Here is the link of a news article from a toronto paper.

http://torontosun.com/Comment/Commentary/2006/08/06/1722382.html

That's a very sad article Joe, but unfortunately it doesn't surprise me in the least. As a Jew, I can tell you from first-hand experience that anti-semitism is alive and well in North America, and a lot more prevalent than the average person realizes. Ever since I was a small child, I have heard racist comments about Jews fairly regularly, although in the last few years it seems to be growing in popularity. One of the synagogues in my city was bombed three years ago, causing thousands of dollars in damage. Synagogues here are regular targets for vandalism as well.

Regarding the muslim community, recently in my city, a muslim family's home was burned to the ground, and the police believe the incident was racially motivated. The family has had to move to a new neighborhood out of fear.

Our First Nations community is large and I won't go into how poorly they are treated, as it would take pages and pages to explain. But their case is the saddest of all, because a lot of people simply accept it as the norm and don't even think they are being intolerant.

Anyway, thanks for sharing the article. Hopefully it will be a wake-up call for people who don't think about this issue much.

It is very sad that all this is still happening. I did not even realized until you mentioned your experience how close to home it is happening. In Canada, Like you said people need to be aware of what is happening. When people become aware of a problem like this then we all can take steps to make sure it stops.

Joe

I am obviously in a little bubble over here. I had no idea that this was happening. I realize bad things happen, but I had no idea there was this much negativity toward jewish people. Even in my faith, I didn't know I would get the resistance I do. It is surprising to me that people harass others simply because of their beliefs, color or anything else. What happened to freedom?

Like you said a lot of people live in bubbles and do not even realise it is happening until you hear stories shared by Chava and articles in news about intolerance. Freedom, where did it go? Or did everybody really have it in the first place?

Joe

Touché

Joe and aqua, since both of you mentioned that you weren't completely aware how close to home the problem is, I thought I'd share these statistics of anti-semitism in Canada with you. I'm not sharing about muslim or aboriginal hatred because I don't feel I'm an expert on that. But if someone else finds a good article on one of those it would be good to share, too!

This was taken from the B'nai Brith website (http://www.bnaibrith.ca/):

Antisemitic incidents in Canada in 2004:

Ontario: 530; Quebec 204; Manitoba 55; Alberta 33; Saskatchewan 3;
British Columbia 17; Altantic Provinces 14; Northern Regions 1

Total: 857, which is a rise of 46.7% since 2003. In the areas where incidence is small, such as Saskatchewan, that is only because the population of Jewish people is very small. A synagogue was bombed in Saskatchewan.

Thank you for the website and the statistics. From the quick article that I did read it seems that the tensions that are rising in the middle east is effecting Canada in a ripple effect of events and causing threats and much more to innocent people here. It baffles my mind.

Yes absolutely. Part of the problem is that people equate all Jews with Israel. Not that there is anything wrong with Israel, but it is assumed that all Jews agree with whatever the Israeli political situation is at the time, and that is simply not true.

I think the article points out that Canadian society is not really as "enlightened" as we would like to believe.

Some people think there is no racism in Canada. There is... although I would like to think that it's better here than in the USA, and certainly much better than in other parts of the world.

The scary part is that actions like the one's in the article are the outwardly visible racist acts in society. I think so much of it really deep down and never outwardly visible.