GOLDSTEIN: Why Jews should vote for the Conservatives

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In my neighbourhood where many Jewish Canadians live, there is still a Toronto police mobile field command unit operating in the parking lot of a prominent Jewish day school, set up in the wake of Hamas’ terrorist attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. 

It’s a daily reminder — and Thursday is Yom Hashoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day — that things will never be the same for Canada’s Jewish community, with Statistics Canada reporting that while Jews make up 1% of the Canadian population, 70% of all religiously motivated hate crimes today are aimed at Jews. 

Toronto police last year reported a 69% increase in hate crimes against Jews – far higher than for any other group. 

In the 18 months since Oct. 7, 2023, antisemitism has become so normalized in Canada in the worst outbreak of it since the 1930s that it’s no longer considered big news. 

Not that hatred against Jews in Canada is anything new. 

Synagogues, going back decades, have hired pay-duty police officers during Jewish high holidays to safeguard worshippers coming and going from religious services. 

But today Jew hatred is on steroids. 

Jewish day schools have been shot at, Jewish-owned businesses torched and vandalized, Swastikas painted on synagogues and homes, Jews harassed entering and leaving their places of worship, Jewish university students threatened, Jewish neighbourhoods invaded by chanting pro-Hamas demonstrators describing them as  “Zionist-infested” areas, and hundreds of street demonstrations calling for the death of Jews and the destruction of Israel. 

Antisemitism today infects everything from the federal government – look at the people it hires as so-called “anti-racism” experts – to public sector union leaders – look at the things they say – to universities,  “think tanks” and “non government organizations,” what we laughably used to call “civil society.”

During this time, only one national political leader and his party have consistently and unequivocally condemned this tsunami of hatred aimed at Jews — Pierre Poilievre and the Conservatives. 

It’s not surprising, since the Progressive Conservatives under Brian Mulroney and the Conservatives under Stephen Harper have been the strongest supporters of Canada’s Jewish community and of Israel since the 1980s. 

Given that, it’s long overdue for Canada’s Jewish community to reassess its traditional support of the Liberals, regardless of who their leader is. 

While vote-counting Grits periodically mouth pro-forma condemnations of Jew hatred, their attitude towards Canada’s 335,000 Jews, compared to 1.8 million Muslims, was best demonstrated by Liberal Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly. 

Former NDP leader Tom Mulcair reported that she told him that her positions on the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza were influenced by the demographics in her riding. 

The fact she’s still the foreign affairs minister under both Justin Trudeau and Mark Carney, says all anyone needs to know about where the Liberals stand today. 

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As for the NDP, their behaviour on these issues ever since Oct. 7, 2023 has been so disgraceful that if they lose party status on April 28, it will be a blessing. 

And spare us the argument from Jew haters that they can’t say anything against Israel without being accused of antisemitism. 

The harshest criticism of Israel and how Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – currently on trial for corruption – has prosecuted the war in Gaza and dealt with the hostage crisis comes from Jews in Israel. 

The difference is they don’t call for driving the Jews into the sea. 

Canada’s Jewish community has seen over the past 18 months who our true political allies are. It’s time we voted accordingly.