Kaplan-Myrth: Denying antisemitism just adds to the harm

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With the anniversary of Kristallnacht just recently passed, I will share with you a story about how non-Jews dismiss Jew hatred.

“How are you?” I asked someone I’ve known for more than a decade. “Fine, but tired of a Jewish friend who thinks everything is antisemitism,” they asserted.

That’s it. An interaction so casual, so brief — and so common.

Some readers may shrug, see it as no big deal. Others may identify with the person who dismissed the antisemitism. Most of the Jewish community of Ottawa would recoil, in pain.

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We’ve all heard some version of that conversation — dismissing or denying or inverting antisemitism — in our gyms, book groups, parks, workplaces, spoken by political leaders, bandied about on social media. Meanwhile, Jews in Ottawa have been physically assaulted. Jewish students in our secondary schools and on university campuses have been bullied, called names, intimidated, insulted by peers. Jewish Canadians have been targeted in retirement homes, community centres, synagogues, businesses. We are traumatized in our communities across the country.

And as recently as Nov. 7, anti-Israel mobs targeted Jews in the Netherlands, brutally beating some in the streets of Amsterdam after a soccer game.

I took a breath, stepped away, then returned and sat down to respond to my acquaintance. “I am Jewish,” I said. “Let me explain some of what the last year has been like for many Jews in Ottawa and across Canada, and what the past four years has been like for my family.”

I described the death threats and antisemitic, anti-vaccine harassment, since 2021, targeting me not just as a doctor but also saying that my family and me should be harmed because we are Jewish. I described the antisemitism directed at me for standing up for transgender rights. I also explained that I was not personally safe, as a Jew and an Israeli, in Ottawa’s Capital Pride Parade last August, and showed them the photograph of a person in Ottawa holding up an “unmask the Zionist” poster with my name on it.

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I wouldn’t have had this conversation with someone I didn’t know well. However, I trusted this person, and it was clear to me that this person was unaware of how hurtful and harmful their comment was.

So we sat and talked. “We have to listen to each other, never dismiss the discrimination someone else experiences,” I said. “It is our responsibility as bystanders. If we hear someone say they are struggling, if they are telling us that they are experiencing racism or bigotry, we validate that.” I explained that denial of the discrimination we are subject to is a very common experience for the Jewish community.

 … denial of the discrimination we are subject to is a very common experience for the Jewish community.

This autumn, a Facebook group with membership of a few thousand people in one part of Ottawa posted insulting and derogatory videos and comments in the context of the Israel-Hamas war. The moderator of the group refused to take down the posts and justified the content. Jewish community members and allies left the group, and created a new group. That is the world in which we live today.

At the end of the conversation, my interlocutor looked me in the eye and said, “I should apologize to my friend. They said they are experiencing antisemitism. I should have been an ally.” I thanked them and reiterated that we must all stand up for each other. Later that day, they told me our conversation had helped them to understand their Jewish friend better.

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Given the troubled times we find ourselves in, our interaction was difficult but meaningful and the outcome was more than I had hoped for.

Let us return to what occurred in Amsterdam on Nov. 7. I’ve heard people justify what happened there, saying that soccer hooligans got what they deserved. So many former friends and colleagues refuse to acknowledge that a pogrom took place, even while Dutch King Willem-Alexander admitted, “Last night we failed the Jews again.”

“Our history has taught us how intimidation goes from bad to worse,” he said. “Jews must feel safe in the Netherlands, everywhere and at all times. We put our arms around them and will not let them go.”

Yet while around the world we are afraid, non-Jews around the world continue to downplay, dismiss or deny the antisemitism.

I am writing this soon after the release of the Canadian Handbook on the IHRA Definition of Antisemitism. I was part of the roundtable consultation with more than 150 Canadians. Read the case studies in the handbook. It was deeply upsetting that the NDP spoke out against the Handbook, and indeed that anyone non-Jewish takes a position on defining antisemitism.

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There is no other minority or equity-seeking group in Canada that would accept someone else challenging their definition of discrimination. Replace the statement “That’s not antisemitism, in our view,” with an equivalent assertion about ANY other group.

It is incumbent upon non-Jews to sit down and think about the depth and breadth of Jew hatred in Canada and around the world. If you’re someone who has ever been the target of hate — as a racialized Canadian, a refugee, an Indigenous person, an ethnic or religious minority, or harassed on the basis of your sex, gender identity, or sexuality — you know that the harm is redoubled when people dismiss your experience.

I’m sharing this to implore that non-Jewish Canadians listen to us. Across Canada, those in leadership positions at all levels — in our boards of education, in municipal, provincial and federal politics, as well as in community organizations and businesses — need to hear the voices of Jewish Canadians and take their concerns seriously.

Dr. Nili Kaplan-Myrth is a family physician and Ottawa Carleton District School Board trustee.

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