ALCCA Chair Mark Sandler: Reflections on Antisemitism Today at the Lord Reading Law Society
- ALCCA Staff
- Jan 21
- 3 min read
Updated: Jan 21
The Lord Reading Law Society’s Annual Human Rights Lecture, held on November 26, 2025, featured ALCCA Chair Mark Sandler, who delivered a lecture entitled Antisemitism Today: The Law, the Community, and the Way Forward: A Canadian Perspective.
Founded in 1948, the Lord Reading Law Society is the collective voice of Jewish jurists in Quebec, dedicated to the furtherance of human rights and fundamental freedoms.
The annual lecture reflects the Society’s longstanding commitment to the rule of law and human rights.
The evening opened with reflections on the Society’s own history. Founded at a time when Jewish lawyers in Quebec faced exclusion from professional life, the Society emerged as a vehicle for dignity, solidarity, and access. While overt barriers eventually fell, Sandler cautioned against complacency. Antisemitism, he argued, has not disappeared. Instead, it has evolved.
A central theme of the lecture was the evolution of antisemitism from overt hostility to more complex forms that often operate through the language of social justice and rights-based discourse. Sandler noted that while legitimate criticism of Israeli government policies is not antisemitic, antisemitism arises when Jews are held collectively responsible for Israel’s actions, when Israel is uniquely demonized or delegitimized, or when classic antisemitic tropes are repackaged in contemporary terms.
Zionism, Sandler explained, is simply the belief in a Jewish democratic state in the Jewish people’s historic homeland. Yet anti-Zionism has increasingly become a socially acceptable proxy for antisemitism.
He identified several factors contributing to this shift, including the false redefinition of Zionism as Jewish supremacy; the portrayal of Zionism as colonialism, which resonates within certain ideological frameworks; the amplification of misinformation through social media; and the influence of extremist ideologies that appropriate the language of human rights while promoting exclusion and hatred.
The consequences of these trends are not abstract. Sandler pointed to data showing that Jews are the targets of over 70% of hate-motivated crimes based on religion in Canada, despite constituting a small percentage of the population. These figures, he emphasized, are widely understood to be underreported.
He also described a troubling convergence of online radicalization, lone actor threats, and ideological extremism. Law enforcement, he noted, increasingly views these dynamics as posing serious risks to Jewish communities.
Turning to the law, Sandler emphasized that Canada’s Criminal Code already contains tools capable of addressing many forms of hate activity, including mischief, intimidation, and offences involving the obstruction of public infrastructure. Too often, however, these provisions are underused due to unfamiliarity.
Drawing on his experience training police and prosecutors, he stressed the importance of consistent enforcement and the use of community impact statements to convey the broader harm caused by hate crimes, including acts such as the desecration of Holocaust memorials.
The lecture also addressed challenges within educational and institutional settings. Sandler expressed concern about emerging definitions of discrimination that label support for Israel as inherently racist, thereby marginalizing Jewish identity and silencing debate. He contrasted these approaches with the IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism, which seeks to capture how antisemitism manifests in contemporary contexts, including through attacks on Jewish collective identity.
Looking ahead, Sandler’s message was one of strategy and responsibility. Antisemitism, he emphasized, is not a challenge faced by one community alone, but a broader societal issue that cannot be addressed in isolation.
He urged lawyers, institutions, and civic leaders to use the tools available to them and to reject selective outrage. Racism, antisemitism, and extremism, he argued, must be confronted together.
Sandler’s remarks underscored the importance of continued engagement, clarity in the law, and a willingness to work across communities. His reflections offered a reminder that confronting antisemitism, like confronting all forms of hate, requires dialogue, shared responsibility, and sustained commitment.
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This article is adapted from a summary originally prepared by the Lord Reading Law Society, whose work thoughtfully captured the key themes of the lecture.