So let’s say you are Jewish in Canada.  

Let’s say you’ve already given up on Israel; let’s say you say “I have nothing to do with Israel, I’ll leave it to the Israeli Jews.” Then, “they’ll do whatever they’re going to do to Gaza, or the West Bank. I’m not in charge; I’m not responsible.” 

Let’s say you hate Netanyahu and you hope there will a move to dethrone him in the October elections.  Perhaps you hope that Israelis elect the faux-left Democrats Party led by former IDF Major General Yoav Golan.  

But you’ve heard that this descendant of the Labor Party, the old left party of power that “founded” Israel, has dwindled from 44 seats in the Knesset 30 years ago, to four seats today. Not much to choose from. 

Let’s say you distance yourself from  Netanyahu and the right wing religious settlers – sorry zealots — on the West Bank and the crazies in the IDF (cue prisoner abusers). But deep in your heart you know that most Israeli Jews support them. You’re horrified that 56% of Jewish Israelis support the expulsion of Arab citizens of Israel, and  expulsion from the occupied West Bank

You’ve even lightly criticized (to close friends only) the IDF: the IDF have become too harsh; they are too nasty, too brutish. They might even torture prisoners, and brutalize children.  You do not approve of the IDF, latterly “the most moral army in the world.”  Israeli officials claim a new report recommends a scheme to use crocodiles could both “strengthen prison security and lower costs by reducing the number of personnel needed to guard prison perimeters”.  

Where does that leave you, a Canadian Jew? 

It leaves you along with 53% of other Can. Jews opposed to settler expansion; it leaves you and 66% of Can. Jews supporting a ceasefire between Israel and Gaza; it leaves you one of 17-25% of Canadian Jews that have criticized Israel’s behaviour over the last while.  This is according to a Nov. 2025 survey of Canadian Jews.

But why does it leave you overwhelmingly silent? 

You haven’t yet said or done anything at all . All you’ve done is distanced yourself within your own mind from the establishment Jews who boost and go on the offensive for Israel day and night. All you’ve done is admit that even as a thinking Canadian Jew, you will be silent—as perhaps your parents were before you.   Your grandparents were silent when they first came to this country when no one aired the community’s dirty linen.  It’s been 34 months of Israel’s genocide against the Palestinians – not even the Israelis or the Canadian Jewish establishment bothers to deny it.

Yet you will not engage. You have a few Jewish friends, professionals, and you trust them – but are wary about their pro-Israel boosterism.   You have your doubts, but after three years of a genocide that has killed at least 73,000 Palestinians, you still won’t speak up publicly.  

‘You know that there must be a different way to be Jewish than to blindly support a racist, murderous regime which is becoming a pariah in the world.’

I know it is hard for an individual Canadian Jew to speak up – given the social terror practised by the establishment Jewish community.  Your  fellow Jews want to stop any discussion about Israel’s genocide.  If you go to a community or family event, it is the elephant in the room that nobody talks about. Instead the establishment Jews and their leaders fight back by calling everyone critical of the genocide antisemitic.  You know that’s simply not true.There is a heavy price to pay for simply speaking out.  

That’s why you need company. You need to find other Jews you can relate to. You need to join Independent Jewish Voices Canada.  It costs only $18 a year to support an organization that fights for peace and justice in Israel and Palestine.  Independent Jewish Voices is a grassroots organization of Jewish Canadians committed to defending Palestinian human rights and opposing all forms of racism — anti-Semitism, anti‑Palestinian racism and Islamophobia alike. Our thousands of members live from coast to coast, and are active in 19 cities and 7 campus chapters. Among them are respected Canadians like Dr. Gabor Maté, Michele Landsberg and Avi Lewis.

We are part of a fast-growing and vibrant international movement that is affirming the proud Jewish social justice tradition and pushing back against the notion that Jewishness and Zionism are one and the same.

We identify as anti-Zionist, we stand opposed to how Zionism has been enacted through the creation and maintenance of a system of ethnic supremacism, that privileges one group — Israeli Jews — at the direct expense of another — Palestinians. It is this ideology that underpinned the Palestinian Nakba of 1948, an ongoing regime of settler colonialism and apartheid, and most recently, the genocide in Gaza. And, although the vast majority of Canadians know the difference between Israel on the one hand and Jews on the other, there is a rising tide of bigotry (e.g. anti-Muslim, anti-Black, anti-Indigenous), of which antisemitism is but one example and that antisemitism is not helped by Israel claiming it represents all of world Jewry or the Jewish establishment seconding that motion.

Cartoon at the top and below: Netanyahu Cementing Peace by British cartoonist Gerald Scarfe in the Sunday Times published in 2013.