While Jewish Canadians have benefitted from Canada’s multicultural ideology and policy, they are facing growing anti-Semitism and a lack of acceptance in the country, writes Robert Brym of the University of Toronto in the social science journal Society (online in January). Especially since the Hamas attack on Israel in 2023, Muslim immigrants and Jews have grown further apart in their relations. Canadians were found to be the least anti-Semitic people in the world as recently as 2022; Canada reported having the warmest feelings toward Jewish people of any other nation. “In many ways, Jews had become paragons of Canadian multiculturalism. They were highly successful and fully integrated into Canadian life, yet retained a strong ethno-religious identity, much stronger than that of American Jews on average,” Brym writes. But just a few years after the October 7 attack on Israel, polls found growing hostility between Canadian Muslims and Jews, with one survey finding that 67 percent of those over the age of 54 were concerned about such conflict.
In the months following the attacks, Canadian Jews felt that much of the gains they experienced over the past six decades were being reversed. Academics and professionals boycotted and vandalized Jewish-owned businesses, demonstrators blocked entry to Jewish neighborhoods, with hate crimes spiking in Montreal, Toronto, and other major areas. Much of the conflict is related to the very different demographics of the two ethno-religious groups. Most Muslim immigrants come from the Middle East, South and West Asia, and Africa, especially countries with a high rate of anti-Semitism, and are mainly young and economically disadvantaged, while Jews are older, economically advantaged, and marked by a high rate of support of Israel. Brym conducted a web panel survey of 2,857 Canadians in four samples of non-Jewish adults, non-Jewish university students, Jewish adults, and Muslim adults. He found that some 13 percent of the non-Jewish adults, 26 percent of non-Jewish university students, and 52 percent of Muslim adults had negative attitudes toward Jews. Only Canadian Muslims tended to have negative views of both Jews and Israel. While Jews are less empathic toward Muslims than they were before October 7, they are more empathic toward them than are Canadians in general, and are more empathic than Canadian Muslims are toward Jews.
(Society, https://link.springer.com/journal/12115)
