Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Make a Passover gift and support Jewish journalism. DONATE NOW
Fast Forward

2,000 Sign Online Petition To Keep Holocaust Denier Out Of Canada

MONTREAL (JTA) — An online petition launched by B’nai Brith Canada aiming to prevent an American Holocaust denier from speaking in Toronto has garned nearly 2,000 signatures.

Kevin Barrett, who has called the 9/11 attacks an “inside job,” is due to address the city’s annual Al-Quds Day rally on Saturday. Al-Quds is the Muslim name for Jerusalem, and the annual march during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan is generally a call for the destruction of Israel.

In the petition, B’nai Brith demanded that Canada’s Border Services Agency keep out Barrett.

“Inviting a notorious Holocaust denier to this event demonstrated once and for all that Al-Quds Day is not a mere ‘anti-Israel’ event, but rather a hate rally designed to demonize and denigrate Canada’s Jewish population,” B’nai Brith Canada CEO Michael Mostyn told The Canadian Jewish News.

Barrett, a teacher at the University of Wisconsin in Madison until 2006, was barred from Canada in 2015. At the time, he reportedly referred to the Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris as a “false flag” operation.

“Barrett has repeatedly questioned the murder of six million Jews by Nazi Germany,” B’nai Brith said.

This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.

We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover. All donations are being matched by the Forward Board - up to $100,000.

This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.

With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.

The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.

Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

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.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.