Canada has decided to join the chorus of countries critical of Israel. And so, Canada has announced that it is suspending all arms and weapons exports to Israel.
This announcement should come as no surprise. Anyone Jewish who knows Canada should also know of its long and ugly history of Jew hatred and antisemitism. Canada may share a border and a language with the United States, but Canada is not the United States. Their values, their definition of democracy, are as vastly different as their border is long. And that shared border is, in fact, the world’s longest international land border.
During the horrific period from 1933 to 1945, Canada admitted just 4,000 Jewish refugees. Canada took in the lowest number of Jews than any other country in the world receiving refugees. The lowest number, by far. The Dominican Republic took in far more Jews than did this North American country.
When it came to Jews fleeing for their lives, Canadian leadership had no conscience.
In May 1939, 937 Jews set sail from Hamburg, Germany, on their way to Cuba – all with valid, legal visas. Along the way, Cuba canceled the visas, stranding all 937 people, abandoning them aboard the ship they were sailing, a ship called the MS St. Louis. The ship continued on its voyage, hoping for refuge, sailing up the east coast of the US in search of a port that would give them refuge. The United States refused.
What is lesser known is that Canada, too, denied these Jews entry. The MS St. Louis returned to Germany. Upon arrival, all 937 passengers, all 937 Jews trying to escape Nazi Germany, were shipped off to concentration camps.
Canada extends from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean; it is the world’s second-largest country by total area. With a population of nearly 40 million, it is also one of the world’s most sparsely inhabited countries.
The most damning description of Canada’s attitude toward Jews comes in the form of the expression “None is too many.”
In 1939, when Frederick Blair, Canada’s minister of immigration, was presented with reports about Hitler’s plans and asked how many Jewish refugees would be allowed into Canada, his answer was swift and shocking. His response was a harrowing “None is too many.”
Again, I repeat, none is too many.
Those four words later became the title of a spectacular book, written by Irving Abella and Harold Troper in 1983. The book, which won the National Jewish Book Award in the United States, details Canada’s attitude toward the Jews and its extremely restrictive immigration and refugee policy from 1933 to 1948. This policy, adopted by then-Canadian prime minister William Lyon Mackenzie King, was not hidden.
It was the public policy of the government of Canada. And yet, authors Abella and Troper had a difficult time finding a publisher for their work. No publisher wanted to publish this ground-breaking, well-documented tome. Canada’s true and ugly history of Jew-hatred was not what they were interested in. Canadians did not want to read the truth. Publishers rejected the work calling it “un-Canadian.”
Canada's attitude towards Jews is a dark chapter in its history
This history of Canada’s attitude toward Jews is truly bone-chilling and very disturbing. It destroys the image of Canadians as polite, genteel, open, and cultured Westerners. When it comes to Jews, the opposite is true.
Notre Dame Hospital in Montreal actually went on strike for four days because the hospital had hired a senior intern named Samuel Rabinovitch. Not a senior doctor or a department head – a senior intern. The hospital staff actually refused to treat patients because a man named Rabinovitch had joined their ranks. Finally, the hospital administration found Rabinovitch another internship in St. Louis, Missouri – ironic I know – and the medical staff resumed their duties.
Suffice it to say, Israel should pay no attention to what Canada does or what Canada says. Israel, the Jewish state, while only about a quarter of the population of Canada and significantly younger than Canada, has made an impact on the world the likes of which Canada can never claim.
Canada has joined ranks with those countries and those leaders who side with Hamas terrorists, who stand with Hamas and Hamas barbarism, who embrace evil over righteousness. Canada can cloak its actions in terms of humanitarian justice. It can claim that it cares about civilian casualties in Gaza. And while it may indeed care about Gazans, what it is also saying is that the lives of the Jewish hostages, the Israeli hostages, and the brutal massacre of October 7, is simply history and of no interest.
Israel does not need Canada. Canada needs Israel – Israeli innovation and Israeli inventions, Israeli ingenuity, and Israeli integrity. Right now, I pity the some 400,000 Jews still living in Canada.
The writer is a social and political commentator. Watch his TV show Thinking Out Loud on JBS.