Jewish & World News

Anti-Semitic incidents in Canada rose last year by nearly four percent, an annual review shows.    B'nai Brith Canada's yearly audit, released this week, shows anti-Semitic acts in the country increased from 1,297 incidents in 2011, to 1,345 cases in 2012 -- a 3.7 percent jump.

A pair of prominent Jewish real-estate developers in Winnipeg have launched a lawsuit aimed at using the civil courts to stop the distribution of anti-Semitic posters, after government officials declined to pursue hate-speech charges against the man behind the propaganda.

On the initiative of Weekly Press Pakistan news service, a fourth Muslim – Jewish dialogue meeting will take place in Toronto, Canada on September 9th. The dialogue is comprised of sessions of group discussions between Jews and non-Arab Muslims, geared towards the boost of people-to-people dialogue. The meeting is for adults as well as for teenagers, who will meet in separate groups. The meetings are designed to provide an opportunity to meet new friends and remove stereotypes. The demand from potential registrants for the coming session is reportedly high, including six requests from Pakistan-based Muslim journalists who want to attend.

A small Japanese boat confirmed to have been lost during the 2011 Japan tsunami has washed up on a remote Canadian island. The green-and-white vessel was discovered by two locals on Spring Island, northwest of Vancouver Island. British Columbia's Emergency Management agency then matched the boat's serial number to one listed as lost by the Japanese consulate, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Office of Response and Restoration.

Canadian Foreign Minister John Baird visited the Western Wall on Monday at the tail end of a Middle East trip that took him to Lebanon and Jordan. According to Joseph Lavoie, the acting director of communications in Baird’s office, the visit was a private one. The minister, Lavoie said, was flying home from Ben-Gurion Airport after having visited Israel’s northern and eastern neighbors.

An anti-circumcision group is holding a string of vociferous street protests in Canada to try and get the controversial procedure outlawed. The Candian Foreskin Awareness Project claims to be the country's 'feistiest' pro-foreskin advocacy group.

While Americans might enjoy throwing politically-charged barbs at their neighbors to the north, Canadians now have at least one reason to be smug. For the first time in recent history, the average Canadian is richer than the average American, according to a report cited in Toronto's Globe and Mail. And not just by a little. Currently, the average Canadian household is more than $40,000 richer than the average American household. The net worth of the average Canadian household in 2011 was $363,202, compared to around $320,000 for Americans.

Rescue crews in southeastern B.C. are still working to recover the bodies of three people missing after a massive landslide last week. The body of one of four people believed to have been trapped under the slide was found Sunday, as authorities said the rescue mission had changed into a recovery effort. The B.C. Coroners Service took over the operation following the "reluctant" decision that "there was no longer any hope that anyone who had been caught in the slide could be found alive," the service said in a statement. RCMP said the body found Sunday appears to be that of a man. Valentine Webber, 60; his two daughters Diana Webber, 22, and Rachel Webber, 17; and Petra Frehse, 64, have been missing since the landslide hit Thursday in Johnsons Landing, B.C. Frehse is a German retiree who would spend part of her year living in a home next door to the Webbers. Valentine Webber and his two daughters, are believed to be Jewish. At least three h...

Mordechai Halawa, 34, was raised in Kuwait as a Muslim. Several years ago, a small twist of fate led him to discover his Jewish roots. Halawa, who told his story to Channel 2’s M magazine, was studying in Ontario, Canada, eight years ago. One day his cell phone was not working, and he went outside to a pay phone to make a call.

Pawel Bromson grew up in Poland where he and his skinhead friends sometimes roamed the streets of Warsaw, terrorizing Jewish, Arab and black children. On one occasion, he and his mates boarded a train to Auschwitz and vandalized the former concentration camp. They hurled insults at staff members, telling them “the genocide should have been bigger.” Bromson and his peers were suspicious of outsiders and disliked Jews, whom they blamed for Poland’s economic troubles under the Communist regime.

In an effort to curb vandalism and thwart terrorism against Jewish targets, the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs has announced it is forming a network of professionally trained volunteers to provide security at Canadian synagogues and Jewish community centres. “I’m not looking to train commandos,” said program co-ordinator Doron Horowitz, noting that the program — dubbed the Community Security Network — is meant to complement law enforcement’s efforts. “It’s a neighbourhood watch … we’re not looking for vigilantes.”

Award-winning Hungarian-Jewish writer Akos Kertesz has confirmed that he has applied for political asylum in Canada. Harassment and threats following the author’s controversial statements last summer about Hungary's role in the Holocaust have led him to seek asylum in Canada, the Hungarian News Agency reported. Kertesz, 80, the winner of the Hungary's most prestigious literary prize, the Kossuth, left for Canada last week. Kertesz's news service said in a statement released to the media that “a political campaign was mounted against him, not only by the Budapest city hall but also from within the government and parliament.”

A pro-Palestinian group in Canada has called for a boycott against Sears because it carries Israeli products. Canadians for Peace and Justice in the Middle East asked Sears last month to drop its Israeli products, including Ahava cosmetics and Keter Plastic, the Canadian Jewish News reported.

This May could be Ontario’s first Jewish Heritage Month if a bill being debated in the house today is passed. Bill 17, presented today at Queen’s Park by Eglinton-Lawrence MPP Mike Colle and co-sponsored by Thornhill MPP Peter Shurman and Parkdale-High Park MPP Cheri DiNovo, will designate May as a time to honour the significant achievements of Jewish Canadians across Ontario.

Montreal - A man serving a 7-year prison term for hate crimes, including the firebombing of a Jewish school for children, will remain behind bars for his entire sentence as he continues to pose a serious problem for Correctional Service Canada. Omar Bulphred, 26, has only four months remaining on the sentence he received in 2009 after he pleaded guilty to uttering threats, setting a fire at the Skver-Toldos Orthodox Jewish Boys School in Outremont, in September 2006, and trying to set fire to propane tanks he placed near the Snowdon YM-YWHA in April 2007.

A Montreal auctioneer has cancelled a plan to auction off what he says are human remains from a Nazi death camp. A 26-year veteran of the auction business, Patrick Blaizel, 60, put the two objects up for bid on liveauctioneers.com. At the time, Mr. Blaizel promised all proceeds would go to a Holocaust memorial.

A B.C. man who was a recruiter for white supremacist groups says he's changed his hateful ways and has moved on to become a motivational speaker who helps others leave racist organizations. Tony McAleer, 44, looks back ruefully on his past involvements with such groups. “It was like a quick sugar high at the time, but the long-term damage — not just to myself but to other people — it wasn’t worth it,” McAleer says.

Some Canadians whose associations with white supremacist and neo-Nazi groups were recently revealed, are defending their involvement with the organizations, while others deny having anything to do with the groups anymore. CBC News reported Wednesday that the names of 74 Canadians were found in files leaked by computer hackers in Europe who were intent on exposing hate movements. The identities were revealed on a website called Nazi Leaks, which is now offline.

A Jewish group is demanding the resignation of a Quebec mayor who said Israel shouldn't exist. Stephane Gendron said Israel is an apartheid state and expressed hope for its demise, in remarks made Dec. 27 on a daily television show he hosts, . He said "products being made in Israel , on land stolen from Palestinians, who are kept walled in by an apartheid regime where they are cut off...it's very serious."

The resurrection of a website advocating the genocide of Jews and Canadians, founded by a Toronto extremist who is wanted by police, highlights the difficulties of policing the Internet, where public postings can be generated and disseminated from almost anywhere.