KINSELLA: Democratic values under attack as antisemitism fragments Canada

ISGAP founder Charles Asher Small is working to defeat antisemitism by following the money that powers the engine of global hate

Published May 02, 2026  •  4 minute read

The star of David at the Jewish memorial at the Dachau concentration camp memorial site where more than 43,000 people were murdered and over 200,000 were imprisoned during the Nazi terror reign from 1933-1945, in Dachau, Germany, April 24, 2025. Photo by Matthias Schrader /THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Charles Asher Small is a scholar of renown. His list of academic achievements are too many to list here.

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A short sampling: over his long career, Small has been associated with Oxford University, Yale University, Stanford University, Tel Aviv University, Ben Gurion University, the Université de Montreal, and McGill University. He’s written or edited no small number of books and academic papers. Along the way, he founded the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP) and – he notes, proudly – he’s a Montreal boy. 

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Small went to McGill, got a B.A. there, then went on to do great things. ISGAP is one of them.

There are lots of organizations that fight antisemitism and prejudice, but Small’s ISGAP has done some important things that others have not.

Just recently, for example, ISGAP revealed that a number of prestigious American universities were secretly receiving millions under the table from the Hamas-friendly regime in Qatar. That’s against U.S. law.

Revelations led to consequences aplenty

When Small revealed that fact, there were consequences aplenty – including the closure of engineering programs that were seemingly aiding and abetting the development of nuclear weapons technology. And Qatar-funded antisemitism at Ivy League universities was finally exposed for all to see.

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This week, Small was in Toronto to meet with Canadian friends and supporters. As happy as he was to be back home, he had unhappy facts to share.

“The Jewish community of the diaspora,” he says. “And people who care about democratic principles: we’ve all been sleeping through a revolution. The revolution has been taking place right under our noses – in our institutions, in our schools, in our universities, in the media. And we’ve accepted it.”

He pauses. The revolution, he says, started many years ago, and can be summed up in this way: Holocaust inversion. Jews are now being openly depicted as the new Nazis – and the Palestinians, as their victims.

He goes on: “Years later, this is exactly the discourse in the best universities in the Western world. If Israel is a Nazi state, if the Jewish community represents a Nazi state – an occupying state, an apartheid state – well, then from a liberal human rights perspective, you are obligated to dismantle the entity. To wipe Israel off the map.”

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And that, he says, is what is happening – as he says, right under our noses.

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Extreme leftists and extreme Islamists seize the narrative

An unholy alliance of antisemites, Marxist zealots, extreme Arab nationalists – along with a smattering of Jew-hating Western NGOs, non-profits and charities – presently control the discourse. They, what Small calls an “odd alliance of extreme leftists with extreme Islamists,” have seized the narrative. And they are winning.

The main focus for Small, and ISGAP, is antisemitism within the corridors of academe. At places like New York’s Columbia University, he says, antisemitism is not only happening right out in the open – it’s arguably been part of the curriculum.

“These professors at Columbia University, one of the best universities in the Western world,” he says, then shakes his head. “These professors are masters of literature, masters of thought. They teach your children and your grandchildren.”

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“And these masters of intellectual thought are arguing that the resistance is justified by any means,” he says, pausing. “So Hamas, who wants to destroy democracy, massacre Jews, subjugate women, kill gay people? They were right to use violence.”

Pogroms of the Nazis began in classrooms

ISGAP’s work – and Small’s – is important because they, more than any other organization, have been shining a spotlight on the “intellectual” foundations of Jew hatred.

That’s relevant, he says, because history teaches us that the pogroms of the Nazis had their beginnings in classrooms. That’s where the mass murder of the Holocaust was first conceived and baptized, he says.

One way to defeat the return of this intellectualized antisemitism, Small says, is to follow the money. The engine of global hate is powered by money more than anything else, he says.

So Small has a team of 27 researchers working to follow the money. Canadians help make up that team, and they plan to soon release three reports detailing the ways in which Canadian charities, and others, have been permitted to promote and fund extremism and terrorism by the federal government.

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And the target is not just Jews and the Jewish state, Small says, it’s those who don’t subscribe to the terroristic principles of the Muslim Brotherhood –agnostic Jews, liberal-minded Muslims and Christians alike.

“It’s an assault on our Canadian democratic values, and who we are as a country,” Small concludes. “It’s an assault on what it means to be a citizen in this great democratic country. It’s an assault on our democracy itself.”

He points, perhaps in the direction of the future.

“Remember: the Muslim Brotherhood is using antisemitism to fragment and weaken this country, to destroy it. That’s their strategic goal. And, as Professor Elie Weisel always taught us, antisemitism may begin with the Jewish people but it never ends with the Jewish people.”

– Kinsella is the author of the national bestseller, The Hidden Hand, published by Penguin Random House

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