(Image Credit: B’nai Brith of Canada League for Human Rights)

By Michael Reeve

ANITSEMITIC HATE

Education needed as antisemitic hate continues to rise

Apr 27, 2022 | 4:37 PM

KAMLOOPS — Earlier this week, B’nai Brith published its 2021 annual audit of antisemitic incidents in Canada showing a 7.2 per cent increase over 2020 with 2,799 reported. While Kamloops doesn’t have a synagogue or a large Jewish population, the community isn’t exempt from the hate.

Antisemitic incidents in British Columbia more than doubled over the past year, now with more than one incident occurring every day in our province. Sadly for the local community the increase doesn’t come as a surprise.

“People have the thoughts and they have the emotion, the feeling behind those thoughts, the negativity, the hatred, the horror in some cases. The thoughts are there but the actions are following at this point,” said Rabbi Marcy Gofsky.

Violent incidents have increased over 700 per cent since last year. It hasn’t happened locally in Kamloops, but the fear is keeping some in the community from promoting their faith publicly.

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“The numbers also hide what’s hidden in our community which is a lot people just don’t identify, for lots of reasons. Fear is one of those reasons,” said Gofsky. “Just fear of expressing themselves, fear of being targeted.”

“The community is very supportive, on the other hand there is some incidents up at the schools that I’ve heard about, that I’ve been called about,” said Heidi Coleman, Jewish Community of Kamloops President. “They are rare here.”

The antisemitic content in Kamloops comes mostly from people making derogatory comments at the Jewish community. The issue even circulates within the local school system.

“There has definitely been a few remarks I’ve heard from classmates, not necessarily directed towards me. What I noticed that even in some of my old friendships there was a lot of remarks that weren’t necessarily okay and I didn’t realize that until afterwards,” said Sophie Kramer, Grade 11 student.

There is no synagogue in Kamloops or even a building for the community to call home. For Rabbi Gofsky, that fact is a double-edged sword as they hope to help educate the population.

“One the one hand it decreases the chance of targeted attacks. But on the other hand, how to you build power? How do you build the community so its a strong community to withstand that if you can’t teach?” questioned Gofsky.

“A lot of younger people take a lot of things as jokes and they might not realize it’s wrong,” added Kramer.

Despite the hateful words spewed towards them, the community still feels safe here in Kamloops, and hope that people continue to learn about the religion.

“Reading and being curious. My one thing for the community as a whole is to be curious and ask questions,” concluded Marcy.