Celebrating Brian Crowley, Defending the Promise of Canada | CAEF Bulletin – October 30, 2026
Celebrating Brian Crowley, Defending the Promise of Canada
CAEF honoured Dr. Brian Lee Crowley, to a crowd of esteemed guests, on October 27th at Beth Tzedec Synagogue. Carrie Katz, a member of the CAEF Board of Directors and Chair of the event, presented Dr. Crowley with the 2026 Advocate Award of Excellence, for his incredible support of Israel and the Jewish community, expressed in his creating the Promised Land Project at the Macdonald Laurier Institute which he founded and directs. Crowley delivered an impassioned, articulate, intellectually honest and memorable speech on receiving this award. CAEF will share it when available and posted online.
The evening included warm and caring, insightful, sometimes humorous video tributes to Brian, which can be seen here, Part 1, Part 2.
CAEF was thrilled to welcome the recently arrived Israeli Consul General for Ontario and Western Canada, Nadav Zysblat. CG Zysblat surprised and entertained the audience by his acknowledgement of the lessons of allyship and honour exhibited by Brian Crowley, in comparing him to Brian in the Monty Python film, The Life of Brian.
The featured speaker, who shared his personal journey within the Jewish community, not as a Jew, but as a beneficiary of Jewish learning, kindness, morality and mentorship, was Rudyard Griffiths, founder of the Munk Debates and The Hub, among his many professional roles.
Shelley Crowley, wife and beloved of Brian, spoke of his lifelong conviction to do what is right, to fight evil, to take risks, to be a friend, and stand up for Canadian values which are under stress and abuse in these times.
Leslie Roberts, former journalist and now Montreal City Councilor, held a dialogue with Brian, inviting him to explain what he sees in the future, what motivated him to create the Promised Land, and how Canadians ought to respond to growing Jew hatred.
Legal Update
1. Sentencing Hearing of Kristoffer NIPPAK in Ontario Superior Court in Toronto; CAEF Presents Community Impact Statement
Kristoffer NIPPAK, previously found guilty of knowingly participating in a terrorist activity for the purpose of enhancing the ability of the terrorist group to facilitate or carry out a terrorist activity on September 9, 2026, appeared in the Superior Court of Ontario sitting at Toronto for a sentencing hearing. The offence arose from Mr. Nippak's participation in a recruitment video for the AtomWaffen Division, which is designated as a terrorist organization by Public Safety Canada. CAEF President Michael Teper delivered a community impact statement, along with B'nai Brith Canada, Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Centre, and the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs. The Crown seeks a sentence of eight years imprisonment, with no parole eligibility for four years.
The court is anticipated to reserve on the issuance on the sentence; CAEF will report when the sentencing judgement is released.
2. Shahrez "Rezzy" HYDRI – Mischief Charge Withdrawn – Hydri Enters Into Common Law Peace Bond
On May 25, 2025, Hydri ignited a smoke flare immediately beside the outdoor dining area of Cafe Landwer at University Avenue and Adelaide Street during an anti-Israel demonstration, causing patrons to evacuate the patio. After over a dozen court appearances, and on the first scheduled day of trial, the Crown withdrew the charge in exchange for Hydri entering into a 6-month common law peace bond, in which Hydri promised to stay 75m away from the 165 University Avenue location of Cafe Landwer, and not to attend at any other location of Cafe Landwer.
WARMINGTON: Smoking out Jews with smoke bombs in Big Smoke unacceptable – Yahoo News Canada. Video of Hydri (in the black bucket hat) starts at 0:30 in the video.
Advocacy and Action
Coalition Speaks in Ottawa on Countering Terror
CAEF's immediate past president Anita Bromberg and Vice President Avi Laurent Attali were pleased to join two roundtable meetings in Ottawa to discuss countering hate and terrorism. The first on October 28th included representatives of Jewish and Iranian communities hosted by MP Anthony Housefather, joined by MPs Gladu and Gasparro.
Salman Sima of ICARE brought a broad coalition of community members, marking Cyrus the Great's anniversary for the third year in a row, to discuss action items to counter terrorism in Canada. The group was joined by MPs Vincent Ho, Shuvaloy Majumdar and Costas Menegakis
United for a Safe, Glorious and Free Canada
The following remarks were delivered in Ottawa, at the Roundtable honouring Cyrus the Great, by Laurent Attali, October 29, 2026.
Honored guests, Members of Parliament, families of the victims of October 7, former political prisoners, students, friends — good evening. My name is Laurent Attali, and I am the founder of OneGlobalVoice, a global collective advocating for the safety, dignity and civic voice of communities under pressure around the world.
More than two and a half thousand years ago, Cyrus the Great entered Babylon and did something the rulers of his age rarely did. He let conquered people return to their homes, rebuild their temples, and worship as they chose. Among them were the Jewish exiles, who went home to Jerusalem. The clay cylinder that records his decrees is often called the first charter of human rights.
I mention Cyrus tonight not out of nostalgia, but because his idea is the same idea Canada was built on: that people of every faith and every origin can live side by side — safe, free, and equal under the law. That idea is under strain. Jewish schools have been shot at. Synagogues have been targeted. Iranian Canadians who fled the Islamic Republic find themselves watched and threatened here — sometimes by the very people they escaped. Students tell us they hide who they are on campus. This is not the Canada any of us chose.
So tonight, let me be specific. Hope is not a policy. Here is what we ask of our governments.
First: enforce what is already on the books. Canada declared the Iranian regime a state sponsor of terror in 2022 and listed the IRGC as a terrorist entity in June 2024.
Those were the right decisions. But a listing means little if it is not enforced. The CBSA has opened more than 180 investigations into suspected senior regime officials living in Canada — yet only a handful have been removed. Every case deserves due process. Every case also deserves to be finished. Fund the CBSA, staff the tribunals, and complete the work.
Second: treat support for terror as the crime it is. Financing, recruiting for, or assisting Hamas or any listed group is already illegal in Canada. Let it be investigated and prosecuted like one.
Third: let justice move in Vancouver. Samidoun was listed as a terrorist entity in October 2024 and dissolved as a registered nonprofit this year. Yet two and a half years after Vancouver police recommended hate charges against its leader for praising the October 7 massacre, there is still no decision. Justice delayed sends a message — and it is the wrong one. We ask the BC Prosecution Service to decide.
B'nai Brith Releases Report on Antizionism, the New Face of Jew Hatred
Read article by Adam Louis Klein in his Substack, October 28, 2026, on the report and then download the full report.
Recommended Reading
Read article by Zev Staub in The Times of Israel about the UK government's response to growing antisemitism in public schools, October 22, 2026.
Read European Coalition for Israel, (ECI) statement about the weakening of US/EU relations by awarding the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought to the International Criminal Court, a court of ill repute in its consistently unfavourable treatment of Israel, October 23, 2026.
Read Gary Cohen in the Substack, the Future of Jewish, on the Cult of Palestinianism, October
Read excerpt.
“History should have taught us all better. Fascism does not begin with concentration camps and mass murder. It begins when political absolutism becomes acceptable; when ideological conformity becomes a virtue; when dissent becomes betrayal; when an entire group is targeted for the supposed or invented crimes of some of its members; when conspiracy replaces evidence; when violence and intimidation become legitimate political expression; when the well-intentioned embrace the ideology and march under its banner; and when good people convince themselves that accommodating extremists is preferable to confronting them.
Nazi Germany taught us how an extremist ideology moves from the margins into the mainstream: how its language becomes accepted, its assumptions absorbed, and its normalisation corrupts society and inverts morality.
Palestinianism has learned this lesson well. The con is sophisticated. It repackages fundamentally illiberal ideas and behaviour and successfully sells them as “liberalism.” Its ideology is embraced, its narrative eagerly trumpeted, and its falsehoods amplified by individuals who genuinely believe they are still standing for tolerance, human rights and social justice.
All the while, they accept ideological conformity, the silencing of dissent, the use of violence and intimidation, and the singling out of Jews under the acceptable label of “Zionists,” a word they have turned into a synonym for evil.
Palestinianism has persuaded much of the Left-wing West that embracing its ideology is not a betrayal of liberal values, but an expression of them. That is how dangerous ideologies become normal: not because everybody embraces the extremism, but because enough people decide that the extremism is understandable.”
Read Lorrie Goldstein in the Toronto Sun on PM Carney's double speak—dealing with tyrants and accusing Israel of abuse, and negotiating with tyrants and dictators, October 24, 2026
Read release from The Lawfare Project which filed a lawsuit on behalf of Daniel Bercovici—a Jewish resident of Montreal—against the City of Montreal and four officers of the Service de police de la Ville de Montréal over his arrest at the Grand Prix Cycliste de Montréal on September 14, 2025. The lawsuit, brought in the Superior Court of Québec, alleges that officers unlawfully arrested Bercovici, used excessive force, and filed materially false reports that led to his prosecution for obstructing a peace officer. Michael Hollander and Neil G. Oberman of Spiegel Ryan LLP are representing Bercovici.
“The right to stand peacefully in a public place with an Israeli flag cannot depend on whether a hostile crowd approves of the message.”
— Benjamin Ryberg, Attorney and Chief Operating Officer, The Lawfare Project
The application alleges that police officers filed materially false reports claiming that Bercovici taunted demonstrators, waved his flag aggressively, ignored warnings and orders, and resisted police. It further alleges that those reports were written from memory hours later, without contemporaneous notes, and are contradicted by video evidence, police photographs, and inconsistencies among the reports themselves.
The lawsuit also alleges that demonstrators converged on Bercovici and attempted to strike him with flagpoles as officers moved him along the barrier. Although the officers' own report recorded those attempts, the application asserts that no arrest was made and no investigation was opened concerning the assault on him. Bercovici's Israeli flag was never returned, and his flagpole was seized and marked for destruction.
Montreal man sues police over arrest at cycling event, alleges false reports – Montreal Gazette
Read AFSI article on the UN's moral bankruptcy and the latest “threats” by Hamas to repeat October 7, October 29, 2026.
Read blog by Taryn Thomas in the Times of Israel on her changing from Antizionist to Black-Jewish relationship builder, speaker, Zionist, October 29, 2026.
Read article by Andrew Bostom in Real Clear Religion on the tenets of Islam that teach Jew hatred and are regularly espoused by Al-Azhar University, October 26, 2026.
Read article by Rev Andrew Bennett and Brian Dijkema in The Hub, calling on Christians to stand with the Jews and speak out against growing antisemitism in Canada, October 22, 2026
Recommended Viewing
Watch video of first Black Pastors Tour to Israel, Unfinished Business, completing an original visit planned by the late Martin Luther King Jr.
Watch Israeli speaker from the Prime Minister's Office explaining the lies of “settler violence,” and learn about thousands of attacks in Judea and Samaria by violent Arabs who are killing and causing serious injury to Jews. Learn about PA incentivized terrorism, and how the UN agencies distort data. The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) lies!!
Watch/listen to The Zionist Podcast on with Dr. Andrew Bostom about the Islamic Antisemitism taught at Al-Azhar University in Egypt that influences mainstream Sunni Islam, October 15, 2026.
From Allies for a Strong Canada
Watch video of London, Ontario man painting hackenkruz on parking lot ground; later charged with hate crime.
Pacific Islanders Stand with Israel
Fiji's deputy prime minister, Viliame Gavoka, stated,
“The entire Pacific Islands identify with Israel in ways many would not understand. It's biblical and ageless and real. Are we going to upset some people? Perhaps...but we know that the relationship with Israel is timeless, whereas with others, it's largely geopolitics and subject to what is fashionable for the moment.”
Fiji is one of the staunchest supporters of Israel and opened its Jerusalem embassy in September last year, while Israel established its permanent presence in Suva in June this year. Both Gavoka and PM Rabuka are among the most pro-Israel politicians in Fiji and the Pacific.
Israel's PIF status, which was decided at the leaders' meeting in September in Palau, required consensus from all 18 Forum members, including New Zealand. The decision has attracted a range of commentary across the region.
(Source RNZ news 22/10/26)
Stand with US Canada Posted UofT Statement
The University of Toronto has confirmed that the academic boycott motion passed by the UTSU last week “would have no impact on the university's partnerships or operations.” This is consistent with the university's long-standing position. In 2024, then-president Meric Gertler wrote that “academic boycotts of any kind are antithetical to the University's fundamental mission and values,” and that it is “inappropriate and, ultimately, counterproductive to single out academics working or studying in a particular country, and to hold them accountable for the actions or policies of their country's government.” Current president Melanie Woodin repeated this position in September 2026. The motion that passed last week was promoted by a campaign tied to the BDS movement, which the motion itself cites through PACBI, its academic arm.
The BDS National Committee includes organizations identified as terrorist groups by Canada, including Hamas, and the movement celebrated the October 7 massacre one day after the attack. Its “anti-normalization” doctrine opposes dialogue and cooperation between Israelis and Palestinians.
Community Events
When Shanghai Said Yes – A Global Jewish-Chinese Virtual Experience
Sunday, November 8, 2026 · Virtual (Zoom webinar)
Continuing the Chinese-Jewish Exchange, CAEF and partners are pleased to present an opportunity for learning and sharing. Register to join the webinar and participate in small group discussions after the formal presentations. We invite you to read recent articles by Annette Poizner, one of the speakers: The Etrog’s Chinese Secret; A Sweet (and Sour) New Year: Where Jewish and Chinese Wisdom Meet; China and the Jews: Two Ancient Civilizations, One Unlikely Friendship.
An Evening with Rachel Lester, Digital Warrior
World Zionist Symposium 2027
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