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In 2024, the Bais Chaya Mushka Girls Elementary School in Toronto, Canada was targeted in three shooting incidents.
The series of attacks began in May 2024, with subsequent shootings occurring in October (during the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur) and December of the same year. [1] [2] [3] In each incident, the school building was damaged by gunfire, though students were able to continue attending classes. [1] The shootings took place during a period of increased antisemitic incidents across Canada following the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel and the subsequent Israel-Hamas war. [4] [3] Specifically, the third shooting occurred within days of the firebombing of Congregation Beth Tikva in Montreal. [5] [6]
After the May 30 attack, councillor Mike Colle called on the province of Ontario to enhance penalties for acts of hate or violence committed near schools. [7] Toronto Police arrested two individuals in conjunction with the October attack. [2] [3] In December, after the third shooting, the Government of Canada announced that a conference would be held in which political leaders would discuss strategies to combat antisemitism. [8] [9] [6]
Premier Doug Ford faced criticism after he made remarks suggesting that immigrants were to blame for the school shooting in May, saying "don’t come to Canada if you’re going to start terrorizing neighbourhoods like this, simple as that." [10] [11] [12] [13] Ontario Liberal Party leader Bonnie Crombie described the comments as "wrong-headed" and "very intolerant behaviour". [14] In response, Toronto Police Services said it was too early to determine if the shootings were hate-motivated. [11]
In response to the first shooting, members of the Jewish community held a rally at the school to denounce the shooting. [15]
Israeli Minister of Diaspora Affairs Amichai Chikli condemned the attacks, saying "Canada is no longer safe for Jews" and criticizing Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau's response. [16] [17] [18] Liberal Member of Parliament and advisor to Trudeau Anthony Housefather disagreed, describing Chikli's remarks as "a false and exaggerated statement", saying that despite the increase in antisemitism, Canada "remains one of the best places in the world for Jews to live." [16] [18]
New antisemitism is the concept that a new form of antisemitism developed in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, typically manifesting itself as anti-Zionism. The concept is included in some definitions of antisemitism, such as the working definition of antisemitism and the 3D test of antisemitism. The concept dates to the early 1970s.
The history of the Jews in Canada goes back to the 1700s. Canadian Jews, whether by culture, ethnicity, or religion, form the fourth largest Jewish community in the world, exceeded only by those in Israel, the United States and France. In the 2021 census, 335,295 people reported their religion as Jewish, accounting for 0.9% of the Canadian population. Some estimates have placed the enlarged number of Jews, such as those who may be culturally or ethnically Jewish, though not necessarily religiously, at around 400,000 people. This total would account for approximately 1.4% of the Canadian population.
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Historians continue to study and debate the extent of antisemitism in American history and how American antisemitism has similarities and distinctions with its European counterpart.
Antisemitism has long existed in the United States. Most Jewish community relations agencies in the United States draw distinctions between antisemitism, which is measured in terms of attitudes and behaviors, and the security and status of American Jews, which are both measured by the occurrence of specific incidents. FBI data shows that in every year since 1991, Jews were the most frequent victims of religiously motivated hate crimes. The number of hate crimes against Jews may be underreported, as in the case for many other targeted groups.
Antisemitism in Canada is the manifestation of hatred, hostility, harm, prejudice or discrimination against the Canadian Jewish people or Judaism as a religious, ethnic or racial group. Some of the first Jewish settlers in Canada arrived in Montreal in the 1760s, among them was Aaron Hart who is considered the father of Canadian Jewry. His son Ezekiel Hart experience one of the first well documented cases of antisemitism in Canada. Hart was repeatedly stopped from taking his seat in the Quebec legislature due to his Jewish faith, as members claimed he could not take the oath of office, which included the phrase "on the true faith of a Christian".
Antisemitism in France has become heightened since the late 20th century and into the 21st century. In the early 21st century, most Jews in France, like most Muslims in France, are of North African origin. France has the largest population of Jews in the diaspora after the United States—an estimated 500,000–600,000 persons. Paris has the highest population, followed by Marseille, which has 70,000 Jews. Expressions of antisemitism were seen to rise during the Six-Day War of 1967 and the French anti-Zionist campaign of the 1970s and 1980s. Following the electoral successes achieved by the extreme right-wing National Front and an increasing denial of the Holocaust among some persons in the 1990s, surveys showed an increase in stereotypical antisemitic beliefs among the general French population.
Yaakov Hagoel, is the Chairman of the Executive of the World Zionist Organization. He was formerly acting chairman of The Jewish Agency for Israel.
French Jews in Israel are immigrants and descendants of the immigrants of the French Jewish communities, who now reside within the state of Israel. They numbered over 200,000 as of 2012.
Belgium is a European country with a Jewish population of approximately 35,000 out of a total population of about 11.4 million. It is among the countries experiencing an increase in both antisemitic attitudes and in physical attacks on Jews.
Antisemitism is a growing problem in 21st-century Germany.
Amichai Chikli is an Israeli politician who serves as the Minister of Diaspora Affairs. He served in the 24th Knesset as part of the Yamina party slate, and in the 25th Knesset as part of Likud.
The 44th Ontario general election is tentatively scheduled to be held on June 4, 2026. As of December 2016, Ontario elections are held on the first Thursday in June in the fourth calendar year following the previous general election, unless the Legislative Assembly of Ontario is dissolved earlier by the lieutenant governor of Ontario on the advice of the premier of Ontario, a motion of no confidence or the failure of the Assembly to grant supply.
On May 9, 2023, Wissam Khazri, a 30-year-old national guardsman, killed five people in a mass shooting at the El Ghriba Synagogue in Djerba, Tunisia. Khazri initially killed a colleague and seized his ammunition before targeting the synagogue, where a large gathering of Jewish pilgrims were celebrating Lag BaOmer. Two visitors and two Tunisian police officers were killed, while eight others sustained injuries before the perpetrator was killed by the police.
Following the Hamas-led attack on Israel on 7 October 2023 and the outbreak of the Israel–Hamas war, there has been a surge of antisemitism around the world.
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Jews have faced antisemitism and discrimination in universities and campuses in the United States, from the founding of universities in the Thirteen Colonies until the present day in varying intensities. From the early 20th century, and until the 1960s, indirect quotas were placed on Jewish admissions, quotas were first placed on Jews by elite universities such Columbia, Harvard and Yale and were prevalent as late as the 1960s in universities such as Stanford. These quotas disappeared in the 1970s.