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Trudeau Warns Against Modern Anti-Semitism in Apology for Turning Away Jewish Refugees Fleeing Nazis
(Globe and Mail-Canada) Steven Chase - Prime Minister Justin Trudeau formally apologized Wednesday for Canada's 1939 refusal to grant asylum to more than 900 German Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi terror on the MS St. Louis. "[Hitler] watched...as we refused their visas, ignored their letters and denied them entry," the Prime Minister told the House of Commons. "There is little doubt that our silence permitted the Nazis to come up with their own final solution." The U.S. State Department made its own apology in 2012. Trudeau warned of an "alarming rate" of discrimination and violence against Jewish people today. The Prime Minister also raised intimidation of Jewish students on some Canadian college and university campuses by the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions [BDS] campaign against Israel. Nimrod Barkan, Israel's Ambassador to Canada, said, "We are all encouraged not only by the apology but more so by the comments about the need to fight anti-Semitism today, to fight BDS and to make sure there is no hate for Jews allowed anywhere around the world, and certainly not in Canada."