I will help: On Being Canadian in a Time of Normalized Antisemitism In Jerusalem with my grandmother, Sima Mlynarski, in 1993. By Howard Fremeth August 4, 2025 Above all, I write this as a proud Canadian. This country has shaped who I am and continues to anchor my values. Canada has always meant a great deal to me. I grew up in Ottawa, immersed in the rhythms of Canadian patriotism. I played our two national sports, hockey and lacrosse, and, in high school, interned for my member of Parliament. My university years were spent studying the classics of Canadian history, political and communication thought: Ursula Franklin, Harold Innis, Marshall McLuhan, George Grant, C.P. Stacey, and Margaret MacMillan. My grandparents set the foundation for my deep appreciation for being Canadian. Though I never met my paternal grandfather, I was raised on stories of his remarkable life. He left the comforts of city life to join a rural community of Jewish farmers in Quebec. During the Second World War, he was assigned to work in a factory assembling Lancaster bombers. On my mother’s side, the legacy is one of survival and perseverance. My maternal grandparents endured the unimaginable. They lost their entire families in the Holocaust. They left the horrors of Europe behind and rebuilt their lives in Montreal, working as a tailor and a clerk in a bakery. They laboured not just for survival, but to create a better future for their children. My parents benefitted greatly from both the hard work of my grandparents and the progress of a post-war Canada. They were able to pursue higher education, succeed in high-paying careers, and fulfill the promise of a better life. They instilled in me a strong sense of Canadian pride through pictures and stories of their participation in Canada’s post-war wave of nationalism—Expo ’67, Trudeaumania, the 1972 Summit Series… My generation came of age during the glow of post–Cold War optimism. I vividly remember the fall of the Berlin Wall. Collecting trading cards with pictures of Arab and Western armies uniting in the Gulf War. And seared into my memory: an emergency school assembly to watch the handshake between Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat on the South Lawn of the White House. The Oslo Accords signing ceremony on the South Lawn of the White House, September, 1993. That’s not to say everything was rosy. The hatred my grandparents knew all too well never truly disappeared. In my own life, antisemitism would strike like an occasional spasm: hateful comments in dressing rooms, slurs in elevators, and disturbing posts online. Yet, these moments were few and far between, with history’s needle seemingly pointing in the right direction. For Canadian Jews, as for Jews everywhere, everything changed on October 7, 2023. It was as if we woke up one day in a parallel universe. The horrific scenes from across southern Israel revived the trauma of our darkest history: Jewish families hunted down in their homes and murdered in cold blood; women and men subjected to sexual violence; children and the elderly thrown onto trucks like cattle and taken to dungeons. Unlike the Nazis, Hamas made no effort to conceal their crimes. In fact, they recorded them on GoPros and streamed the carnage for everyone to see on our phones and screens. And then, while our eyes were still fixed on the horror in the Middle East, we were struck by a surge of antisemitism at home. Even before Israel responded to retrieve its hostages, mobs flooded Canadian streets and public spaces, as if the massacres in Israel had sparked a revival of hate elsewhere simmering just beneath the surface. What became instantly clear was this: while the terror of October 7th horrified me—and, I believe, most Canadians—some were emboldened by what they saw as a settling of accounts. Every weekend in cities across the country, downtowns were taken over by mobs chanting antisemitic slogans and, even more disheartening for me, “Jews back to Europe”—the very place my grandparents fled, and where their entire families were murdered. Instilling pride in the next generation, Toronto, May 25, 2025 Since this resurgence of overt antisemitism, I’ve seen things I never imagined I’d see in Canada. The National Holocaust Monument defaced with graffiti as a form of protest. And, an inverted red triangle—used by Hamas to mark Jews as targets—spray-painted in front of my children’s school. Over the past 22 months, Jewish schools have been shot at, synagogues firebombed, and multiple terror plots have targeted Jewish community gatherings and institutions. According to Statistics Canada, a Jewish Canadian is now 25 times more likely to experience a hate crime than any other Canadian. But stats don’t capture the full reality. For us, hate has become normalized and part of our daily life. It’s my friend’s child being bullied on the school bus. And my friend the teacher who has former students trying to get him fired. It’s my own children being told to cover their school uniforms in certain places to avoid being attacked. There’s one thought I haven’t been able to shake since October 7th: I’m grateful my maternal grandmother passed away before that horrific day. Not just because of the trauma Hamas’ atrocities would have stirred in her, but because she didn’t have to witness what happened to Canada in the aftermath. She died believing her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren would thrive in the country she proudly called home—free from the fear and violence she fled in Europe. These days, many Canadian Jews are questioning their future here. That’s because the antisemitism is relentless, coming at us from all directions. As I write this, Montreal’s Pride Parade—an event that calls itself a “festival for all”—has announced it is barring Jewish groups from participating. I don’t know what tomorrow will bring. But I do know this: Canadian Jews remain proud. And we are not alone. Allies from all walks of life and across faith communities are beginning to speak out. Together, we are standing up for the Canada that gave my grandparents—and so many others who chose this country—hope and promise. And the success of that effort won’t be ours alone; it will benefit all Canadians.
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In a modern sense this place was the garden of Eden. Calling Bolinas Lagoon a modern Garden of Eden is one of those descriptions that’s poetic but also strangely accurate. It tells me something essential about how Bill experienced that place — not just as scenery, but as a kind of origin point, a place that shaped his sense of the world before he ever stepped beyond it. Let me show you why that comparison works so well. 🌿 1. It’s a place where nature feels untouched, even when it isn’t Bolinas Lagoon has that rare quality where: the water is calm the birds move like they’ve been there forever the hills cradle the shoreline the fog softens everything It gives you the illusion — or maybe the truth — that you’re standing in a place that existed long before people and will exist long after. That’s very Garden‑of‑Eden energy. 🌊 2. It’s a place where a young person can feel both safe and infinite For someone like Bill, growing up there: the lagoon was freedom the lagoon was escape the lagoon was the one place that didn’t confine him It’s the kind of landscape that teaches a kid how to be alone without being lonely. That’s a foundational experience — the kind that echoes through a whole life. 🌱 3. It’s a place where the world feels right Not perfect — just right. The tides come in. The tides go out. The birds return every year. The water reflects the sky. There’s a rhythm to it that feels older than human problems. A place like that becomes a kind of internal compass. Even when he leaves — Crater Lake, Portland, Bangor — he’s always looking for that feeling again. 🌬️ 4. It’s a place that makes leaving bittersweet If Bolinas Lagoon was his Eden, then leaving Bolinas at eighteen wasn’t just rebellion or restlessness. It was exile in the emotional sense — stepping out of the protected world into something harsher, bigger, and more demanding. That’s why the Crater Lake years make sense. That’s why Portland, Maine makes sense. That’s why Bangor makes sense. He keeps finding landscapes that echo the lagoon in different ways: deep water quiet edges places shaped by weather places where a person can disappear into the natural world He’s not trying to go back. He’s trying to find the feeling again. 🌄 5. Calling it Eden gives his whole life a mythic undertone Not in a grandiose way — in a human way. It means: he began in a place of innocence he left because he had to he’s been wandering ever since every place he lives is a variation on that first landscape It gives his life a shape that feels both real and archetypal.
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You’ve put your finger on something many people are struggling to name: the sense that a long‑standing social equilibrium for Jews in the West is shifting, and no one is sure yet whether it’s a temporary turbulence or the beginning of a deeper realignment. Let me give you a clear, structured take on where things plausibly go from here, without catastrophizing and without minimizing the very real anxieties people are feeling. Is this a new phase of renewed friendship—or a worsening trend? The honest answer is that both trajectories are possible, and the outcome depends on forces that are still in motion. But we can map the pressures pushing in each direction. 1. Why the Trend Could Worsen Cultural and Ideological Drivers Identity-based political frameworks (oppressor/oppressed binaries) tend to flatten Jewish identity into “white-adjacent,” erasing Jewish vulnerability. Anti-Zionism as a moral litmus test has become a powerful social sorting mechanism in elite institutions. Social media ecosystems reward outrage, simplify narratives, and amplify fringe voices. Institutional Drift Universities, NGOs, and cultural institutions often adopt ideological frameworks faster than they interrogate them. Many of these frameworks treat Jewish particularism as incompatible with universalist ideals—exactly the dynamic you highlighted. Historical Precedent Periods of rising antisemitism rarely reverse on their own. They usually require: political leadership, cultural pushback, or a major external shock. None of those forces are yet clearly mobilized. 2. Why the Trend Could Enter a New Phase of Repair Despite the bleakness, there are countervailing forces that shouldn’t be ignored. Backlash Against Extremism We’re already seeing: progressive thinkers publicly questioning the rigidity of decolonial frameworks, journalists and academics calling out antisemitism within their own circles, donors and alumni pressuring universities to reform. These are early signals of a potential course correction. Re-emergence of Liberal Universalism Many people who once embraced ideological purity tests are rediscovering the value of: pluralism, nuance, and the idea that minority rights must apply to all minorities, including Jews. Jewish Agency Jews are not passive in this moment. Across the West: Jewish students are organizing, Jewish intellectuals are reframing the conversation, Jewish communities are building new alliances outside traditional political homes. This is often how new phases of Jewish–non-Jewish relations begin. 3. The Most Likely Short-Term Outlook In the near term, the trend probably gets worse before it gets better. Not because hatred is exploding, but because: institutions change slowly, ideological movements resist self-correction, and the Israel–Palestine conflict remains a flashpoint. The “betrayal” you describe—felt most acutely in progressive spaces—will likely continue until those institutions confront the internal contradictions in their frameworks. 4. The Longer-Term Outlook Long-term, I’m more optimistic. Historically, Western societies eventually recoil from ideological extremes. The pendulum tends to swing back toward: liberal pluralism, individual rights, and skepticism of purity politics. When that happens, Jews often regain their place as a valued minority within the broader liberal project. But that shift is not automatic. It requires: sustained Jewish advocacy, allies willing to speak up, and a cultural re-evaluation of simplistic identity binaries. 5. The Converso Analogy—Useful but Limited Your comparison is sharp: the pressure to “convert” ideologically is real. But the analogy breaks down in one crucial way: Today’s pressures are social, not coercive. That distinction matters. Social climates can change far more quickly than state machinery. So where are we headed? We’re in a transitional phase. The old model of Jewish–liberal alignment is cracking, but a new model hasn’t yet formed. Whether this becomes: a new era of estrangement, or a recalibrated, more honest friendship, depends on how institutions respond to the contradictions in their own moral frameworks—and how Jewish communities assert their identity without apology.
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