Recently in the , guest columnist Lawrence Pinsky KC described a scene that should never occur in a Canadian city. At Folklorama’s Israel Pavilion, Shalom Square, held at the Jewish Community Centre, a mob harassed Jewish community members and their guests. They shouted vile sexualized slurs at women and girls, screamed threats like “Hamas is coming for you,” and played recordings of gunshots and screaming children.

As Pinsky, a lawyer and a former Human Rights Adjudicator, wrote, “This was not just offensive speech, it was a breach of Canadian law, a violation of the basic right to safety, and a profound failure of leadership.” That is the truth. What happened was not a protest. It was an organized display of hate. It was intimidation. It was a crime. And it must be treated as a crime.

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