Jewish power

Some wins in the week that was.


"Jewish power."

At the dark centre of all antisemitism - with all of its conspiracy-theorized manifestations, like "Zionist Occupation Government," and "international bankers," and "globalists" - is envy. Envy about imagined Jewish wealth, Jewish media, Jewish Hollywood. Envy about illusions of Jewish achievement and power.

With envy always comes its more-murderous twin, resentment. Every political hack knows that resentment is the most powerful force in any campaign. For that, Jews have been hated - and even targeted with pogroms - for millennia. Simply because of that: envy, then resentment.

If the unspooling of sanity since October 7 has shown anything, however, it's that Jews have less power, not more. If Jews were truly as powerful as the antisemites claim, they wouldn't be seeing their schools shot up, their synagogues firebombed and their voices serially disregarded by police, prosecutors, politicians and the public. 

But Jews are fighting back. They are scoring some wins.

The historic Toronto St. Paul's by-election, for example. That Midtown Toronto riding has been one of the safest Liberal seats in Canada for decades. No longer. Outraged that Justin Trudeau has disregarded and disrespected them, St. Paul's Jewish voters came together in sufficient numbers to drive the Grits' hapless candidate to defeat. They changed the outcome. That is power - the democratic kind.

So, too, the Trudeau government's recent appointment of the Chief Commissioner of its Human Rights Commission. Their choice, Birju Dattani, has said things like: "Palestinians are Warsaw ghetto prisoners of today.” And: "Workers should boycott Israel.” And: “Israel [has an] ideology of racial supremacy" and is “a colonial project.”