Who stands to gain from attack on synagogue?

 

If you feel personally impacted when a Jewish institution is targeted you have a responsibility to criticize that institution for promoting genocide, no? At least if you oppose genocide.

A Facebook post by Joseph Rosen got me considering the question of leftist Canadian Jews responsibilities in the face of Ottawa enabling a holocaust in part by focusing on antisemitism. “Another Synagogue attacked in Montreal”, wrote the Dawson college professor last week. “Yet again, no one I know posts about it. Jewish friends all sending it to each other privately.”

But the late-night destruction of windows and a door at Congregation Beth Tikvah Synagogue and an adjacent Combined Jewish Appeal office was covered by every major media outlet (the Montreal Gazette devoted most of its front page to the incident). It was also condemned by Canadian politicians across the spectrum. In response Israeli President Isaac Herzog called Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and afterwards released a statement about the “intolerable wave of antisemitic attacks against the Canadian Jewish community. I stressed that words would not suffice, and that firm and decisive action must be taken to bring the perpetrators to justice, to stamp out antisemitism, and to educate and legislate in order to ensure the safety and well-being of the Jewish community.” After a similar incident in Toronto the next day Israeli diaspora minister Amichai Chikli claimed, “Canada is no longer safe for Jews.”

B’nai Brith cited the Montreal incident to push for greater state repression of anti-genocide forces. (While there have been a dozen incidents in which windows were smashed or bullets fired at empty synagogues or other Jewish institutions over the past 14 months, anti-genocide protesters have faced far more physical harm at the hands of the police. In fact, Canadian Jews have probably faced greater physical harm while protesting genocide than in anti-Jewish attacks. And on social media Zionists regularly call for more violence to be meted out.) Complaining that leftist friends are not centring an odious incident at a time when antisemitism is aggressively mobilized to legitimize repression against the left and a holocaust is also odious.  (more...)

Who stands to gain from attack on synagogue?