By Howie Silbiger, Editor-in-Chief
There is no space left for excuses. Jewish communities are under attack, and every institution is showing its true face. Some stand tall. Others collapse in shame. Some raise the flag higher. Others bow to antijewites and Jew haters and hope that surrender will buy them mercy.
In Philadelphia the Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History disgraced itself. Twice in one week its Israeli flag was splattered with red paint, a deliberate act meant to humiliate and intimidate. And twice the museum failed. Instead of putting up a larger, prouder flag, they ripped it down and replaced it with hostage slogans. They chose cowardice. They gave the vandals exactly what they wanted.
In Hampstead the response was the opposite. Jew haters torched the Israeli flag outside town hall not once but twice in the same week. Both times Hampstead answered with defiance. A bigger flag, twice the size, was raised immediately. That is how you answer hate. That is how you tell the world intimidation will never work here. Hampstead showed courage. Hampstead showed spine.
And then there is McGill. Just yesterday professor William Clare Roberts crossed every line. He praised Hamas. He justified the slaughter of Jews on October 7 as “resistance.” He mocked Jewish students who said they felt unsafe, sneering that their fear was deserved. He sided with rapists, murderers, and kidnappers and dressed it up as political theory. This is not education. It is terror propaganda spewed from the lectern of one of Canada’s leading universities. McGill is complicit. By keeping Roberts on staff, Principal Deep Saini and his administration are declaring that glorifying Hamas is acceptable in Canadian academia. Roberts must be fired immediately. If McGill refuses, Saini must be forced out in disgrace.
And while McGill spits in the faces of Jewish students, Ottawa betrays Jewish Canadians on the global stage. Prime Minister Mark Carney
There is no space left for excuses. Jewish communities are under attack, and every institution is showing its true face. Some stand tall. Others collapse in shame. Some raise the flag higher. Others bow to antijewites and Jew haters and hope that surrender will buy them mercy.
In Philadelphia the Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History disgraced itself. Twice in one week its Israeli flag was splattered with red paint, a deliberate act meant to humiliate and intimidate. And twice the museum failed. Instead of putting up a larger, prouder flag, they ripped it down and replaced it with hostage slogans. They chose cowardice. They gave the vandals exactly what they wanted.
In Hampstead the response was the opposite. Jew haters torched the Israeli flag outside town hall not once but twice in the same week. Both times Hampstead answered with defiance. A bigger flag, twice the size, was raised immediately. That is how you answer hate. That is how you tell the world intimidation will never work here. Hampstead showed courage. Hampstead showed spine.
And then there is McGill. Just yesterday professor William Clare Roberts crossed every line. He praised Hamas. He justified the slaughter of Jews on October 7 as “resistance.” He mocked Jewish students who said they felt unsafe, sneering that their fear was deserved. He sided with rapists, murderers, and kidnappers and dressed it up as political theory. This is not education. It is terror propaganda spewed from the lectern of one of Canada’s leading universities. McGill is complicit. By keeping Roberts on staff, Principal Deep Saini and his administration are declaring that glorifying Hamas is acceptable in Canadian academia. Roberts must be fired immediately. If McGill refuses, Saini must be forced out in disgrace.
And while McGill spits in the faces of Jewish students, Ottawa betrays Jewish Canadians on the global stage. Prime Minister Mark Carney has announced that Canada will recognize a Palestinian state at the United Nations this September. He is not recognizing peace. He is rewarding Hamas. He is giving legitimacy to terrorists whose hands are drenched in Jewish blood. He is betraying every Canadian Jew. He is emboldening every Jew hater and antijewite from Montreal to Vancouver.
Where are the politicians who claim to represent us. Where is Anthony Housefather. Where is Elisabeth Prass. Their silence is deafening. Their timidity is betrayal. If they cannot call out Carney by name, if they cannot demand that McGill fire Roberts, if they cannot stand up against recognition of a Palestinian state, then they are not defenders of our community. They are accomplices to its erosion.
And where are our institutions. Where is Federation CJA. Where is CIJA. Where is B’nai Brith. They hide behind safe press releases and polite condemnations. They host fundraising galas and cocktail hours while Jewish students are mocked and our government prepares to hand statehood to Hamas. Enough. Their cowardice is a disgrace. Jewish Canadians need institutions that roar, not whisper.
Australia expelled Iran’s ambassador after Tehran’s agents torched synagogues and kosher businesses. Canada rewards terrorists with recognition. Hampstead raised bigger flags. Philadelphia pulled theirs down. McGill protects a professor who glorifies Hamas. This is the dividing line. It is between those who stand with Jews and those who side with their enemies.
Here is the call to action. Jewish Canadians must no longer wait for timid leaders to act. We must protest at McGill every single day until William Clare Roberts is fired. We must surround Principal Deep Saini’s office until he resigns. We must flood Parliament Hill in Ottawa every single day until Mark Carney reverses his plan to recognize a Palestinian state. We must fill the streets of Montreal until Anthony Housefather and Elisabeth Prass finally stop hiding and start fighting. We must boycott McGill, withhold donations, and shut our wallets to any institution that gives cover to Jew haters. We must raise Israeli flags across this country in defiance, daring the antijewites to try to tear them down again.
History will not forgive cowards. It will not forgive governments that hand legitimacy to Hamas. It will not forgive universities that glorify terrorists. And it will not forgive Jewish institutions and politicians who stayed quiet while Jews were mocked, threatened, and betrayed.
History will remember Hampstead, the small town that raised its flag higher every single time Jew haters tried to burn it down. Now the rest of Canada must do the same. Daily protests in Montreal. Daily protests in Ottawa. Daily defiance everywhere. If our politicians, professors, and so-called leaders refuse to defend us, then Jewish Canadians must rise up and defend ourselves.
