One of the joys of growing up on the west mountain in Hamilton in the 1960s and ’70s: there was a game of road hockey or street football every afternoon after school. And I mean a great game. Eight, 10, 12 kids pretty intensely fighting for bragging rights.
One time, more than 50 years ago, I remember colliding with another player during a ball-hockey game. It was accidental on both our parts, but the other guy got the worst of it. And he didn’t like it. So he shouted something at me.
“You filthy Jew!” he screamed, his face contorting into something I’d never seen before. And then he ran home.
It wasn’t until that moment that I understood that others in the game might not have seen me as just another player. I was a Jewish player. And, sometimes, when things got sticky, a filthy Jewish player. That’s quite a thing to suddenly realize at age 12 or 13.
I’d been called a f***ing this or that myriad times and had probably called others the same. That never bothered anyone, myself included. That was just typical macho chirping.
But the reference to my ethnicity was different. This insult cut me to the quick. I was surprised at how much it hurt. It obviously did, since I still remember the incident half a century later. Even though I would play plenty of games with and against that same kid again, I could never look at him the same way.
That story came back to me earlier this week when I saw the brilliant New Yorker writer Adam Gopnik give a lecture at Massey College in downtown Toronto — the second annual Irving Abella Lecture, named after the former York University historian and president of the Canadian Jewish Congress. The topic: “On Confronting Hate.”
Adam Gopnik (left) with former Supreme Court justice Rosalie Abella. (Steve Paikin)
Gopnik was born in Philadelphia 68 years ago but raised in Montreal by two McGill University professors; he was himself educated at McGill. While he insists he’s been fortunate never to have experienced the kind of antisemitism described above, Gopnik admits there was a time in his life — when he and his wife, Martha, were living in Paris — that he discovered one of the residents in his building had written to another that “a young Jewish family” had just moved in. Gopnik found it curious that his family’s primary identity was not American or Canadian but rather “Jewish.”
For much of his life, Gopnik has seen antisemitism come from the right. “That remains intact,” he says. “It’s always been historical negationism such as Holocaust denial or the sub-human Jew.”
Now, he says, things have changed. Antisemitism seems to just as easily comes from the left, which sees “the too-easily-at-home Jew, who isn’t sub-human but rather super-human: too smart, too city-bound, lubricating their way into institutions where they don’t belong, insidious insiders.”
Many Ontarians have been disturbed by recent actions from those on the left. CUPE Ontario leader Fred Hahn has been forced to apologize twice for tweeting things many people found antisemitic. A day after October 7, 2023, when Hamas terrorists slaughtered 1,200 Israelis, many of them attending a music festival, he celebrated “the power of resistance.” He later shared a post depicting an Israeli Olympic diver being transformed into a bomb as he leapt off a tower. Some Jewish members of CUPE filed a human-rights complaint last November, alleging Hahn was fanning the flames of systemic discrimination and the promotion of antisemitism.
Gopnik isn’t the only one who’s seeing examples of antisemitism perhaps not seen in half a century. Last year in Canada, people reported nearly 5,800 antisemitic incidents, a more than 100 per cent increase over the previous year, according to David L. Bernstein, founder of the Jewish Institute for Liberal Values, in a co-authored article in the National Post this week. And, obviously, most of that happened before the October 7 terrorist attacks and Israel’s response. Given what we’ve seen in 2024 — a Jewish-owned bookstore vandalized, shots fired at a Jewish parochial school — can there be any doubt that the numbers will increase again?
Interestingly, Jews aren’t the only ones noticing this. TSN anchor Jennifer Hedger tweeted: “I have been quietly outraged by the blatant hate toward Jewish Canadians. It’s time to speak up.”
Rick Hillier, the former chief of defence staff, has joined the creation of a new effort called Allies for a Strong Canada.
“I have watched and been appalled at the rise of hatred and antisemitism here in Canada,” he says in a video posted to X. “I have been appalled at how quickly it has spread across our great nation. If we don’t do something about how that hatred manifests, we will have set the conditions for a tragic occurrence in the not-too-distant future. Antisemitism isn’t just a threat against the Jewish community — it’s a threat to our democracy.”
After his lecture, Gopnik was asked whether the conditions he sees today remind him of Germany in the 1930s. “There are no parallels between periods of history,” he says. “The same thing doesn’t happen twice. But the same things do.”
Adam Gopnik with Margaret Atwood (left); Gopnik in conversation with former prime minister Joe Clark.
While Gopnik insists he’s been insulated and blessed in his life, he adds that he knows antisemitism when he sees it and that no one can feel safe today. “Never tell a Jew not to worry,” he jokes.
Interestingly, when Vladimir Putin does something egregious on the world stage, as he has with his illegal and immoral attack on Ukraine, we don’t hold Russians living in Ontario responsible. When Viktor Orbán says something particularly disgraceful in Hungary, we don’t take it out on Hungarians living in Ontario.
But Israel is different. Many people, including — or maybe especially —Jews, find the Israeli government’s reaction to the terrorist attacks unacceptable. And, yet, too many people are lashing out at Jews in Ontario. How is that fair?
I long ago forgave that kid who screamed at me. In fact, when his mother asked me to tutor him in French after school because he was having trouble, I did it. I guess even at age 14, I recognized that returning hate with more hate wasn’t going to get us anywhere.
“The whole point of existence is to broaden our circles of compassion,” Gopnik says.
Right on.
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