Researchers blame DEI for fast decline in Canadian goodwill for Jews, Israel

Israel’s Ambassador to Canada, Iddo Moed, looks at bullet holes fired at the Beth Avraham Yoseph of Toronto Synagogue in Vaughan, March 12, 2026. Photo by Peter J. Thompson /National Post

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Non‑Jewish Canadians hold less favourable views of Jews today than they did just two years ago, and their attitudes toward Israel have soured even more over the same period.  Those are the findings of the Canadian Jewish Barometer 2026, a new national survey, and its authors pose several reasons for the decline.

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A factor exacerbating the downward slide is diversity, inclusion and equity (DEI) programs that have eroded the very sensibilities they were designed to correct, said Rhonda Lenton, former president of York University, and co‑author of the study.

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She said it was “ironic” that these programs are “often structurally incapable of even seeing antisemitism, let alone addressing it,” she said. “If your DEI lens only recognizes race‑based disadvantage, and cannot grapple with religious, cultural, economic and national dimensions, then Jews — who are the most targeted group in the country — are effectively rendered invisible.”

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Rhonda Lenton is former president of York University, and co‑author of the new study. Photo by Handout

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The Canadian Jewish Barometer (CJB), compiled by Lenton and sociologist Robert Brym of the University of Toronto, is based on a web‑panel survey of 3,062 Canadian adults, conducted from mid‑January to mid‑February this year, including oversampling polls of Jews, Muslims and Quebecers, to allow detailed subgroup analysis.

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The sample was drawn from the Leger Opinion Panel and the data were collected by Léger.

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Compared with a similar survey they conducted in early 2024, the authors find that positive sentiment toward Jews has dropped, while agreement with negatively worded statements about Jews has risen by roughly five percentage points on average — changes large enough to be statistically significant.

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The share of non‑Jewish Canadians with the most favourable view of Jews fell by eight percentage points in just two years, and those with slightly positive views dropped by 15 points. Middle‑of‑the‑road and mildly negative attitudes have filled that vacuum, suggesting as authors purport that the “golden age” of Canadian Jewry — running from the 1960s to the early 2020s — is giving way to a more hostile environment.

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Since the Israel-Hamas war, the Barometer notes that Jews now suffer more police‑recorded hate crimes per capita than any other ethnic, racial or religious group in Canada. In 2024 there was one anti‑Jewish hate crime for every 366 Jews (of roughly 335,000 Jews), a rate far higher than that for Black or Muslim Canadians.

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Inside the Jewish community, the rising incidents have caused the psychological toll to worsen, authors submit. In 2024, 63 per cent of Jews said they felt less safe in Canada than five years earlier; by 2026 that figure had jumped to 88 per cent. Nearly seven in 10 Jewish parents now worry about their children’s safety at school.

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Those shifts are being felt acutely inside the Jewish community, where fear, discomfort and talk — however tentative — of emigration are now measurable trends, say the researchers. One in four Jews has seriously considered leaving Canada, or made plans to do so, in response to the rising antisemitism.