EDITORIAL: A failure to confront world’s oldest hatred

The irrational hatred of Jews has always existed.

Published Sep 19, 2026  •  Last updated 15 minutes ago  •  2 minute read

Police stand outside of Toronto’s Bobov Synagogue where people were shot at with a pellet gun on May 8, 2026. Photo by Peter J Thompson /Postmedia Network

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On Sunday night and Monday, Jews will observe the most solemn holiday on the Jewish calendar — Yom Kippur.

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As usual, many synagogues across Canada — save in Quebec where the law disallows it — will hire pay-duty police officers to provide security for worshippers entering and leaving services.

While this has been in the news ever since Hamas’ terrorist attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, it’s nothing new.

In many synagogues, the practice has gone on for decades.

It’s an acknowledgement of the reality that while an explosion of antisemitism against Jews has occurred ever since that day almost three years ago, the irrational hatred of Jews has always existed.

In the medieval era, when religion was the paradigm of society, Judaism was portrayed as the most evil religion, falsely accused of the “blood libel,” of killing Christian children to use their blood to make Passover matzah.

In the 20th century, when science was the paradigm, the Nazis attempted to prove through science that the Jews were uniquely evil.

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Today, with human rights as the paradigm, Jews are falsely accused of being the world’s worst human rights violators, because of the actions of the Israeli government in Gaza, while far greater atrocities are ignored by antisemites because it’s Muslims killing Muslims.

Blaming Jews in Canada for the actions of the Israeli government in Gaza is the same twisted logic as blaming Muslims in Canada for the terrorism of Hamas.

The failure of our federal, provincial and municipal governments, with only rare exceptions, to confront this oldest form of hatred has led us to where we are today.

They had all the legal tools necessary to stop the outbreak of hatred and violence aimed at Jews from the day it started on Oct. 7 three years ago.

Instead, they opted for meaningless rhetoric about antisemitism being “not who we are.”

Now that hatred is bred in the bone and once you let the evil genie of antisemitism out of the box, it’s impossible to put it back inside.

For Jews, Yom Kippur is the day of atonement, when they seek forgiveness from God for their spiritual sins and to reconcile with those they have wronged in the past year.

Governments, of course, never atone for their sins.

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