Tisha B’Av and New Reasons to Mourn | CAEF Bulletin, Aug 1, 2025
- CAEF
- Aug 1
- 10 min read
CAEF Statement on Federal Government’s Plan to Recognize Palestine
Prime Minister Mark Carney's announcement that Canada will recognize a Palestinian state is a slap in the face to Canada's Jewish community, which is still reeling from the rampant antisemitism plaguing this country, and coping with the October 7, 2023 atrocities inflicted on the Israeli people, including the friends and family of many Canadian Jews.
The message is clear: The Government of Canada's current priority is to reward terrorist gangs bent on destroying Israel and massacring its population. The wellbeing of the hostages now in captivity for almost two years lies in the balance. It is not a time for virtue signaling.
Embedded in the statement are blood libels which will inevitably heighten the explosion of antisemitism we are experiencing across this country.
The only way forward in a minority government is to bring the issues before Parliament for a full and open debate.
The Canadian Antisemitism Education Foundation posted this on social media.
CAEF is horrified at this announcement. We will continue to defend the rights of all Jewish Canadians to equal justice under the law. We will continue to advocate for a Canadian foreign policy that affirms the right of the world's only Jewish state -- the State of Israel -- to be welcomed and accorded standing as an equal member of the family of nations.
Legal Update
Sentencing of Waisuddin AKBARI, by Justice Edward Prutschi of the Ontario Court of Justice at Newmarket on July 15, 2025, reasons for Sentence released on July 28, 2025.
Mr. Akbari was found guilty after his trial of threatening to blow up synagogues across the Toronto area and threatening to kill as many Jews as he could. He was sentenced to 60 days home detention, with 10 hours off per week for religious services and personal errands. He was also sentenced to 3 years’ probation, including mandatory counselling about antisemitism and gambling addiction, and prohibited from being within 200m of a synagogue or other Jewish center for the duration of probation.
Links to the sentencing judgment and the original verdict are below.
Michael Teper, President of CAEF, delivered a Community Impact Statement to the Court at the sentencing hearing. An extract of that Statement is below:
“In a starkly blunt statement, Michael Teper, of the Canadian Antisemitism Education Foundation, reviewed a long list of recent hate crimes targeting the Jewish community. In a depressing and deflating comment, he noted that:
In this context, some Jews are giving up on life in Canda. As evidenced by media stories such as this, they are leaving the country. Many Jews are afraid to drop off their children at the local daycare. Our institutions are constantly on the watch for graffiti and vandalism and break-ins. Our religious and community institutions are forced to divert their financial resources away from programming, maintaining and building our infrastructure, and direct these funds instead towards hiring security guards and police officers. Based on bitter historical experience, we feel that Canada is on a very dark trajectory that will not end well.”
Additional Community Impact Statements were filed by Rich Robertson of B’nai Brith Canada, Jaime Kirzner-Roberts of the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Centre, CIJA, and the Toronto Board of Rabbis. CAEF is grateful to all our partners and sister organizations for their efforts.
Upcoming Court Dates
Check www.ontariocourtdates.ca for courtroom assignments and times.
Aug. 8: Sentencing of Razaali BAHADUR (Incitement of hatred at Nathan Phillips Square)
Sept 3: Sentencing of Omar ELKHODARY (Assault on person affixing hostage posters)
Sept 8: Sentencing Hearing of Iain ASPENLIEDER (Ottawa – defacement of National Holocaust Memorial.
The Death of Reason and Cause to Mourn
Tisha B’Av is the saddest day in the Jewish calendar, the 9th of Av, which this year begins August 2nd, and marks the date on which the Holy Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed, not once but twice. Many Jewish communities also mark the day with remembrance of the Holocaust, and for many years now many communities have acknowledged the plight of Jews during the Inquisition which also led to murder of hundreds of thousands, and exile of Jews across the globe. Now, we add the loss of innocent lives on October 7, 2023 and continuing tragic loss of young soldiers, police, border guards and others defending the Jewish homeland.
CAEF shares sorrow with our global Jewish family and also our pride in our People, our Nation, our Faith and our Future.
The world has refused to understand that October 7 unleashed Jew hatred globally and reawakened the oldest hatred and added new dimensions—blaming the victims, denying Israel’s right to exist, denying Jewish indigeneity, denying archaeological evidence.
Read Phyllis Chesler’s article of July 30, published in JNS to understand how this “re-emergence of Jew hatred (is) on a level starting to challenge the German Nazi era.
Read Jonathan Tobin, editor of JNS on the immoral virtue signalling on Gaza, and Jews who have sold out Israel, ignoring Hamas’s ongoing intent to destroy Israel.
The View from Canada—Cancel Special Envoys
Read Casey Babb in the National Post on why we don’t need Special Envoy on Holocaust Remembrance and Combating Antisemitism or on Combating Islamophobia.
France, Canada and UK Surrender—Islamists Taking Over
Watch Dr. Mordechai Kedar in conversation with David Parsons of ICEJ, July 31st on France’s surrender to Islamist-Leftist Threats.
Watch President Trump Express his View on Rewarding Hamas.
Read article by Duvi Honig of Ynetnews on how the woke agenda is fueling the fantasy of a Palestinian state.
Read article by JNS staff published in the National Post, July 31, 2025 re Trump’s warning to Canada if it recognized Palestinian state.
Read Abu Tomeh, Arab Israeli journalist in Israel Unwired on The Muslim Brotherhood: A Terrorist Organization in Arab Countries, but Undesignated in the West, July 29, 2025.
Read Nachum Kaplan, in his newsletter, Moral Clarity, July 26, 2025 on how France has become a Muslim Client.
The US Takes a Principled Stand
On July 31, the US announced sanctions against the PA following release of a report by Palestinian Media Watch. This 20 page report was sent to Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, who announced that the PA is in violation of US law “through its engagement with the International Criminal Court (ICC). PMW's report documented extensive evidence and explicitly recommended that the U.S. impose sanctions on the Palestinian Authority.:
Read article by JNS staff in the National Post on July 31, noting that Trump put Canada on notice that its bid to recognize a Palestinian state could derail trade talks.
Praise Israel, Ignore Anti-Israel Bigots
The ZOA on July 21, 2025 published a thoughtful statement about Israel’s humanitarian behaviour in defending the Druze Syrians from the Syrian regime intent on their massacre.
Read excerpt here:
“It seems that no matter what Israel does, no matter how humane, no matter how warranted to keep her own citizens and other nations’ citizens safe, the media and left-wing groups and other Jew-hating Israel-haters criticize Israel’s humanitarian and defensive efforts now in trying to stop the 10/7-like slaughter of innocent Druze by Syria’s terrorist leader and regime. The latest example is Israel’s air strikes and efforts to stop the slaughter of Syrian Druze by Syrian regime forces, in the Al-Suwaidaa area and Damascus.”
Jewish Unity
“Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks used to say that the greatest challenge of the Jewish people is not survival — we’ve done that. The greatest challenge is unity without uniformity. To see difference not as a threat, but as an invitation. To make room for each other, because only together can we become the people we’re meant to be.”
Leftist-Islamist Alliance and Far Rightists
The Adam and Gila Milstein Family Foundation published the report, The Enemies Within, How the Islamo-Leftist Alliance is Undermining America.
Here is the Call to Action:
If we fail to confront the rise of the Islamo-left, we will watch our institutions hollowed out by foreign influence and moral relativism that erode the very values that make America exceptional.
If we fail to resist the isolationist right, we will cede the global stage to authoritarian regimes and invite instability to our shores.
If Americans of good conscience left and right, secular and religious, public and private can stand together with conviction, courage, and clarity, we can restore our strength, revive our values, and reclaim America’s role as a beacon of freedom and prosperity.
The threats are real. The stakes are historic. But so is our opportunity.
Read Deborah Messing on July 21 published in The Times of Israel Blogs, on the new antisemitism from the Left.
Philadelphia’s Network of Hate by Canary Mission
This 186 page report reveals the ideological foundation of anti-Israel hate coming from the Nation of Islam, the Muslim Brotherhood and the Quakers which resulted in an explosion of antisemitism post October 7, 2023.
The reports key findings include: how the three groups worked together to produce anti-Israel activism in political and community organizations, across K-12, and amongst university students and faculty. The central role was played by Philly Palestine Coalition that provided a coordinate message, stret actions teach-ins and protest tool-kits.
This Coalition modeled the strategy of New York’s pro-terror anti-Israel group Within Our Lifetime, merging university activism with community organizing and amplifying pro-terror messages, successfully mobilizing everything from encampments to highway shutdowns and more.
A façade of religious concerns and interfaith cooperation brought groups like CAIR, JVP. IfNotNow, and American Friends Service Committee together which hosted ‘liberation seders”, and prayer events with extremist messaging.
The report includes much more and should open everyone’s eyes to the replication of this strategy that has infected many US and Canadian cities. It is possible that the key organizers can be identified, as was done in Philadelphia, and action taken. Numerous social justice groups, or in the US racial justice groups, form the intersectional coalition that promotes an anti-American/ (read Anti-Western) and anti-Israel narrative.
The Antisemitic Practices of DEI
Professor David Millard Haskell, Wilfred Laurier University published this article in Quillette on January 2025. It must be read and acted upon to save our schools.
Watch Aayan Hirsi Ali clearly state that DEI is racist.
Watch video by Accuracy in Media on the National Educators Association’s break with the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), over the latter’s truth-telling education program.
Recommended Viewing
Watch Dr. Eric Mandel’s Interview with Jonah Platt, commentator at Being Jewish and doing Jewish advocacy.
Dr. Mandel is founder and Director of MEPIN (Middle East Political Information); learn more here.
Jonah Platt is an actor, writer, musician and advocate for the Jewish people and Israel who became major spokesperson since October 7th.
Watch Oren, on his Traveling Israel Channel provide Proof that Gazans Are Not Starving.
Watch Ariana Rosie on Facebook, asking Are You Going to Remain Silent?
Watch the Jewish Ginger call out the Anti-Zionist and explain how to recognize antisemitism.
Watch Ayaan Hirsi Ali clip on Tal Oran’s YouTube Channel, explaining The Islamic Takeover has already begun in many European cities, and is happening in North America, and what to do about it—the Failure of Multiculturalism.
Watch UAE journalist Ajmad Taha on YouTube channel Visegrad24 explaining that Arab countries have expelled the Muslim Brotherhood, but not in the West.
Recommended Reading
Read Leslie Roberts in the National Post on July 22, 2025 explaining Israel doesn’t want sympathy but the same rights as other nations.
Read Joe Adam George and Casey Babb, in the New York Post on Jihad in the West, July 27, 2025.
Read Daniel Greenfield, in Israpundit, July 29, 2025 on the Jihad Against Israel.
Read Adam Eliyahu Berkowitz, in Israel365News on Debunking the images of Famine and Genocide in Gaza, on July 30, 2025.
Articles by Readers of CAEF Bulletin
Comments from the Daily Deluge by Larry Shapiro, Calgary
The Palestinian Authority has accused Israel of spreading drugs and poison among Palestinian youth. This is a textbook example of how the Palestinians project their own crimes onto the Jews, a cultural feature of their shame based culture.
The Palestinian crime is the hideous child abuse in which their children are taught to yearn for martyr's deaths while killing Jews. Imagine if your kid came home from school imbued with the yearning to want to die. you would have him/her at the shrink's before they could remove their backpack.
We live in a woke time when we are taught that all cultures are equal Pardon me if I think the culture to which I belong, a culture that teaches its children to enjoy life, to contribute to others enjoying life is superior to a culture that is willing to sacrifice its children for the crazy dream of erasing the Jewish country.
A Journey from Canadian Pride to Disillusionment by Michel Benchimol, Toronto
For most of my life, being Canadian was a profound source of pride. As a Jew, and as someone who rose to become President and CEO of a Canadian company generating $2–3 billion in annual revenue, I regarded my Canadian identity as an asset—personally, professionally, and morally. My work took me across continents in the name of business and diplomacy. Although I also hold a European Union passport, I always chose to travel on my Canadian one. The maple leaf was not just a symbol; it represented values I believed in—openness, fairness, decency, and peace. But that pride has been deeply shaken. What once felt like an unshakable identity has become a source of internal conflict and sadness.
Canada long prided itself on multiculturalism and peaceful coexistence. We were the country that championed tolerance, celebrated diversity, and took principled stands on the world stage. But the surge of openly pro-Hamas demonstrations in the wake of the October 7, 2023, massacre has left me stunned. These rallies didn’t merely express disagreement with Israeli policies—they glorified terrorists and dehumanized Jews. That this could happen on Canadian soil, with little to no meaningful pushback from political leaders or law enforcement, is more than disturbing—it’s a national disgrace. When mayors refuse to participate in long-standing Jewish community events like the Walk for Israel, they are not just skipping a parade—they are signaling to our community that we no longer belong in the public square. They are telling our children that their safety, history, and trauma are optional causes—ones that can be ignored for political convenience.
Advocacy and Action
Read Letter from D. S., Vancouver, on July 27, 2025, to Jenny Kwan, MP, a member of the NDP, offering facts in response to her publicized letter in which she is urging the Federal Government to embargo all arms to Israel, and calling for a ceasefire while falsely claiming Israel is committing crimes against Gazans.
Read CAEF Letter to Prime Minister Carney and Foreign Minister Anand Re: Canada's proposed recognition of "Palestine"
Read Letter from Larry Shapiro, Calgary, to the President of France, His Excellency Emmanuel Macron, regarding recognition of Palestine.
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