Letter to the Editor: Ignoring the Dangers of Right-wing Extremism - Bernie Farber

From his basement, Jeremy MacKenzie speaks to thousands of people. Multiple times a week, he looks into a camera and tells white Canadians they need to be ready for war, that immigrants want to wipe them out, and that Jews are the number one threat.

This is all reminiscent of the 90s and 2000s except back then, we won. Antifascists in our community and beyond made white nationalists afraid of the consequences of spouting their hatred in public. Our institutions reflected us. The Jewish community had a good reputation and strong allies. Neo-Nazis were a fringe minority of a minority. If one of their recruiters managed to convince a single kid to take a pamphlet, it was a good day for them.

But times have changed. Today, white nationalists have platforms like Twitter/X and billionaires like Elon Musk protecting their hate speech. They have sympathetic oligarchs, decades of political organizing, and the backing of powerful figures, including a U.S. president who carries out their demands for mass deportations.

The far right is our historical enemy and the greatest threat Jews have ever faced. When I say far right I mean those who harbour racism, antisemitism, or other hatreds especially when they attack the foundations of a pluralistic democracy. This spectrum runs from the modern-day Republican Party to neo-Nazis on the extreme fringes. Today, they are more powerful than they have been at any other point in my life.

Donald Trump has promised to use the military to carry out the largest deportation campaign in American history. He would round up and imprison minorities on an industrial scale. With the stroke of a pen, he has dismantled federal anti-racism programs and stripped away recognition of sexual and gender minorities.

As the last Holocaust survivors pass away – may their memory be for a blessing – we are being gas lit into believing there are other, bigger threats, or paradoxically, that everything will be okay. We must not forget where this rhetoric leads. It is not hyperbole. We are in the opening lines of Pastor Martin Niemoller’s warning: First they came for….

MacKenzie and the leaders of Diagolon, openly wearing neo-Nazi symbols, went on a Canada-wide tour last year, the largest gathering of white nationalists here since the 1940s. They talk about when violence will become necessary, and to me, their language sounds like incitement. They are forming white-only fight clubs.

You could be forgiven for not knowing this was happening. Canada’s Jewish institutions have failed to sound the alarm loudly enough. The most extreme elements of the far right, like Diagolon, must be closely watched and loudly condemned. If Jewish organizations aren’t making the far right a priority, we must demand that they do so.

Yes, there are also attacks on our community from those who hold Jews collectively responsible for Netanyahu and his government. In some corners of the protest movement, the tolerance for antisemitism is deeply disturbing and must be condemned. The community needs to know about it.

However, over the past two decades, I have watched our institutions pay less attention to far-right antisemitism, the original and most enduring form of Jew-hatred, to our peril. It is built on the old hatreds: fear of the outsider (read: Jews), conspiracy theories, and the belief that progressivism is a sinister plot.

It was a white nationalist who walked into the Tree of Life synagogue and murdered 11 of our brothers and sisters – the deadliest antisemitic attack in North American history. In 2019, a neo-Nazi in Halle, Germany, attacked a synagogue on Yom Kippur, killing two people. It could have been much worse if not for recent security upgrades. In January, a Black youth radicalized in white supremacist spaces carried out a school shooting in Nashville. He hated himself, Jews, and others and was inspired by Canadian killers, including the Quebec mosque shooter.

We know how to recognize the far right. When someone talks about defunding social justice programs or deporting a minority group, listen to them. When they rail against “woke” policies or want to eliminate Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs, understand what they are really saying: that racism, antisemitism, and other forms of hate aren’t real, even as hate crime numbers surge. Electing any politician in Canada who echoes these talking points sends us further down the same path as the United States.

Jewish institutions, community leaders, and individual Jews must recognize the warning signs and act. We cannot afford complacency. The time to speak out against right-wing extremism is now before it is too late.

Diagolon may be too extreme to support any political party, but they supported the so-called “Freedom Convoy” that terrorized Ottawa. So did the leader of the Conservative Party, Pierre Poilievre, who marched with veteran and convoy supporter James Topp for a photo op, who was then a friend of Diagolon. Poilievre’s callousness towards transgender people mirrors Trump’s -- as has his weaponization of the word “woke”. He swims in the same waters and panders to the far-right.

Republicans in the United States have lost control of their party to QAnon, the MAGA movement, and now to Elon Musk and Christian nationalist extremists. Old guard Republicans are now scared of many of their own voters. To anybody reasonable left in the Conservative Party – take note. You may possibly win the next election. Don’t invite the far-right in with you.

Bernie Farber.