Event Recap: Confronting Antisemitism in Our Community Panel
- ALCCA Staff
- May 21
- 5 min read
Updated: May 27
On April 29, Beth Tikvah Synagogue hosted a panel on confronting antisemitism in our community. Broadcast journalist Alex Pierson moderated the panel discussion featuring ALCCA Chair Mark Sandler, CIJA Senior Vice-President Richard Marceau, Rabbi Jarrod Grover, and Hank Idsinga, retired Toronto Police inspector. Each of the panelists was asked to identify, to a filled sanctuary, challenges facing the Jewish community, as well as solutions.
Rabbi Grover described surging antisemitism as “the bitter and predictable result of a deeper societal crisis.” He named that crisis as “moral and cultural erosion.”
In his view, “we have largely abandoned the deliberate work of forming good people. We no longer consistently teach our children the habits of kindness, consideration, and basic human decency. In place of a shared understanding of right and wrong, we have substituted therapeutic individualism, relativism, and group identity politics.
We have de-emphasized restraint, discipline, and the aspiration to rise above our basest instincts, while telling successive generations that their feelings are sovereign and their identities ultimate. Into the resulting vacuum, where character and conscience once resided, old hatreds, tribal grievances, and ancient prejudices such as antisemitism have rushed back with startling speed and ferocity.”
He concluded that “we will confront antisemitism most effectively not only by denouncing it, but by rebuilding a Canada in which such hatred cannot take root. That work does not begin in Parliament, but with each of us. It begins in our homes, where we speak clearly about duty, decency, and responsibility. It grows in our schools, synagogues, churches, and civic institutions, where we shape not only informed minds but formed consciences.
And it must rise to the level of our national life, where we recover the moral confidence to name right and wrong without hesitation, to honour lives of integrity over voices of outrage, and to insist that a free society depends not only on rights, but on the character of those entrusted to uphold them.”
ALCCA Chair Mark Sandler identified contemporary antisemitism, most often fueled by antizionism, as the most troubling challenge currently facing the Jewish community. Classic forms of antisemitism are still with us. But the forms of antisemitism have morphed in a variety of ways. In the aftermath of WW2, holocaust denial and minimalization became a way to demonize Jews and then delegitimize Israel’s very existence as a Jewish state. And now we see contemporary antisemitism often manifested through the language of antizionism and the marginalization/demonization of Zionists.
In contemporary society, antizionism has made significant inroads into supposedly mainstream dialogue for several reasons:
A false rebranding of Zionism by Israel’s adversaries as a movement that asserts Jewish superiority and the subjugation of rights for Israel’s non-Jewish population. The vast majority of Jews reject any such ideology.
The portrayal of Zionism as a colonialist, white privileged movement, appealing to those on the progressive left (which Sandler was a proud member of until it was hijacked) by cloaking antizionism as promotion of human rights and diversity.
The sophisticated use of social media, funding from foreign countries including Iran and Qatar and the use of algorithms that confirm rather than challenge the user’s existing biases and preconceptions
The unrelenting influence of radical Islamism in Canada and around the world that promotes global caliphate, attacks Western societal values, while brilliantly though hypocritically using the language of human rights to demonize Israel. And immunizing radicals from full scrutiny and accountability by pleading that any attack on radical Islamism is Islamophobic.
The solutions are rooted in the robust use of the criminal law to combat hate; through education of the misinformed or uninformed and through dialogue with those who do not seek our destruction. Sandler described the activities of the Canadian Criminal Law Working Group, a joint initiative of ALCCA, CIJA and the Canadian Jewish Law Association in training police and prosecutors, acting for the community in advocating for criminal charges in appropriate cases, and working collaboratively with many organizations to combat extremism.
Richard Marceau identified anti-Palestinian racism as a key weapon employed by antizionists to demonize Israel, Israelis and the vast majority of Jews who support Israel’s right to exist. Governments at all levels, universities, colleges and schools and various agencies are being urged to adopt APR as part of their larger anti-racism policies and strategies. The definition of APR used by its proponents has little to do with addressing true discrimination against Palestinians, but instead, has to do with labelling anyone who supports Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state as an anti-Palestinian racist. APR is being used to silence and marginalize those who support Israel’s right to exist.
Marceau stressed the importance of collaborative community engagement, as community members mobilize to be heard on the issues of importance to our community. He and others reinforced the need to form alliances with non-Jewish organizations and community members with shared values. In order to face the challenges in front of us, we need to keep our heads up, with pride in who we are. Ultimately, that is an issue of attitude.
Hank Idsinga, author of a recently released bestseller, The High Road: Confessions of a Homicide Cop, described the challenges to our community posed by inadequate enforcement of existing criminal laws to combat antisemitism, emphasizing that police must pay attention to the hate messages and incitements of hatred conveyed at protests, not merely whether violence is taking place at the protest scene. He also discussed the need to address larger issues relating to police culture, describing his personal exposure to antisemitism when he was a senior officer with the Toronto Police Service.
In response to questions from the audience and the moderator, the panelists discussed more detailed calls to action for community engagement.
We are all grateful to Beth Tikvah for its hard work in creating and hosting this program. If you wish to contact the Canadian Criminal Law Working Group about a potential or existing criminal complaint, email: info@cclwg.ca
Editor’s Note: In response to a question from the audience, Mr. Sandler undertook to provide more information about the Ontario agencies that receive complaints about policing. A brief summary follows:
In Ontario, the conduct of police officers is governed by the Community Safety and Policing Act, 2019, S.O. 2019, c. 1, Sched. 1 | ontario.ca. Complaints may be made about the conduct of a police officer, a police service or a police services board.
Complaint directly to the Police Service in question
Complaint to Staff Sergeant in charge of the relevant police division or station. This is not considered a formal complaint.
Complaint to the Law Enforcement Complaint Agency (LECA)
The LECA website describes the complaint process as follows:
LECA is responsible for receiving, managing and overseeing public complaints about misconduct of the following:
All municipal, regional, and provincial (OPP) police officers;
Special Constables employed by the Niagara Parks Commission;
Peace Officers in the Legislative Protective Service; and
First Nations police officers if the police service opts into the Community Safety and Policing Act (CSPA).
As an independent civilian oversight agency, LECA ensures all public complaints against the police are dealt with in a manner that is transparent, effective and fair.
LECA has launched a modernized public complaint form designed to create a better complainant experience, improve the quality of information submitted, and support more efficient processing of complaints. The benefits of the new processes are said to include: Faster review times and fewer delays; clearer information about LECA’s complaint process, including Early Resolution options, and greater transparency through confirmation emails and printable records.
An updated offline (PDF) form is also available and aligns with the online version to ensure consistency across formats.
Ontario Inspectorate of Policing
The Inspectorate website reflects the following:
The Inspectorate handles complaints related to compliance with Ontario's Community Safety and Policing Act and its regulations by police services, police service boards, and organizations that employ special constables. This includes complaints about the provision of adequate and effective policing. The Inspectorate also handles complaints respecting the conduct of police service board members. Learn more here: https://www.iopontario.ca/en/complaints
For more information about the various complaint options, contact the CCLWG: info@cclwg.ca.
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