By Howie Silbiger
When reports began circulating that the United States was openly discussing asylum protections for Jews in the United Kingdom, it landed with a dull thud rather than a shocking revelation. The idea that Jews in Britain might not be thinking seriously about relocation or opportunity, but about refuge, should have sounded extreme, yet it didn’t. It sounded normal in a very unsettling way, as a reminder of how quickly the ground can shift once permanence starts to erode.
For a long time, being Jewish in Canada felt comfortable in a way you didn’t notice, not perfect and not free of tension, but settled enough that Jewish life didn’t feel conditional, and you could build a life here without constantly wondering how secure it really was. You lived in a nice house, raised kids, argued about schools and politics like everyone else, and your Jewishness sat in the background rather than shaping every calculation. That sense of peaceful existence didn’t disappear overnight, it thinned out gradually, then faster, until pretending it still exitsted began to feel dishonest.
We have never been a large community, about 335,000 Jews in a country of nearly forty million. That means that schools, synagogues, camps, community centres and the informal networks that hold everything together function because people actively choose to sustain them. When pressure builds, small communities don’t get a grace period. Parents rapidly adjust how they talk to their children and schools find themselves prioritizing security before enrichment. People hesitate before being visible and are told, gently, that this is simply the cost of living in a diverse society in today’s world, as though that explanation is meant to make things better.
Police data shows a sharp rise in anti-Jewish hate crimes across Canada, while independent audits now count thousands of incidents a year. In Toronto, Jews, despite being a small minority, have become the most targeted group in hate crime statistics. At a certain point, this stops being merely troubling and starts being embarrassing for a country that prides itself on tolerance and inclusion. When figures this stark are met with restraint rather than urgency, a message is sent about which fears are treated as serious and which are quietly managed or generally ignored.
Montreal has long demonstrated what sustained Jewish life looks like when there is enough density to support it. With roughly 90,000 Jews, the city maintains real Jewish ecosystems, where day schools feed camps, camps feed youth movements, and youth movements feed synagogues and leadership. That density has always been a source of strength. It has also made Jewish life extremely visible, and that visibility now comes with friction. When anti-Jewish incidents fade into background, when harassment is treated as expected rather than unacceptable, the damage is done. It is rarely dramatic at first. Institutions remain open, programs continue, but as fear grows, the ease that once made participation feel natural slowly drains away.
The future of the Jewish diaspora isn’t really about survival, because survival has never been the question. The issue is what kind of life is being preserved. There is a difference between resilience and being worn down, and lately Jews are praised for their strength while being asked to tolerate conditions that steadily narrow what Jewish life can look like in public. Calls for calm and context begin to sound uncomfortably close to expectations of acceptance.
Jewish education now matters more than ever. Schools are not just places where children learn facts; they are where children learn whether their identity is something they can carry openly or something they need to manage carefully. A child who understands who they are and where they come from moves through the world differently than one who is constantly measuring how much of themselves is safe to show. Communities that invest in that grounding tend to respond with steadiness rather than panic, while those that don’t slowly thin out.
There has also been a quiet recalibration around alliances, shaped less by theory than by experience. For years, many Jews believed that standing under broad anti-hate banners meant shared protection, only to discover that Jewish concerns were often sidelined when they became politically inconvenient. When hostility toward Jews is minimized, reframed, or explained away, people notice and what follows is not withdrawal but clarity, a growing focus on self-respect and self-preservation over symbolic solidarity.
Security has become a permanent feature of Jewish life in Canada, and the challenge is ensuring it doesn’t become the defining feature, because communities that organize themselves entirely around threat eventually turn inward, while those that insist on living fully and visibly, even while protecting themselves, remain alive in a deeper sense.
Some Jews are opting to leave Canada, and others are staying but pulling back, choosing quieter lives, fewer public roles and less visibility. These changes happen through practical decisions that feel reasonable in the moment and then are irreversible later. Countries don’t lose Jewish communities over a single event, they lose them gradually, through fatigue and the sense that belonging shouldn’t require this much effort.
There is still a future for Jewish life in Canada, but It will depend on whether Jewish communities become more grounded, more self-directed and less concerned with external approval. Canada continues to speak comfortably about pluralism and minority rights. Whether those words translate into reality will be determined by how Jews are treated when their safety and dignity stop being treated as a privilege or convenience.
Jewish history is unambiguous on this point. Communities that take themselves seriously endure. The rest fade quietly.
Howie Silbiger is the host of The Howie Silbiger Show on Truetalkradio.com and Political Hitman on Israelnewstalkradio.com. He is the Editor-in-Chief of the Montreal Jewish News.
