Antisemitic acts rise nationally, but drop in Manitoba

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While Manitoba saw a decrease in antisemitic incidents last year, a B’nai Brith Canada report suggests harassment, vandalism and violence targeted at Jewish communities is increasing across the country.

In its Annual Audit of Antisemitic Incidents 2019 released Monday, the organization counted 2,207 incidents nationally last year, an 8.1 per cent increase compared to 2018.

“This is the fourth consecutive year where there has been a record-breaking number of incidents recorded,” said Ran Ukashi, the national director of B’nai Brith Canada’s League for Human Rights. “It’s the second year in a row where the numbers have actually exceeded 2,000.”

The uptick can be attributed in part to better reporting by the public, but also to the rise of social media platforms that allow users to share antisemitic ideologies and harass others anonymously, Ukashi said. The audit saw an 11 per cent increase in online harassment, much of it advocating genocide and Holocaust denial.

“We see that what happens online often has real-world consequences, so there has to be more done to make sure that this is combated,” Ukashi said.

B’nai Brith also recorded an increase of incidents during the 2019 federal election, such as campaign sign vandalism and candidates sharing antisemitic sentiments online.

There were 104 cases reported in the prairies last year (83 in Manitoba, 21 in Saskatchewan), which represents a 20.6 per cent drop from 2018 when the region had the largest increase in antisemitic incidents in the country. Ukashi says the data is still worrisome because it’s nearly double the 54 incidents reported among the two provinces in 2017.

“What concerns us is that it might be indicative of a changing attitude in the prairies,” he said.

Manitoba examples of antisemitism listed in the report include: a woman who was threatened with violence for being Israeli and Jewish; two male youths who gave a Nazi salute outside of a Winnipeg Jewish school in full view of students; a football field in Oakbank that was vandalized with swastikas; and a vehicle in River Heights that was spray painted with antisemitic graffiti.

“It is always disturbing to know that someone’s going out of their way to vandalize personal property and to give you a message,” Ukashi said.

Graffiti was also found in a Winnipeg school that urged the killing of Jews. B’nai Brith saw 238 incidents of online and in-person antisemitic harassment at primary and secondary schools and Ukashi says the response from educational institutes has been “hit-and-miss.”

While most Manitoba incidents took place in Winnipeg, there was a case of antisemitic vandalism on school buildings in Brandon.

“Which is somewhere you wouldn’t typically see it,” Ukashi said. “The phenomenon of antisemitism can exist even in the absence of a (large) Jewish community.”

eva.wasney@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @evawasney