The impact of the exceptionalizing of antisemitism is the havoc it wreaks among equity-deserving groups and the relationship between Canadian Jews and non-Jews, writes Larry Haiven. Photo by Pooyan Tabatabaei.

With the recent reprehensible arson attack at a Montréal synagogue and shots fired at a Jewish girls’ school in Toronto, the moral panic surrounding antisemitism in Canada is rising to fever pitch. To listen to Jewish-Canadian establishment organizations and an all-too credulous media, you would believe that the second Nazi coming is here. The word “explosion” is regularly employed without question, and only in reference to antisemitism (see here and here and here). The word “unsafe” is also sown promiscuously to describe only Jewish students on campuses (see here and here and here).

Not only does the focus on such incidents draw Canadians’ attention away from the very real official death toll in Gaza, now over 50,000, and the muzzling of Canadian voices condemning it, it also amplifies calls by representatives of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA), B’nai Brith Canada and Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center and other prominent mainstream Jewish leaders for more severe repressive measures against peaceful opposition to Israel’s genocide and its apartheid regime and the general curtailment of civil liberties in Canada.

This is not to ignore real threats. Antisemitism is doubtless increasing commensurate with a rising tide of white supremacism and bigotry against numerous target groups. But contrary to the repeated insistence by pro-Israel organizations, their representatives and an increasing number of public figures, there is no evidence that Jews or their institutions are the primary targets. Moreover, there is the (usually unspoken but implicit) toxic suggestion that antisemitism is a more serious form of bigotry than any other, that an antisemitic incident or attitude carries more valence than hatred directed at other groups, that, in fact, Jewish lives matter more than others.

Every year, B’nai Brith Canada produces its “audit” of antisemitic incidents and every year we are told antisemitism is going through the roof. Yet the........

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