This Week in Canadian Jewish Advocacy, October 23, 2022

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“While a more expedient resolution would have been preferred, we’re pleased that this individual has been sentenced for spreading hate against the Jewish community. This decision sends a strong message that hate will not be tolerated and that antisemitism puts all Canadians at risk.”  

– Shimon Koffler Fogel, President and CEO, CIJA

On Friday, Travis Patron, founder and leader of the now defunct far-right Canadian Nationalist Party, received a one-year jail sentence for wilfully promoting hate by posting the antisemitic video, Beware the Parasitic Tribe, in which he called for the genocide of Jewish people, saying "what we need to do, perhaps more than anything, is remove all these people, once and for all, from our country."

He also received one-year probation and is banned from posting about Jewish people on the internet or other public forums.

On Thursday, the UN Commission of Inquiry (COI) against Israel issued its first report to the UN General Assembly. The 28-page document mentioned Israel 277 times, yet neither Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, PFLP, or terror’ was cited even once.

In July, United Nations Human Rights Commissioner Miloon Kothari promoted the antisemitic conspiracy theory that social media is "controlled" by the "Jewish lobby," and other anti-Israel tropes, such as “from the river to the sea,” which call for the destruction of the Jewish state. He later added the COI would “tackle this issue of how far you can take antisemitism,” denying the Jewish people their right to define what hatred against them looks like.  

Canada was among many nations around the world that spoke out against these antisemitic remarks and the dangerous lack of impartiality demonstrated by members of the COI. CIJA will continue to bring attention to the UN Commission’s bias against Israel and call for its condemnation.

In January 2020, a delegation of 120 Survivors returned to Auschwitz with their families for the 75th anniversary of its liberation. Over dinner in Krakow, they shared memories of treasured family recipes and how these had sustained them through their worst moments in Auschwitz. 110 of those recipes, from blintzes to tzimmes to cholent, are shared in Honey Cake & Latkes: Recipes from the Old World by the Auschwitz-Birkenau Survivors. All proceeds from the sale of this cookbook will go to the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial Foundation.

Among the many Canadian Survivors profiled is Eva Shainblum, who immigrated to Montreal in 1948 via a program sponsored by the Canadian Jewish Congress.

CIJA is Hiring

Associate Director Communications and Media Relations (Quebec)
Associate Director, Partnerships and Community Engagement (Quebec)
Executive Director – Atlantic Jewish Council

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