In Toronto’s Jewish community, there are long-standing and deep divisions regarding Israel. Those divisions have become more pronounced than ever after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks and Israel’s months-long slaughter of Palestinians. Louise Smith shares her experience of it all.
All my life I was warned what can happen when people develop a hate so deep for others that they forget their humanity. We asked how the world let it happen. Why did no one intervene? We swore “never again.” And yet, here we are.
The response from Israel has been this brutal, cruel and seemingly endless war on Palestinians. People can see online exactly what Israel is doing in Gaza and the West Bank. Israel’s campaign is also in line with the resettlement vision long held by some key government representatives. And yet, most in the Jewish community cannot bring themselves to criticize any of it. That has been truly heartbreaking for me.
I believe it is especially important to have Jewish representation in this movement calling out Israel’s actions since a key feature of the Israel lobby is to claim all criticism of Israel is antisemitic.
But I wish that people were more careful about separating out legitimate criticism of Israel and hatred for Jewish people.
It’s cruel for Jewish organizations to make Jews more afraid just to push the narrative that protestors and Palestinians hate Jews. And then they fundraise off that fear.