WINNIPEG — The 2025 holiday season should have been a time of light, celebration, and respite. Instead, for Jewish communities across Canada, it became another period marked by anxiety, police presence, and the normalization of hostility toward Jewish life.
From the first nights of Hanukkah through Christmas Day and into the Boxing Day retail rush, Canadian cities witnessed a disturbing convergence: anti-Israel and antizionist activism repeatedly spilling into actions that targeted Jewish religious observance, Jewish businesses, and Jewish public spaces. The cumulative effect was unmistakable. What was framed as “political protest” increasingly functioned as a collective punishment of Canadian Jews.
Hanukkah: When Jewish celebration became a provocation
During Hanukkah, Canadian media reported disruptions and heightened security surrounding Jewish events in multiple cities.
In Winnipeg, a public menorah lighting at a hospital campus was reportedly disrupted by antisemitic remarks and subsequently reported to police. Local coverage made clear that the incident was treated seriously, with authorities assessing it through the lens of hate-motivated conduct.
In Toronto, menorah lightings took place against a backdrop of protests and counter-protests, with police visibly present to prevent escalation. In Montreal, police publicly confirmed increased vigilance during Hanukkah, citing concern for community safety amid a broader rise in antisemitic incidents since October 7, 2023.
The message received by many Canadian Jews was chillingly simple: even the act of publicly celebrating a religious holiday now requires security planning.
Christmas Day: Mezuzahs torn down while Canada celebrated peace
If Hanukkah brought disruption, Christmas Day brought desecration.
Canadian media reported that on December 25, multiple mezuzahs were torn from doorways in a Toronto residential building. The mezuzah, a small, deeply symbolic object affixed to Jewish homes, is not political messaging. It is a religious marker, a declaration of Jewish presence and identity.
Toronto police were notified, and the hate crime unit was engaged.
That detail matters. Mezuzah vandalism is not random property damage. It is a historically loaded act, one that echoes centuries of attempts to erase Jewish visibility from public and private space. That it occurred on Christmas Day only underscored the vulnerability many Jews felt during what should have been a universally festive period.
Pre-Christmas shopping season: The Indigo campaign
As the holiday shopping season intensified, anti-Israel activism moved deliberately into commercial spaces.
Canadian media documented coordinated actions targeting Indigo Books & Music stores across the country. Protesters openly described their strategy as economic disruption, organizing mass returns of books to clog checkout lines and interfere with normal operations.
At Toronto’s Eaton Centre, reporting indicated that more than 100 protesters participated in one such action, returning thousands of dollars’ worth of merchandise. Similar events were promoted or carried out in other cities.
Whatever one thinks of Indigo’s founder or corporate positions, these actions were not aimed at Israeli policy-makers. They targeted Canadian retail workers, shoppers, and a visibly Jewish-owned business during the busiest shopping period of the year.
For Jewish Canadians, the message was again unmistakable: your businesses are fair game.
Boxing Day: Protests move inside the mall
Boxing Day marked a further escalation.
Canadian outlets reported pro-Palestinian protests taking place inside the Toronto Eaton Centre, one of the country’s most iconic retail spaces, during peak Boxing Day traffic. Demonstrators chanted slogans, displayed banners, and explicitly used the mall as a stage for political messaging.
The choice of venue was not accidental. Shopping malls are shared civic-commercial spaces, heavily frequented by families during the holidays. By bringing protests indoors, activists ensured maximum disruption and visibility while forcing bystanders into a political confrontation they did not choose.
This was not speech in a public square. It was a coercive spectacle, designed to dominate space and attention.
A pattern, not isolated incidents
Individually, any one of these incidents might be dismissed by apologists as unfortunate but unrelated. Taken together, they form a clear pattern:
- Jewish holidays disrupted or overshadowed by protests
- Jewish religious symbols vandalized
- Jewish-owned or Jewish-identified businesses targeted
- Jewish communal anxiety met with demands to “separate” Jewish identity from Zionism
The throughline is not criticism of Israeli government policy. It is the erosion of Jewish safety and legitimacy in Canadian public life.
This is where the distinction between anti-Israel activism and antisemitism collapses. When activism repeatedly targets Jewish spaces, Jewish symbols, and Jewish presence, especially during religious holidays, it ceases to be abstract political critique and becomes lived harassment.
The cost of denial
Too many Canadian institutions remain reluctant to name this dynamic honestly. There is a persistent fear that acknowledging antisemitism will chill “legitimate protest.”
But protest is not sacrosanct when it infringes on the rights of others. Free expression does not include the right to intimidate religious minorities, vandalize sacred symbols, or turn everyday public spaces into arenas of targeted hostility.
For Jewish Canadians, the past holiday season reinforced a painful reality: antisemitism in Canada is not only rising, it is being normalized through the language of activism.
A moment of moral clarity
Canada prides itself on pluralism, tolerance, and respect for religious freedom. Those values are not tested when it is easy to uphold them. They are tested when a minority’s safety becomes politically inconvenient.
The events of Hanukkah, Christmas, and Boxing Day should be a wake-up call. Jewish Canadians are not proxies for a foreign government. Jewish holidays are not political battlegrounds. Jewish symbols are not acceptable targets.
If Canada cannot protect the right of Jews to celebrate, worship, shop, and live without intimidation, then the problem is not Israel. The problem is here at home.
And it is long past time to say so, clearly, unapologetically, and without euphemism.
