They are pillars of society; they are community builders; they are civil libertarians; they are prominent academics, and journalists at the major Canadian media outlets. But they are deliberately ignoring a shocking death threat aimed at a Canadian political leader. It’s especially odd because the target of death threat is Avi Lewis, the leader of the NDP. Though some of the pundits are Jewish, as is Lewis, no establishment Jews have spoken against the death threat. Indeed, the death threat made by journalist Yoni Goldstein in the National Post last week did not trouble anyone enough to even comment let alone condemn Goldstein – also a Jew– and demand an apology and retraction.
Before you see this as little more than a family quarrel, Jew against Jew — think about this. A mere 31 years ago, in my lifetime and maybe yours, Israel’s prime minister Yitzak Rabin was gunned down by a right-wing Jewish settler – after he had threatened Rabin using the same murderous words that Goldstein used to denounce Avi Lewis, in the National Post.
In 1994, right-wing Israeli politicians and settlers were furious that Rabin had signed the Oslo Peace deal with the Palestinians. To Israelis it was a betrayal of Judaism and Zionism. Right-wing settlers had “called the prime minister a “traitor,” “murderer,” and “Nazi” for signing the peace deal.” Settler leader Aharon Domb said Rabin would “indirectly bear responsibility” for a political assassination. Domb wrote,
“For many of them [on the right] this alienation leads to despair and despair can lead to extreme acts.”
In 2004, nine years after assassinating Rabin, the settler who killed him —Yigal Amir — said that when he shot Rabin, he intended only to paralyze him and to force him out of politics. Instead the assassin claimed it was a ritual command to kill anyone who intended to cause the death of Jews. Amir said,
“I know Jewish law and ‘din rodef’ means that if you’ve tried everything else and nothing works, then you have to kill him.”
The confessed assassin said Rabin’s peace policies endangered Israelis, so he had to be killed.
Why has not one progressive Jew in a prominent position said threatening a Canadian politician with death is not a good look?
My question is – Why has not one progressive Jew in a prominent position saying threatening a Canadian politician with death is not a good look—even one who is Jewish and who is the new leader of the NDP.
- Where is former Supreme Court Justice Rosalie Abella? The one who said, “Above all, we need to replace global hate with global hope.” And explained, “We made a commitment then to humanity that we would protect the world from inhumanity, and that the protection of rights, which is at the heart of democracy, is a sacred trust.”
- Where is Steve Paikin – who had perhaps the most watched politics and global affairs program, The Agenda, on TVO for 19 years. Now he has a podcast in which he claims every issue has multiple sides, and Steve Paikin wants to hear them all. On winning the 2025 Hyman Solomon award for Excellence in Public Policy Journalism, Paikin said, “I’ve always thought that our great responsibility is to shine a light and bring attention to problems that are happening in our midst without necessarily having all the answers about how to solve those problems.”
- Irwin Cotler – why is he missing in action? A foremost Jewish Liberal, former cabinet minister and now government consultant on antisemitism, he has an impeccable human rights record if he himself says so, “We are witnessing a resurgent global authoritarianism, the backsliding of democracies and liberal populism, an assault on human rights, and increasingly political prisoners as a looking glass into all of this.”
- Sheldon Levy used to the the president of Toronto Metropolitan University. Instead of suppressing ideas we oppose, Levy writes we should “confront them peaceably but forcefully, to turn them inside out, and to speak convincingly against them — and in favour of [our] own perspectives — on campus and beyond.”
- Meric Gertler was president at University of Toronto for the last 13 years. Liberal in his opinions, he maintained “Speech or other acts that silence, intimidate, or stigmatize individuals or groups stand in direct opposition to free speech and subvert the contest of ideas at the heart of the University’s mission. But, at the same time, members of the University community must be prepared to challenge offensive or disturbing ideas – this is part of what it means to study and debate difficult topics.”
- Bob Rae was a former NDP premier of Ontario, and more recently Canadian Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the United Nations 2020-2025. In March 2026, he gave a speech at Osgoode Hall Law School on the rule of law; he said “… legality and justice are not the same thing, and … a legal order that denies the humanity and rights of entire peoples is not a rule of law worth defending, it is a system of organized oppression dressed in the language of order.”
Above: Justice Rosalie Abella (Melbar Entertainment Group), Sheldon Levy, Steve Paikin, Bob Rae, Irwin Cotler (Andrej Ivanov/ The Globe and Mail) and Meric Gertler.
