Canadian Jewish Community on Alert as Intelligence Officials Warn of ‘Unprecedented’ Threats

The Jewish community of Canada is facing an unprecedented threat in the wake of Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack, prompting a warning from Canadian national security officials.Officials from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Public Safety Canada, and the Integrated Threat Assessment Center told a Canadian outlet, the Globe and Mail, that young people are being targeted to conduct an “unprecedented” and “unparalleled” number of threats against the Jewish community. The attempt to persuade youth comes from sources ranging from white nationalists to Islamic terror groups and Iran.Officials say the process of radicalization has accelerated dramatically. What once took months before someone attempted an attack can now take less than a month, they say. Amid the growing threats, intelligence officials said the security situation for the Jewish community is the worst since the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The stark assessment was relayed by anonymous officials in response to a question about the threat posed by antisemitism, according to the Globe and Mail. Last month, Canada’s federal government said that antisemitism “can be a matter of national security” and noted a “very real and immediate threat to Jewish individuals and communities.” The government also said that antisemitism is a “core component of many violent extremist ideologies” and that its spread is “not just a threat to public safety but to social cohesion and democratic values.”The founder of Canadian media company Canadaland, Jesse Brown, who is Jewish, told The New York Sun that the federal government is “beginning to wake up to the true scope of the threat that the anti-Zionist movement and its foreign state funders pose to Jews and to Canada.”However, Mr. Brown said the government’s response has been “inadequate” and “naive.” He noted federal programs designed to “deradicalize youth from Islamist extremism and white nationalism,” do not address anti-Zionism. Canadian officials say the threats have soared since Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel. A report released in August on antisemitism on college campuses found that nine in 10 Jewish students said they had experienced or witnessed antisemitism on their campus. The report said that hostility toward Jewish students has become a “normalized and systematic feature of campus life.”A Jewish advocacy organization, the Center for Israel and Jewish Affairs, issued a series of recommendations to protect Jewish students on campus, such as denouncing the Boycott, Divest, and Sanctions movement and ensuring course content does not “promote hateful ideologies.”In June, Canada’s prime minister, Mark Carney, said the country was “failing” its Jewish citizens as he warned of a “crisis of antisemitism.” “It’s severe and it demands a targeted response and that is what our government is fully committed to,” Mr. Carney said as he reported that more than two-thirds of religion-motivated hate crimes were directed at the Jewish community even though Canadian Jews make up only about one percent of the country’s population.Last year, the country recorded 788 incidents of antisemitism. The Integrated Threat Assessment Center report issued in March said the Jewish community faces a “realistic possibility” of a terrorist attack within six months. Amid the growing threats, some Jews are considering leaving Canada. A news outlet, the Medialine, reported that organizations are planning trips for Jews to visit other countries such as America or Israel as they consider moving. One organization, Tulsa Tomorrow, told the outlet that in the last year roughly 1,500 Canadians have expressed interest in visiting the Oklahoma city while they weigh leaving Canada.Toronto law enforcement officials said in June that they had uncovered a “gun-for-hire” network that was being used to recruit young people to carry out shootings at synagogues and Jewish schools. On Yom Kippur, a former soldier’s attack on a synagogue at Ontario, wounding a police officer, led to a shootout of roughly 30 rounds. Intelligence officials told the Globe and Mail that the government has disrupted at least five terror plots against the Jewish community over the last three years.

Canadian Jewish Community on Alert as Intelligence Officials Warn of ‘Unprecedented’ Threats

Canadian Jewish Community on Alert as Intelligence Officials Warn of ‘Unprecedented’ Threats

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