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My Jewish Parents Were Right about Antisemitism
(Toronto Star-Canada) Emma Teitel - This is not a column about the Israel-Hamas war. It's a column about a painful reverberation of that war a world away. Since it began, I know of four people in the Toronto area who say the mezuzahs on their doors were ripped down. A letter signed by 2,000 parents warns of "escalating incidents of antisemitism" at Toronto public schools since the outbreak of the war. The incidents described include: "Children performing Nazi salutes, drawing swastikas on bus windows, vandalizing bathrooms with antisemitic graffiti, Jewish stars being put on the desks of Jewish students to identify them...physical violence, references to gas chambers, Hitler and being sent back to concentration camps." I could go on, but I will run out of room. What we are seeing in Canada is not merely a dramatic rise of antisemitism at all levels of society, it is a horrifying revelation for many Jews my age that our parents were right. This stuff doesn't just go away with the passage of time. It is always there under the surface. Blaming ordinary Jewish people in Canada for the military actions of a foreign government is antisemitic. Antisemitism isn't a problem for Jews alone, though we bear the brunt of its violence. It is a conspiracy theory that eats away at truth and democracy. It is a sign of decay.