KINSELLA: Jew hate festers across Canada

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That's what they scrawled on the window of my partner's business – below a Palestinian flag sticker.

Earlier, they had worked to remove her from charities she'd supported for years. She was inundated with hateful messages when she took some of her mother's ashes to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.

Around the same time, we heard there was a "Jew list" circulating in Prince Edward County, and her business – a coffee shop and bakery – was on it. To be boycotted.

She's not a Jew, my partner. She doesn't occupy public office, she doesn't give speeches. She just happens to live with an Irish Catholic guy who writes newspaper columns and books about the epidemic of antisemitism and hate that has gripped the world since Oct, 7, 2023.

There's been a lot to write about.

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Before that, around here, there had been a Bloomfield business that had promoted a "global strike in support of Palestine," which was a concoction of the Palestinian National and Islamic Forces, whose membership includes Hamas and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – both designated terror groups.

When I wrote about that for this newspaper, I was targeted by the chef at a popular brew pub in Wellington, and was later banned from another restaurant in nearby Consecon. ZIONISTS are not welcome there, I was told, all-caps.

And, as I write this, a neighbour across the road has a big "FREE PALESTINE" sign in her window. In a hamlet of maybe 65 people. Just to send us a message, perhaps, that we are unwelcome.

It's everywhere, in towns and cities in Canada, big and small.

And, now, it has come to little Belleville, Ont. The place that was known as The Friendly City is now known for something quite different. Now, it may forever be the place where an armed, anti-vaccination lunatic showed up at a synagogue where 25 people had gathered to pray.

"You are going to die for the Jews!" he screamed at two Belleville police officers who appeared in time to prevent a slaughter.

Those two officers – one grievously wounded – saved many, many lives.

Two hours after the terror attack, I went to the Belleville police headquarters to speak with the men, women and children who had been at the Sons of Jacob synagogue that night. They appeared to be less concerned with themselves and much more concerned about Const. Jeff Smith, who they said was a hero and was at that moment clinging to life at a hospital in Kingston.

They said they would start a fundraiser for him and his family. It's now at nearly $700,000.

Is Belleville, is Prince Edward County, different than other places? Is there more hate here than in other towns and cities? No.

While it is a fact that the Ku Klux Klan stubbornly persisted around in this area for decades – hating Jews and Catholics and immigrants alike – Belleville and Prince Edward County are no better, and no worse, than other parts of this country. Throw a dart at a map of Canada, and a historian can tell you about the hate that happened there.

The Anti-Asian riots in B.C., in which thousands participated. The Aryan Nations in Alberta, which believes Hitler was a prophet sent by God. Cross-burnings and hate rallies in Saskatchewan. A KKK klavern in Manitoba. The pro-Nazi Christie Pits riots in Toronto. The Catholic priest in Quebec who advocated racial purity and Jew hatred, and whose name is (still) on a Montreal subway station. The Holocaust-denying teacher in New Brunswick. The destruction of Africville in Nova Scotia – the Imperial Wizard of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, from PEI. The residential schools that stole children, all over.

And, now, there are the firebombings, shootings, beatings and death threats happening from coast to coast – more than 70% of it happening to 1% of our population. Jews.

What is the cause of all this hate, this unspooling of sanity? Lots of things. Pitiful leaders at all levels, who believe that social media posts offering thoughts and prayers is sufficient. Union leaders and academics promoting "anti-Zionism," which even the Canadian government has now acknowledged includes antisemitism.

Some media organizations – like CBC (which refused for days to say that the Belleville shooter was targeting Jews) or like the Toronto Star (which employs a columnist who has promoted hateful claims that Jews who "keep centering their feelings (in antisemitism) is an example of how whiteness has infiltrated" communities). And, of course, many non-Jews, who have chosen to look away from what is happening across the country. Who shrug.

Belleville's name will live in history, and likely not in a good way. It will be remembered as the place in Canada where the Intifada – the bloody, homicidal uprising against Jews – was finally globalized.

But it's not just Belleville, now. It's everywhere. Look out your window: it's there.