The National Holocaust Monument Case and its Relationship to Contemporary Antisemitism
- Mark Sandler
- Jul 27
- 3 min read
Updated: Nov 12
This past Friday, Iain Aspenlieder entered a guilty plea to causing mischief to a war memorial. In June, he vandalized the National Holocaust Monument in Ottawa. At the recent court hearing, an agreed upon statement of facts was filed with the court, outlining Aspenlieder’s crime. He will next appear in court on September 3, when it is expected that a date will be set for his sentencing hearing later in the year.
It is revealing that Aspenlieder’s lawyer reportedly told CTV News that the “the court will hear that his conduct, while unlawful, was driven by a profound sense of compassion and moral urgency — not by hatred or prejudice. He looks forward to demonstrating that his motivation was rooted in a desire to call attention to human suffering, not to cause harm or spread intolerance.” It is anticipated that Aspenlieder will say that his crime was prompted by his anger towards Israel’s handling of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and Canada’s failure to act.
But this is precisely how antisemitism against Canadian Jews is perpetrated. Aspenlieder was entitled to his views on the Middle East conflict — and to express them forcefully. But he didn’t stand outside the Israeli embassy or Parliament in Ottawa to protest. Instead, he desecrated a national monument entitled, “Landscape of Loss, Memory and Survival," designed to ensure that we remember one of the darkest chapters in human history, the mass extermination of over six million Jews and countless others, and acknowledge the remarkable contributions Holocaust survivors have made to Canada.
Aspenlieder’s actions can only be reasonably regarded as holding Canadian Jews collectively responsible for the conduct or perceived conduct of a foreign sovereign government. And that is precisely what antisemitism is too often all about.
And yet…anti-Israel advocates will justify, excuse and even, in some instances, applaud Aspenlieder’s crime. They should be ashamed for doing so.
When there is conflict in the Middle East, antisemitic hostility and hate crimes spiral upwards. Since October 7, 2023, the number of these crimes has reached unprecedented levels in Canada. Moreover, a recent study commissioned by the Office of the Special Envoy on Preserving Holocaust Remembrance and Combatting Antisemitism documented the intolerable levels of antisemitic incidents now being experienced by Jewish students in Ontario's K-12 spaces. Too many of such incidents occurred under the watch of the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board, identified alongside the Toronto District School Board as systemically under-responsive to these incidents. Aspenlieder's crime is the latest manifestation of a serious Ottawa problem, an Ontario problem, and indeed, a Canada problem.
Until our society fully recognizes that it is deplorable to attack Jewish places of worship, schools, students and community members based on opposition to Israel’s conduct, antisemitism will continue to flourish. Attacking a holocaust memorial is equally, if not more, troubling because it also feeds into the growing instances of Holocaust denial, minimization and inversion utilized to demonize Jews and delegitimize Israel’s very existence (as opposed to criticizing its government or behaviour)
Contrary to what will be asserted on Aspenlieder’s behalf, his motivation does not mitigate his crime. His conduct was, instead, yet another act that perpetrates hatred and fear, and causes harm to the Jewish community and society at large. Indeed, the agreed upon statement of facts contains an admission on Aspenlieder’s behalf that the crime caused some Jewish community members to “reasonably fear for their safety and the safety of their loved ones as they were targeted for accusations against Israel.”
And to be clear, although this crime places the Jewish community at risk, hate crimes against Muslims, Arabs or Palestinians based on the events in the Middle East are no less intolerable.
This is precisely why our Criminal Code treats crimes that are motivated by hatred against identifiable groups, whether distinguished by colour, race, religion, national or ethnic origin, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or mental or physical disability, as deserving of deterrent sentences -- especially where a particular group, such as Jews, is being targeted in unparalleled numbers.
In my view, Aspenlieder's crime should be no exception.
About the Author
Mark Sandler, LL.B., LL.D. (honoris causa), ALCCA’s Chair, is widely recognized as one of Canada’s leading criminal lawyers and pro bono advocates. He has been involved in combatting antisemitism for over 40 years. He has lectured extensively on legal remedies to combat hate and has promoted respectful Muslim-Jewish, Sikh-Jewish and Black-Jewish dialogues. He has appeared before Parliamentary committees and in the Supreme Court of Canada on multiple occasions on issues relating to antisemitism and hate activities. He is a former member of the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal, a three-time elected Bencher of the Law Society of Ontario, and recipient of the criminal profession’s highest honour, the G. Arthur Martin Medal, for his contributions to the administration of criminal justice.