Is antisemitism a minor issue in Canada? According to NDP leadership candidate Avi Lewis and Corey Balsam of the group Independent Jewish Voices, the answer is yes. They argue that protests often called antisemitic are merely anti-Zionist and that a large portion of Canadian Jews are non-Zionists. In a forceful rebuttal, renowned sociologist Robert Brym asserts these claims are not only wrong but constitute a form of gaslighting against the Jewish community and the Canadian public.
Data Reveals Widespread Antisemitic Attitudes
Brym points to concrete data to challenge the minimization of antisemitism. He cites a 2025 survey by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), which assessed antisemitic attitudes across more than 100 countries. The findings for Canada are stark: eight per cent of adult Canadians, or approximately 2.6 million people, were found to harbour elevated levels of antisemitic attitudes.
With only about 321,000 adult Jews in the country, this ratio translates to roughly eight adult antisemites for every single adult Jew. "This is hardly a trivial problem for Canada’s Jews," Brym emphasizes, directly countering the narrative presented by Lewis and Balsam.
Anti-Jewish Hate Crimes Are Rising Sharply
Beyond attitudes, Brym highlights the alarming reality of hate crimes. He notes that Lewis used outdated, nearly decade-old data to downplay the threat. The most recent statistics paint a far grimmer picture.
In 2024, the rate of anti-Jewish hate crime in Canada was nearly five times higher than it was in 2014. Based on his analysis of government figures, Brym calculates that there was one police-verified anti-Jewish hate crime for every 366 Jews in the nation last year.
To provide context, he compares this to other groups: there was one anti-Black hate crime for every 1,961 Black Canadians and one anti-Muslim hate crime for every 9,091 Muslims in the same period. "Clearly, the impact of hate crime is much more severe for Jews than for any other ethnic, racial or religious group in Canada," Brym states.
He underscores this point by observing that Jewish institutions are uniquely forced to implement extreme security measures, including surveillance cameras, protective fencing, and armed guards at synagogues, schools, and community centres.
The Vital Link Between Canadian Jews and Israel
A core part of the debate centres on whether anti-Zionism is inherently antisemitic. Lewis and Balsam argue that actions like demonstrations, encampments, and vandalism—even those opposing Israel's existence as a Jewish state—are not antisemitic.
Brym dismantles this argument by presenting the perspectives of Canadian Jews themselves. Recent surveys indicate that 86 per cent of Canadian Jews see caring for Israel as an essential or important part of their Jewish identity. Furthermore, a overwhelming 94 per cent support the existence of a Jewish state in Israel.
For the vast majority of Canadian Jews, therefore, phrases like "from the river to the sea" are understood as a call for the destruction of that state. Brym poses a poignant question on their behalf: "Where, they ask, could millions of Jews have gone other than to Israel when they were displaced from eastern Europe, Ethiopia, the Muslim-majority countries of the Middle East and North Africa and so on?"
In conclusion, Robert Brym's analysis presents a data-driven counter-narrative, arguing that antisemitism and anti-Jewish hate are significant and growing problems in Canada, and that for most Canadian Jews, support for Israel is inextricably linked to their identity and security.
