Canada Sees Decline in Anti-Semitic Incidents
Anti-Semitic incidents decreased slightly in Canada in 2013 over the previous year, but cases of vandalism and violence rose “significantly,” according to B’nai Brith Canada.
The organization’s annual audit of anti-Semitic incidents, released April 11, found that Canada-wide there were 1,274 incidents recorded in 2013, a 5.3 percent decrease over the year before.
While episodes of harassment decreased from 1,013 in 2012 to 872 in 2013, representing a nearly 14 percent drop, acts of vandalism rose by 21.6 percent – 388 in 2013 and 319 the year before, and cases of violence rose by one, from 13 to 14.
Lest “they be dismissed as trivial annoyance,” the audit noted that 113 of the 872 cases classified as harassment “involved explicit threats of violence or harm against individuals, families, businesses or institutions.”
Just over half of last year’s incidents, or 741, took place “as is the usual pattern” in Ontario, Canada’s most populous province, according to the report. The next largest number, 250, were recorded in Quebec. In cases involving vandalism, “a marked increase” was noted in the Montreal area as well as Atlantic Canada, while dropping in the Western provinces.
The report notes there were 434 reported incidents involving web-based hate activity, a drop from the 521 incidents reported in 2012 and 528 reported in 2011. About half of these incidents involved the use of social media applications including Facebook and Twitter, the report said.
While an overall decrease in anti-Semitic incidents “is always welcome, the incidents reveal the unrelenting nature of anti-Semitism in Canada,” the annual audit states. It points out that over the last decade anti-Jewish occurrences have increased by nearly 50 percent.
But numbers “are only part of the story,” said Frank Dimant, CEO, B’nai Brith Canada. “What we are hearing from callers is a growing sense of dread among Canadians. Although the numbers for this year are down slightly, hatred of Jews has veered so far into normative discourse that it is no longer seen as wrong.”
Among B’nai Brith’s recommendations are to make Holocaust denial a specified hate crime under the Criminal Code; ban membership in hate groups in accordance with Canada’s international obligations; ensure that the victims of hate crimes are given a voice in criminal prosecutions; and to put measures in place to counter cyber bullying, including incidents involving expressions of hate and discrimination.
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
2X match on all Passover gifts!
Most Popular
In Case You Missed It
-
Opinion Following an Orwellian ‘Liberation Day,’ is a doublethinking America on its way to becoming another Oceania?
-
Culture An endangered tortoise had a geriatric miracle birth — Sarah did it first
-
Food This Passover, try a big, glorious spring salad for the karpas
-
Fast Forward Just 1 Jewish coach still in NCAA title contention as Todd Golden’s Florida faces Houston in men’s basketball final
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.