Israel-Hamas War, Campus Turmoil, Spur Hate Incidents, Annual Audit Reveals
April 7, 2025
OTTAWA – Antisemitism in Canada has reached perilous, record-setting heights, according to the latest edition of our Annual Audit of Antisemitic Incidents.
It is a stark warning for Canadian society.
The total number of reported cases of hatred targeting Jews reached an apex of 6,219 incidents in 2024.
This is the highest number B’nai Brith Canada has documented since the inception of its Audit in 1982. It reflects a 7.4 per cent increase in incidents since 2023, when we recorded a then-unprecedented 5,791 national tally. This corresponds to a 124.6 per cent increase from 2022 to 2024.
On average, about 17 incidents occurred each day in 2024 – a dramatic uptick from 2022, when we reported a rate of eight a day. Cases of in-person harassment, too, have grown to alarming proportions, rising by about 58.8 per cent from 2022 to 2024.
Some notable examples included:
- In March, La Presse, a Quebec daily newspaper, published a cartoon depicting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as Nosferatu, a vampire villain frequently associated with Jews in Nazi-era propaganda.
- In May, at an anti-Israel encampment at the University of Toronto, an individual performed a Nazi salute at a Jewish student and declared that he wished the Nazis had “murdered all of you.”
- Also in May, an arsonist attempted to burn down the Schara Tzedeck Synagogue in Vancouver, igniting a fire at the entrance as evening prayers were ending.
- In another May incident, shots were fired at a Jewish girls’ school in Toronto. The school was subsequently targeted twice more by gunfire in 2024.
- In June, a suspect on a motorcycle lobbed stones at two Toronto-area synagogues, damaging glass panels.
- In mid-June, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) apprehended Pascal Tribout, a Quebec man associated with white nationalist groups, who had made violent threats against Jews and was later convicted for illegally producing 3D-printed firearms.
- In August, a bomb threat menaced Jewish institutions throughout the country, including synagogues, community centres and B’nai Brith Canada offices.
- In July, the RCMP arrested a father and son in connection with an ISIS-inspired plot to allegedly murder Jews in the Greater Toronto Area.
- From September to December, 2024, individuals associated with a neo-Nazi movement originating in Russia, the Maniac Murder Cult (MKY), perpetrated various antisemitic acts in Winnipeg, including graffiti containing the Hakenkreuz and other sorts of vandalism. Police later charged one member, alleged to be responsible for numerous acts of antisemitic vandalism at several locations in the city, with terrorism-related offences.
- In November, anti-Israel protesters rallied outside of a synagogue in Montreal and chanted antisemitic slogans, in defiance of a court order prohibiting the groups involved from assembling near the building.
- At the end of November, a woman attending an anti-Israel demonstration in Montreal directed a Nazi salute at Jewish passersby and said that a “Final Solution” was coming their way.
- In December, an arsonist firebombed Congregation Beth Tikvah, in Dollard-des-Ormeaux, Montreal, in the second such attack at the location in the wake of Oct. 7, 2023.
These staggering statistics and disturbing incidents are consistent with trends B’nai Brith Canada observed at the end of 2023, when its Audit accounted for a spike in antisemitic incidents in the immediate aftermath of the Hamas-led Oct. 7 terrorist attacks on Israel.
The Gaza-based terrorists’ barbaric rampage, the deadliest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, triggered an unprecedented surge in antisemitic incidents around the world. As the Israel-Hamas war continued to escalate throughout 2024, its events became a point of focus for radical actors seeking to foment hate against Jews in Canada.
“The atrocities of Oct. 7, 2023, opened deep fissures in Canadian society,” said Richard Robertson, B’nai Brith Canada’s Director of Research and Advocacy. “The subsequent rise in antisemitism has exposed a disturbing undercurrent of Jew-hatred driven by a virulent, radicalized minority.
“Our Audit documented haunting levels of antisemitism. We cannot permit this to become normalized. Antisemitism is not only a threat to Jews – it represents a total repudiation of Canadian values. Those who foment hate against any marginalized group stand in direct opposition to our multicultural, diverse national identity.”
The war in the Middle East, and the harrowing struggle to release the Israeli hostages Hamas abducted on Oct. 7, 2023, cast a dark shadow over Jewish life in Canada in 2024. Across the country, the volume of incidents tended to fluctuate in accordance with the pace or intensity of fighting in Gaza or Lebanon, as during the Rafah Offensive in May, which coincided with the wave of encampments on Canadian university campuses. At the same time, various neo-Nazi and white nationalist groups, such as the Goyim Defense League, engaged in largely unrelated antisemitic activities throughout 2024, contributing to a sizeable fraction of the cases B’nai Brith Canada documented in the Audit.
Across the board, antisemitic actors tended to make use of novel technologies, including Artificial Intelligence, a phenomenon B’nai Brith Canada also observed in 2023. Online incidents have increased 161 per cent since 2022, although there has been a concurrent proliferation in physical, in-person incidents targeting Jewish people or institutions, ranging from common forms of harassment or vandalism to outright violence. Several provinces, including Quebec and Alberta, registered notable jumps in the total number of antisemitic incidents since 2023. As in previous years, Ontario retained the highest number of reported incidents.
“Lessons that should have been learned after 2023 must be learned without further delay,” Robertson said. “Many Canadian Jews remain fearful and concerned about the future of Jewish life in this country. As a nation, we must reject the antisemitic fringe and relegate this virulent, hateful minority to the shadows.”
Regional Breakdown of Antisemitic Incidents in Canada during 2024:
- Quebec: 1,651 incidents (215.7 % Increase)
- Ontario: 1,782 incidents (-25.8 % Decrease)
- Prairies: 447 incidents (33.4 % Increase)
- British Columbia: 671 (44.3 % Increase)
- Alberta: 916 incidents (160.2 % Increase)
- Atlantic Canada: 179 incidents (53 % Increase)
