minority communities in Canada worse. It is a better thing for Canadian Muslims if they become liberal Canadians and don't hate Jews at the rates that the only study I could find suggests that they hate Jews. I'll stop asking this endless question. What should the Jews do?

Speaker 2:
[58:05] It's not an endless question, but in terms of, you said something about the Muslim community, and this is sort of paradoxical and philosophical to a certain extent. But isn't it in our interest and their interest, and the interest of Canadians to demand better from all communities, the Jewish community, the Christian community, the Muslim community, doesn't that make sense? Isn't that what we should be doing is demanding more from all communities that they be great and that they root out extremism? I think we really need to wrap our heads around that. And you're asking, well, what are Canadian Jews doing about this? I think, like you said, it's not fair to... Everybody's going to be sort of slighted in one way or another, regardless of what I say. But I don't think the Jewish organizations have what it takes to meet the moment right now. You're seeing new Jews proliferate, new sort of grassroots organizations come up, which are really phenomenal. And you're seeing this whole new wave of Jews in Canada, young and old, starting to stand up, and at least asking questions loudly and consistently, like what can we do? What role do I have? What impact can I have on this issue? Whereas the major Jewish organizations, it feels like they're trying to throw money at it. They're tweeting, they're using words like we're going to reorient ourselves, we're shaking things up. And I'm going like, why are we, what are we doing here? They're so afraid to talk about the real issues. And I don't know how you can be an advocacy organization and advocate for hundreds of thousands of people when you can't truthfully and honestly speak about the issues that are affecting that community. I will say, you know, I think a special shout out is owed to Michael Levitt at Simon Wiesenthal because he's doing incredible work in terms of, you know, educating individuals on anti-Semitism and bigotry. But largely, I mean, there's a real gap between some of these grassroots organizations, individuals, and then the big Jewish organizations that are operating with millions of dollars a year. Where's that money going? What are we getting for?

Speaker 1:
[60:33] So there are roughly five times as many Muslims as Jews in Canada. Five percent of Canada's population, give or take, are Muslims. If half of them, as this study shows, have anti-Semitic views, that's a chunk, that's a real chunk of the anti-Semitism of Canada. I think the ADL found something like 14 percent of Canadians have anti-Semitic views. We're mixing different methodologies. I don't want to trust statistics too much without being much more careful. But if we accept that 14 percent of Canadians hold anti-Semitic views and two and a half of those 14 points is the Muslim community, then two things are true. One, it is a major chunk and probably a source of the more extreme and virulent versions of that anti-Semitism. And two, it's not all of them. It's not most of the anti-Semites in Canada. So there's a much larger problem than that. But if you can't stare it down in one place, how are you going to stare it down in any place? And so, you know, the Jewish community is institutionally asleep. It's... tell us more about this. What do you think specifically needs to happen? Tweeting is not enough. Spending money to show the donor that you're spending money is institutionally catastrophic over the long term to getting anything done. What, actually, do the Jews of Canada need to do to seriously tackle this?

Speaker 2:
[62:02] I think the Jews of Canada first and foremost need to keep going and not give up because there is an exhaustion that's setting in here. You know, I talk with Israelis and you can feel it when you read the works of Israelis and you talk with family and friends who are in Israel that there is a bit of an exhaustion, right, of the running of the sirens and the closures of schools and so on and so forth. After years, it's tiring, right? It wears people down. There is, to a certain extent, the anti-Semitism in the West, in Canada, that's also wearing people down a little bit. And that's why I talked about this idea of retreating inward. I would say do not retreat inward. Ask yourself what you can do for the community and be more afraid of what may happen if you say nothing than what may happen if you speak up. And that is at the heart of the matter here. And I think the same goes for Jewish organizations. They're afraid of losing donors. They're afraid of being further ostracized. They're afraid of not having access to government officials. They're afraid of losing their jobs. Be more afraid of what's happening to our bloody community. I mean, this is outrageous. And we need to demand more. Everybody's complaining. Everybody's retreating. Everybody's afraid. Everybody's anxious. Everybody's hyper emotional. How do we channel that into something that's actually going to leap to results? And we have to get serious about major public policy issues like immigration. It's been completely out of control. And I tell people this all the time. It's just common sense. When you let in hundreds of thousands of people from countries where antisemitism is certainly not a fringe ideology or issue in the country where it's actually baked in to the society and the culture, you're going to get that here. And so it's a combination of all these things that need to happen. But people need to really develop a greater sense of chutzpah and speak out. People will say to me, oh, Casey, I heard you speak here or you wrote that article. Oh, it's so brave of you. I'm doing like the minimum. Like this is not brave of me. It's what everybody should be doing and everybody can be doing it. So let's actually start by having honest conversations.

Speaker 1:
[64:27] So Casey, what I just heard you say is it's going to get worse. And Jews have to get stronger faster than it gets worse. And maybe it'll get bad enough that Canada will finally make some choices and fix some of it. Is that a fair assessment of what you expect?

Speaker 2:
[64:46] I think so. But I will say, I mean, this is looking like a real uphill battle right now. And I think people who would disagree with that are probably not paying attention. The odds are stacked against us. But the odds have been stacked against Jews for thousands of years. So we need to keep these things in mind. And we need to get real here. Like this is, like you said, it's not going away. And so we've got to start thinking outside the box. We've got to become a little louder. Maybe we need to be a little bit more Israeli. And actually confront issues head on. Because the more that we shy away from the actual threat actors, from the pockets of Canada, where this hatred is sort of emanating longer, the worse it's going to get. So it really feels like though it's now or never, because Jews are starting to look for an exit strategy. They are looking elsewhere. I've had students from Carleton. I've had friends that attended the University of Alberta midway through your program. They left for Israel and they're studying in Israel right now. I have people and they're not coming back by the way. They're never coming back. I talk with people as well who say, why am I giving money and investing everything to my Jewish community when I can't be my whole self in this country, which is very true. I can't wear a Kippah downtown Ottawa without keeping my head on a swivel. There's just no way I could do that, especially not if I was with children or elderly family members of mine. I'd have to really be aware of my surrounding. People are asking, why am I investing so much here when the Jewish kingdom has returned, has been realized when the Jewish people in Israel are stronger than they've ever been in the history of Judaism? Why am I not there? People are actually starting to ask these questions and it makes sense. Like I said, it goes back to that idea of being worn down. They're thrown in the towel of Haviv and saying, I'm out of here, I'm either going to Israel or maybe I'm going to Florida, which at times feels like a little Israel depending on where you are. But these are real issues right now. Like I said, I would be more afraid of what happens if you don't speak up than if you do say something.

Speaker 1:
[67:20] Casey Babb, thank you so much for joining me. Usually I like to end in an upbeat tone, but the Jews got to make their optimism. They got to find that solution that changes the way things are going. I've heard so much fear from Canadian Jews over the last three years. It's absolutely heartbreaking and I don't hear any solutions from Canada, from Canadian officials even, from Canadian academics. I don't hear anybody seriously reporting the data you'd need to begin to have an honest conversation, is how far Canada is from a solution. Thank you so much for joining me and let's hope for better days.

Speaker 2:
[68:00] Thanks Haviv.