Close to 20,000 people packed one of Toronto’s Jewish Community Centre campuses Monday evening for a moving ceremony dedicated to remembering the atrocities of last October 7 and the 101 hostages still being held in Gaza.
Premier Doug Ford was there along with members of his caucus, plus Vaughan mayor Steven Del Duca and city councillor James Pasternak.
Mayor Olivia Chow was conspicuously absent, as were most of the socialist, bordering on anti-Semitic, members of her council.
Had she been there, she would have heard a beautiful, uplifting ceremony that – as one attendee wrote to me – did not include people wrapped in keffiyehs, no genocidal chants, no calls for violence against Jews, no smoke bombs, no blocking of streets and no screams for revenge.
She would have heard songs of hope sung beautifully. She would have heard Hebrew prayers and seen candles lit by the relatives of those still being held in Gaza.
She would have heard the miraculous story of a couple, Noam and Noa Chanukah, who both survived the brutal attack of Oct. 7 – Noa having been shot by a Hamas terrorist along the road from southern Israel and Noa, who was nine months pregnant.
Noa, clutching her husband many times, said they lived in a kibbutz about 25 km. from Gaza – so close that they could hear their prayers – which was infiltrated by the terrorists on Oct. 7.
That morning, Noam was shot three times in the stomach while trying to get to work.
He phoned Noa, who refused to go into the safe room in her home for fear she wouldn’t be able to talk to her husband.
“I told him, ‘I’m the only one who can kill you, you must stay alive,’” she said.
It wasn’t until she knew he’d been taken to hospital and was in surgery that she agreed to lock herself in the safe room.
By the time he got to the hospital, thanks to a Good Samaritan, the terrorists were shooting in her kibbutz, she saw and heard them outside her window and the electricity had gone out.
She said she covered herself with her blankets so they’d take her and not the unborn baby.
She was rescued from her safe room at 2 p.m., completely dehydrated and in desperate need of medical help for out-of-control blood pressure.
She said she was driven to the hospital with many dead bodies by the side of the road.
Noam didn’t wake up until Oct. 12.
On Oct. 18 – their anniversary – her little boy was born.
“We feel so lucky to be here today,” Noam said to sustained applause.
Chow would have also heard the debilitating impact of virulent anti-Semitism on Toronto’s Jewish community.
But perhaps the alleged Mayor of all the People didn’t want to hear that since her weak leadership – and her repeated attempts to associate the rise in Jew-hatred with Islamophobia – have enabled the Jew-haters in Toronto.
Idit Shamir, Israeli Consul General to Canada, called out the world’s reaction to the atrocities heaped on the Jewish state – denial, arms embargoes and advice to “avoid escalation.”
“Grotesque,” she said.
She said Canadian campuses are “breeding grounds for radicalism” and our streets “eco chambers of hate.
“Every threat in Toronto has one target … Jews,” said Shamir. “Only one side glorifies murder.”
She urged the world to “wake up” because this is their war too.
“Today us, tomorrow you,” she said to vehement applause, inviting our allies to speak up.
Michael Cotler-Wunsh, Israel’s special envoy for combating anti-Semitism, said the very same anti-Semitism that fueled the Oct. 7 atrocities and the multi-front war has been raging here “in response to the war crimes” – responses of denial even as the Barbarians live-streamed the atrocities they perpetrated.
She added that there’s been responses of silence, “me too unless you’re a Jew,” responses of “justification,” rape as armed resistance and hate online.
She said when she saw the incredible crowd that turned up Monday evening, she understood what it means to stand together in solidarity.
“Never again is not just words, never again is now, we fight together to ensure that never again will we allow anti-Semitism that signals the collapse of morality,” she said.
“Never again is our call to action…the hope and prayer we will confront by standing up tall … we stand together now and forever.”
Chow, had she bothered to turn up and show her support, would have seen and heard articulate people who are the very epitome of class, honesty, strength and tenacity.
She would not have heard the cries of victims but the stories of survivors.
But in the case of our mayor, ignorance is truly bliss.
