July 12, 2025
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HERE'S MY TAKE
I’ve spent the past week on vacation, enjoying family and the beauty of the Kawarthas. I am thankful to my colleague, Cardus CEO and co-founder, Michael Van Pelt, who generously agreed to share his reflections on antisemitism with Insights readers this week.
Antisemitism and the Sin of Omission
Living with the sin of omission for an extended period of time welcomes an insidious trouble into our lives. It creates emotional distress, it strains relationships, and as it festers, it creates a corrosive sense of guilt. Worse yet, it often allows real injustice to persist.
I fear that Canadian Christians may be well on their way to committing such a sin as we observe the rise of antisemitism in Canada.
There are just over 19 million Christians in Canada, according to the 2021 census, down 3.6 million from 20 years earlier. For nearly 40 years the population of Jews in Canada has remained at around 400,000—a fraction of the almost 17 million Jews globally as of 2025.
Despite their relatively small population in Canada, the vandalism of synagogues is now commonplace, many Jewish communities require professional security services, Jewish families and children walking to school are regularly harassed, taking a taxi is calculated risk, and wearing a Jewish cultural or religious symbol is an act of courage. This is no longer a “somewhere else” phenomenon. It’s happening “here” on “our streets.”
This raises two confounding questions. Why, with such great (but weakening) numbers are Christians not standing up for Jews at this precarious moment? And why, with the historical scars of Christians’ greatest sin—that of antisemitism—do we find ourselves quiet and muted while seeds of hatred germinate and grow?
For me, these are confounding questions for very familial and cultural reasons. Allow me to relate a personal story.
My childhood memories are filled with stories of the Second World War, mostly situated in Dordrecht, Netherlands where my father lived. It was across the river from Rotterdam.
Food was scarce. The most gripping stories involved my grandparents hiding Jews from the Nazis and supporting the underground resistance. There was, of course, a bit of hyperbole, but I persistently cross-examined my father's fourteen siblings to cobble together a credible story.
As a young adult, I held this part of my family history with great pride…until my wife Deani and I visited the Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Centre, in Jerusalem.
Here is the truth. A greater proportion of Dutch Jews were deported to their death than in most Western European countries, in part due to the cooperation of Dutch citizens.
We were devastated to learn this historical reality, which still haunts us to this day.
This terrible story is in the numbers:
In May of 1940 there were approximately 140,000 Jews in the Netherlands. Between 1940 and 1945, approximately 107,000 Jews were deported from the Netherlands by the Nazi regime. Only about 5,000 survived the Holocaust. That means the Nazis murdered more than 102,000 Dutch Jews in extermination camps.
These stories seem so far away, yet I can’t seem to shove them out of my mind.
That’s why it was so important to read Father Raymond de Souza’s recent column on a remarkable interaction between Jewish rabbis and Christian clergy in Toronto at the Simeon Initiative Summit. Under the leadership of Father Deacon Andrew Bennett, Cardus launched a multi-year project to raise Christian opposition to antisemitism in Canada. We are mobilizing Christians and Jews in meaningful encounters that will unite us in genuine solidarity in the face of this pernicious threat to our common life.
That’s the light that pokes through the darkness—a darkness that Fr. Raymond outlined in the National Post:
Recent antisemitism in Canada has largely been a product of radical Islamism, often carried here by those from societies where antisemitism is actively promoted in educational, cultural, religious, and political circles. It has been tacitly—and sometimes enthusiastically—supported by progressive political forces, who see Jews as “settler colonists” who deserve denigration and even destruction.
That remains true, but over the past year I have become more aware of antisemitism creeping into conservative circles, including those that are ostentatiously Christian in their profession, if not their practice. The sulphurous sewer of online agitation is filled with “Christian” nationalists who flirt with antisemitism—and sometimes seem to lust after it.
We need the light more than ever now, as Rabbi Jarrod Grover noted in one of the most profound speeches heard at the Simeon Initiative Summit:
In 1980, during a surge in antisemitic vandalism across Canadian cities—including synagogues defaced and Jewish cemeteries desecrated—it was the Christian community that stepped forward. Clergy from all denominations condemned the violence publicly. Churches hosted interfaith vigils. Sunday schools organized events to teach about the Holocaust and the dangers of hatred. The Canadian Council of Churches issued statements affirming the Jewish people's dignity and calling antisemitism a sin against God. That year, the solidarity from our Christian neighbours wasn’t abstract—it was visible, embodied, and deeply felt. It served as a bulwark against hatred, reinforcing that antisemitism was a betrayal of Canada’s moral and spiritual foundations.
Today, that bulwark is eroding. In 2021, only 19 percent of Canadians reported attending religious services regularly, down from 30 percent two decades prior. Over 1,000 churches have closed in the past decade. Fewer Canadians are exposed to Scripture, to theological reflection, or to the moral vocabulary that once framed antisemitism as a spiritual evil. Christian seminaries are shrinking. Fewer young Canadians are raised to see every person as created in the image of God. Fewer understand what it means to “love the stranger” (Deuteronomy 10:19) or to remember the suffering of others.
This matters. Without Christian institutions bearing moral witness and teaching historical memory, antisemitism encounters fewer restraints. The Jewish population in Canada is small—just over 400,000 people. We cannot stand against this rising tide alone. The decline of Christianity removes a crucial ally from the public square.
Well, it’s time for that “crucial ally” to stand up once again, rejecting the sin of omission. It requires courage, but not yet a significant act of bravery. We can begin with some small steps:
Final thought: In contested geopolitical situations, suffering abounds for Jews, Palestinians, Iranians, and others. In local neighbourhoods where views are sharply polarized, I pray that I will not allow the sin of omission to let antisemitism grow under our watch.*
Michael Van Pelt,
On behalf of Ray Pennings
*Correction: July 14, 2025
An earlier version of Insights inaccurately placed blame for Jewish deportations on all Dutch citizens. The text now makes clear that the occupying Nazi forces deported Dutch Jews with the collaboration of some Dutch citizens.
WHAT I’M READING
Journalist Blows Whistle on CBC
The first chapter is only now being written in the CBC-shaking resignation of journalist Travis Dhanraj. He loudly and publicly announced his resignation this week, leaving behind a career at the Crown corporation, accusing the CBC of “performative diversity, tokenism, [and] a system designed to elevate certain voices and diminish others.” Dhanraj claims higher-ups blocked him from booking conservative voices on his news show and now plans to sue. What’s more, the Conservatives are calling for a Parliamentary committee to investigate Dhanraj’s allegations. His resignation is reminiscent of journalist Tara Henley’s 2022 departure from the CBC, saying to work there “is to sign on, enthusiastically, to a radical political agenda that originated on Ivy League campuses in the United States.”
Editorial Opinion or News Reporting?
The news business just ain’t what it used to be, according to longtime journalist Chris Wallace. “In a way that wasn’t necessarily true a long time ago, news organizations now realize that the market rewards them if they present a point of view and they offer themselves up to an audience as, ‘We’re going to tell you what you want to hear, we’re on your side,’” he told a panel discussion at the Poynter Institute. In light of the CBC situation with Travis Dhanraj, it’s worth looking at the whole Poynter Institute article to get a sense of how journalism is changing generally.
The Trouble with Boys
Any conversation between someone like New York Times columnist David French and psychologist Jordan Peterson just has to be interesting. So, it’s fascinating to read French’s take on his appearance on Peterson’s popular podcast to discuss “the plight of young men in America.” It’s a long read, but worth it, if you’re interested in a thoughtful reflection on Peterson’s explanations and prescriptions for boys’ poor life outcomes, instead of a rant-filled takedown.
Nuclear-Powered Ambition
Are South Korea and Japan on the road to becoming the world’s newest nuclear powers? The Atlantic’s Ross Andersen suggests that just might be the case “as America’s dependability as an ally comes into question.” Andersen delves into the details of how American foreign policy—and President Trump’s isolationist tendencies—could be opening up a power vacuum other nations will try to fill.
Planning for Retirement
When is the right time to retire and what will it look like for you? The C.D. Howe Institute is suggesting a novel (for Canadians) way to answer that question: a national pension dashboard. The idea is to create “a government or government-sanctioned online tool that shows individuals all their retirement income sources – including government benefits, workplace pensions, and potentially personal savings.” Apparently, this is something Australia, Sweden, and the Netherlands have already done.
MEANINGFUL METRICS
I typically tag charts containing data that I was unaware of but seems significant or is totally surprising. This survey of employers’ expected difficulty in filling vacancies certainly surprised me. Healthcare, education, and information technology seem to have more available candidates applying for work than the real estate, retail, and service sectors. The data is based on a survey of more than 1,000 employers from 55 countries. Skimming the report, it appears that the increased demand for industries like IT is leading workers into that field. Meanwhile, workers seem to be avoiding sectors where technological change is leading to significant disruption. And that’s creating the need for short-term workforce adjustments.
TAKE IT TO-GO
Who says the Mounties don’t have a sense of humour?
“Police in British Columbia said there was a literal ‘traffic jam’ on a highway when a pickup truck lost its load of freshly-picked blueberries,” reports United Press International. The RCMP in Mission, B.C. took to social media this week to notify residents of the spilled berries on the roadway. And in doing so, jokingly suggested they “could team up with the Mission Farmer's Market” to provide some new products, like “Jack-Knife Jelly, Pothole Preserves, and the ever-popular Traffic Jam."
I’m indebted to the RCMP for suitably (and inadvertently) providing some berry good wordplay for Insights this week. Hopefully, you found it as fruitful as I did.
Thanks again to Michael Van Pelt for taking on Ray’s Take this week. Insights will be back in your inbox next Saturday.