Fear.

Protests against Israel’s war with Hamas targeting Jewish neighbourhoods and businesses.

Universities and colleges becoming hostile to Jewish students and faculty.

Random acts of violence that are not so random when it comes to targeting Jews.

The fear of being identified as a Jew in Canada. Who among us would have ever thought that would ever come back?

Our federal government becoming less able to define itself as being a friend of the Jewish community, through UN votes and actions and inaction on threats to our community both here in Canada and in the Middle East.

Some of our politicians, who campaigned on their Jewish and Israeli origins, refusing to answer the phone when our community is in distress.

Is it because they are more worried about being elected than being representatives of their communities?

Canadian Jewery is in crisis. Canadian Jews are being targeted. We are told that someone needs to do something.

Over the past nearly 3 months, MERCAZ-Canada and Canadian Foundation for Masorti Judaism has been at the forefront of our communities efforts to make ourselves heard.

In early November, Rabbi Steven Wernick and myself joined the Masorti Leadership Mission to Israel. We visited Kfar Aza, where scenes of unbelievable destruction unfolded before us. We met with President Herzog in Jerusalem. We toured the relief centre in Tel Aviv and visited with the parents of the hostages. At each and every stop on our very short visit, we did our best to document what we saw and comfort those we met.

Rabbi Sean Gorman, our executive director just returned from a two week visit to Israel where he worked to remove bottlenecks for your donations to rebuild our shattered kehilot.

When I was in Israel in November, I presented a cheque from CFMJ for nearly $25,000 to rebuild our rocket damaged synagogue in Ashkelon.

We are here to assist our congregations in whatever ways we can, through providing a conduit for your donations to help rebuild Israel or to provide speakers to our congregations here in Canada.

We have participated in several forums with police services and one of our congregations, Beth Tzedec in Toronto, hosted the Jewish Leadership meeting with Prim Minister Trudeau.

We are working hard to provide as much assistance as we can to those in distress.

How can you help?

Speak to your local police. Have them come to your congregation to talk about your issues. Our experience has been that the police services are very aware of what is going on and how acts of antisemitism are affecting the Jewish community. They are, for the most part, extremely sympathetic to the trauma we are experiencing. Ask them what they are doing and I am sure that they will tell you that they are doing more behind the scenes than anyone is aware of.

Speak to your politicians. Each and every one is going to be facing an election at some point in the future and they are more than welcome to speak to Jewish groups. If you’re on the fence about becoming more politically active, this is the time to make that choice and do it. Being able to speak to your municipal, provincial or federal member on a personal basis means you will be heard.

Set up a letter writing campaign for an issue involving Israel. The politicians may not read each individual letter, but even if they just weigh them for and against, your letters make a difference.

Our previous Executive Director, Rabbi Jennifer Gorman is now the National Director of Outreach & Programming for CJPAC, who’s mandate is to engage Jewish and pro-Israel Canadians in the democratic process and to foster active political participation. CJPAC runs a variety of seminars on becoming more politically active.

If you’d like to donate to either MERCAZ or Masorti, visit our website, https://www.mercaz.ca Your funds can be directed to our activities in Canada and in Israel.

It’s time to face our fears. It’s time to act.

We can help.

Stan Greenspan