I have spent much of my professional life assessing risk. One of the first principles of risk management is that warning signs should not be ignored simply because the worst outcome has not yet occurred. A threat does not become serious only after someone is killed, a building is destroyed or a community is driven away.

As a Jewish Canadian, I find myself applying that same principle to what is happening in this country.

Antisemitism is increasing, and Jewish Canadians are experiencing its consequences. Schools, synagogues, businesses and community institutions have been threatened and attacked. Many now require levels of security that most Canadians would find extraordinary at their own places of worship or their children’s schools.

What concerns me almost as much as the antisemitism itself, however, is the limited response from much of mainstream Canadian society.

I do not believe most Canadians are antisemitic. I do not believe most wish harm upon Jews or consciously regard Jewish safety as unimportant. The problem is more complicated—and, in some ways, more difficult to confront.

Antisemitism explains why some people target Jews. It does not fully explain why so many others appear detached from what is happening. That wider indifference may be driven by social distance, selective empathy, political discomfort, public fatigue and an inability to relate to the experience of a very small minority.

A society does not have to hate a minority to fail it. Sometimes it merely has to decide that what is happening to that minority is not its problem.

A Tiny Population Carrying a Disproportionate Burden

Canada’s Jewish population is smaller than many people realize. In the 2021 Census, approximately 335,000 people reported Judaism as their religion, representing about 0.9 per cent of the population. That is roughly 900 people for every 100,000 Canadians. Statistics Canada also reported that approximately 282,000 people identified Jewish as an ethnic or cultural origin, illustrating why Jewish identity cannot be measured solely through religious affiliation.[1]

Against that demographic background, the hate-crime statistics are difficult to dismiss. Statistics Canada recorded 920 police-reported hate crimes targeting Jewish people in 2024. Jews were the targets of 70 per cent of all police-reported hate crimes motivated by religion that year, even though people reporting a Jewish religious affiliation represented less than one per cent of the Canadian population.[2]

Using the census religious-affiliation figure as an illustrative denominator, that amounts to approximately 275 police-reported anti-Jewish hate-crime incidents for every 100,000 people who reported Judaism as their religion.

That is not an individual victimization rate. A hate-crime incident may target a person, synagogue, school, business or organization. The comparison also uses 2024 crime data and 2021 census data because the census remains the most recent comprehensive national count.

Those qualifications matter, but they do not change the central fact: a community comprising less than one per cent of Canada’s population is experiencing a profoundly disproportionate share of religiously motivated hate.

That should be a national concern. Too often, it is treated primarily as a Jewish one.

What Feeling Under Siege Actually Means

To say that Jewish Canadians feel under siege is not to claim that every Jewish person is in immediate physical danger. It means that the possibility of hostility has become part of ordinary Jewish life in a way that most Canadians do not experience.

At many Jewish institutions, controlled entrances, surveillance cameras, security guards, protective barriers and emergency procedures have become routine. These measures are not there because Jewish organizations enjoy spending money on security. They are there because the threat cannot responsibly be ignored.

The federal government has acknowledged the rise in antisemitic incidents, threats and hate crimes and the urgent need to ensure that Jewish Canadians can feel safe in their schools, synagogues and communities. It has also expanded security assistance for institutions considered vulnerable to hate-motivated crime.[3]

Most Canadian parents do not pause before sending a child to school and consider whether the building could be attacked because of the students’ religion. Most Canadians do not expect to encounter guards or controlled access........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)