Thursday, May 24
"No Arrests Were Made"
This post will upset you. Sorry, but it’s the truth.
Remember Elmer Fudd’s catch phrase? “Shhh.. . . Be vewy vewy quiii-et, I’m hunting waaab-bits.” Well, it’s hunting season in Toronto, but no hunter is being very quiet about it. And no one’s hunting rabbits; they’re hunting Jewish people.
It started right after October 7th. Rallies. Chants. Threats. Noise. Graffiti. Tearing down hostage posters. Intimidation by people hiding their faces behind keffiyehs. The news reported it, closing with “No arrests were made”.
It gradually escalated. Ripping mezuzahs off doorposts. Broken windows in synagogues. Gunshots into schools and Jewish-owned businesses. Assaults on Jewish people. No arrests were made.
Those four words are the real-life version of Monopoly’s “GET OUT OF JAIL FREE” card. That phrase is a signal to potential criminals that there won’t be punishment. When there are no consequences, there’s no reason to stop, no reason to hide, no reason to be quiet. The hatred and violence against Jews has been growing. It’s public. It’s out in the open. It’s shameless. It’s the pogrom in the Fiddler on the Roof wedding scene. It’s the Nazis in every Holocaust film and, of course, in real life Europe 1939-1945. There are no consequences, the criminals see this, so the violence escalates.
Last week in Toronto, Daniel Stopnicki, a 47-year-old Jewish man wearing a kippah, was shot. Multiple times. In broad daylight. While walking his dog. An arrest was made and the guy has been charged with second-degree murder. Jewish people start to breathe a sigh of relief, but then what do the news reports tell us? “Police have not confirmed any connection to antisemitic motives.”
Yes, it’s a crime. They’ve got someone in custody. But they say it has nothing to do with the Jewish community. Just a random murder. Again, a signal to the criminals that the Jews are free targets.
Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe it really doesn’t have to do with antisemitism.
But what about the 17-year-old (now 18) who shot at Jewish people in front of two Toronto synagogues? The police finally arrested him. Can we breathe more easily? Of course not. The criminal, whose name is withheld because he was a minor(!) when he committed the crime, was released almost immediately on $2,000 bail. What is that – $1,000 per Jew? He’s under house arrest now, so I guess his punishment is lots of Netflix and Uber Eats.
We keep reading the news. No arrests were made. No connection to antisemitic motives. Nominal bail. I wish I could say that we don’t know what’s ahead but, sadly, we do. Look around. It’s happening to Jewish communities all over the world, with no repercussions.
As far as here in Toronto, hunting has never been so easy. And why bother with rabbits when you can get away with shooting Jews?
Jewish People: Wake up. Wake up. Wake up.