Anti-Semitism in Canada: How frightening? The number of reported anti-Semitic incidents in Canada has stabilized at a frighteningly high level, indicating a dangerous amount of anti-Jewish activity, B'nai Brith Canada said yesterday. Last year, 829 anti-Semitic incidents were reported, down about 3 per cent from the number in 2004, according to the organization's annual audit. But this is the second highest number in 23 years of the audit, and triple the number reported in 2001. Globe and Mail To hear it from B'nai Brith, one would think that Jews were the only targets of racism, the result, so it has been claimed, of a kind of mental disease, namely anti-Semitism, to which only goyim are susceptible. Some Jews, it appear, also suffer a kind of race-based disease, namely, paranoia about anti-Jewish racism. Such self-absorption inevitably tends to alienate Jews from the rest of the community. All people are at risk of victimization by prejudice, some are the victims of Jewish racism. B'nai Brith might, therefore, find greater sympathy from the Canadian public if they tackled racism on a broader front. According to Ha'aretz, Out of the total 829 incidents of anti-Semitism in Canada in 2005, "531 were classified as harassment, 273 as vandalism and 25 as violence. Out of the total, 35 were directed at synagogues and 19 at Jewish communal buildings, 113 targeted Jewish homes, 46 occurred in the workplace, 161 related to Internet hate -including 34 cases of targeted hate by e-mail." Regrettable, certainly. But how frightening is it if 1-2% of the population has been subjected to 531 incidents of harassment in a year? That is about one incident per person every 750 years. Have you never been harassed? Within a week or two, a co-worker was harassed by her landlady, her boy friend was harassed by a bus driver. Neither of them is Jewish. Neither is obviously a member of a minority. As for other groups, have none been harassed as much or more than Jews? Apparently, yes. According to Women Against Violence Against Women: Four out of five female undergraduates surveyed at Canadian universities said that they had been victims of violence in a dating relationship. Of that number, 29% reported incidents of sexual assault. (W. DeKeseredy and K. Kelly, "The Incidence and Prevalence of Woman Abuse in Canadian University and College Dating Relationships: Results From a National Survey," Ottawa: Health Canada, 1993). Jews are of no concern to the rest of humanity except insofar as they ar part of humanity. We should not, therefore, be unduly concerned about anti-Semitism, which in Canada has by no means gained the epidemic proportionthat B'nai Brith slanderously implies. Rather, we should concentrate on promoting civility among all of mankind. Permanent Link

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