When B’nai Brith released its annual antisemitism report on April 17, documenting 2,769 incidents of Jew hatred in Canada last year, we wondered why the numbers were so high. After all, the Canadian government’s own data on police-reported hate crimes against Jews accounted for a fraction of that number. In France, whose Jewish population is bigger than Canada’s, there were just 469 cases in 2022—six times lower than in Canada. And the American numbers are relatively the same as Canada’s although they have 17 times as many Jews as we do.

So The CJN Daily asked B’nai Brith’s director of the League for Human Rights, Marvin Rotrand, to help explain the numbers.

As we begin Jewish Heritage Month today, on May 1—and The CJN Daily turns two years old today—we kick off the month reflecting on these troubling statistics, asking how safe it is for Jews in Canada and what these disturbing data actually look like.

What we talked about

• Read how the Montreal Jewish community reacted to a recent flag-burning in The CJN
• Why there were 2, 769 reported incidents of antisemitism in Canada last year, according to B’nai Brith’s annual audit, in The CJN.

Credits

The CJN Daily is written and hosted by Ellin Bessner (@ebessner on Twitter). Zachary Kauffman is the producer. Michael Fraiman is the executive producer. Our theme music is by Dov Beck-Levine. Our title sponsor is Metropia. We’re a member of The CJN Podcast Network. To subscribe to this podcast, please watch this video. Donate to The CJN and receive a charitable tax receipt by clicking here.