Liberal MP Ya’ara Saks hadn’t even gotten on stage to speak at Toronto’s Pride of Israel synagogue before the booing started.
It reached a crescendo before MIchelle Bloom — the MC at a standing room only anti-hate rally — lectured the crowd and had two hecklers thrown out.
The efforts to make an example of the two, avowed Zionists and activists Salman Sima and Daniel Bordman, only created more of a scene.
That’s because tensions were very high Wednesday evening with the majority of the crowd either vehemently cheering those who have heroically supported the Jewish community over the past 10 months or heckling those politicians they feel have let them down and enabled the rising scourge of Jew hatred in Toronto and in Canada.
Pride of Israel was one of the first of now a succession of synagogues vandalized in a series of hate crimes. Its windows were broken early in the morning of June 30. Toronto police have yet to arrest any perpetrators.
Saks talked about how the synagogue was where her grandfather prayed and how all of the people speaking that night have a commitment to keep the community safe.
Her speech—half of it in Hebrew—made the audience extremely upset considering she was pictured holding hands with corrupt Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas back in March. She also voted in favour of an NDP motion to recognize Palestine as an independent state.
Conservative MP Melissa Lantsman, who followed Saks and was treated to a standing ovation, said Jews in Canada have come “under threat like never before” — perpetrated by a “loud and vocal minority” who don’t respect this country’s values.
She said these perpetrators have been encouraged by a larger group including people in government — particularly those, she said, with whom she shared the stage.
“Caressing the hand of a Holocaust-denying terrorist who is in the 19th year of his four-year mandate is unforgivable,” she said, alluding to Saks.
She said our Liberal government can’t muster even the “weakest condemnation” of these vile acts and has reinstated funding to UNRWA.
”It turned its back on Israel,” she said to repeated loud applause.
Before Mayor Olivia Chow got up to speak, near the end of 13 speakers, Bloom once again tried to lecture the crowd to behave. But the heckling continued.
Chow did not attend the June 9 Walk with Israel claiming she was “too busy” and has been conspicuous in her silence about the raging Jew hatred on the streets of Toronto, the vandalism of several synagogues and the targeting of Jewish businesses.
Yet she had the gall to tell the crowd she was there to stand in “solidarity” with Toronto’s Jewish community.
”People are once again being targeted for being Jewish,” she waxed poetically.
”Together each and every day we can stand strong against this hate.”
She reiterated the same tired message with no substance that “anti-Semitism and hate” has no place in Toronto.
Chow claimed she and the police will continue to do “everything they can” to ensure hate will be stamped out.
Unable to stomach her hypocrisy, about two dozen audience members walked out during her speech, one covering her ears until she got out the door.
”I know the pain remains in the community of elders that it might repeat itself… we cannot let it break our city’s history free of persecution,” she said, going on about the city’s history dating back to 1817 and the North Star guiding her in her work.
Knowing she did not have a friendly audience, Chow beat a hasty retreat after her speech accompanied by several security officers, as if she was a head of state.
Meanwhile, attendees were treated to a protest by queer women dressed in “Jews for Palestine” t-shirts. When they tried to block the entry, Toronto police dragged them off. In the process one queer woman’s shorts ripped and were pictured for all to see.
They remained for some time waving their Palestinian flags surrounded by dozens of police officers.
It was obvious to the hundreds who attended the rally that the leftists — politicians and often the police — have not just turned their backs on Canada’s Jewish community but have enabled the rising hate.
Most everyone in the room Wednesday let it be known that they were not impressed with phoney promises and platitudes—despite efforts to silence them.
For someone who has fought anti-Semitism for 15 years it was refreshing to see.
