Non-Jewish community should stand up against hate

In response to more than 100 Jewish institutions across Canada receiving identical bomb threats, Deborah Lyons, Canada’s Special Envoy on Preserving Holocaust Remembrance and Combatting Antisemitism, wrote, “These threats against the Jewish community are intended to intimidate and sow fear.

- HON. PAUL TELLIER, HON. KEVIN LYNCH, ANDREW MOLSON, PAUL DEEGAN

The vast silent majority of Canadians finds the harassment and intimidation of the Jewish community of Canada vile and unacceptable. It is past time to stand up and say NO MORE.”

While largely silent today, we have seen courageous acts of leadership from the non-Jewish community in the past. In 1947, a broad-based coalition of allies came together to form the Canadian Council of Christians and Jews — an organization whose mission was to push back against antisemitism and religious-based hate. With chapters across Canada, it became the leading forum for dialogue and understanding between Christians and Jews. In 2004, in the wake of antisemitic incidents in Toronto and Montreal, then-Bank of Montreal president and CEO Tony Comper and his late wife, Elizabeth, formed a coalition called Fighting Antisemitism Together. It was pointedly made up exclusively of non-Jewish business leaders. The CEOs of Canada’s leading corporations lent their own names and their companies’ names to full page ads that ran in major Canadian newspapers.