IHRA in Canada
Some of my reporting that didn't make into Jewish Currents
One of the most contested issues for Canadian Jews right now is how to define antisemitism. An ongoing communal debate is whether anti-Zionism amounts to antisemitism. Governments, both provincial and federal, in the country seem not to be interested in that debate, though, and what it says about the diversity of opinion among Canadian Jews, but, instead, eager to choose the conservative, pro-Israel side.
Canada formally adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition in 2019. In February 2025, following a 2022 promise from former prime minister Justin Trudeau and 2024 testimony on increased antisemitism to a House of Commons committee, the federal government codified the IHRA definition into an official handbook on how law enforcement, educational institutions, and workplaces should respond to antisemitism. The IHRA definition is favoured by major (and conservative) Jewish groups: B’nai Brith Canada, the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) and the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Centre. “The hasbara industry is the driver,” Sheryl Nestel, a member of Independent Jewish Voices, said. “IHRA is the useful tool at pushing the [Israeli] narrative.”1
Canada is the first country in the world to have such a handbook, which cites a social media post that says “Zionism is a racist violent settler colonial project,” as well as a magazine article that described Israel as having a “lebensraum master plan for Gaza” comparable to the Nazis’ “depopulation of Jewish ghettos,”2 as sentiments that qualify as antisemitic. The handbook adopts another talking point directly from conservative organizations about anti-Zionist Jews:
As with other marginalized communities, Jews have the right to define their own oppression. To understand antisemitism in Canada, how it manifests, and how it impacts Canadian Jews, it is important to listen to and promote the voices of Canadian Jews. At the same time, it is important to be wary of tokenization — it is possible for Jews themselves to contribute to and empower antisemitism. Canada’s largest Jewish organizations, representing the majority of Canadian Jews, support the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (“IHRA”) Working Definition of Antisemitism, the leading definition of antisemitism worldwide.3
In other words, Canadian Jews get to “define their own oppression,” as long as they are in the majority. (According to one recent measure, 51% of Canadian Jews identify as Zionists, but even if 70% or 80% did, that would still leave tens of thousands who, according to this handbook, don’t count, and can even be prosecuted as antisemites.) Note the sleight of hand, also, between “the largest Jewish organizations” and “the majority of Canadian Jews,” in terms of what “representing” means: those organizations may claim to represent the majority of Canadian Jews, but they are neither elected nor mandated to do so, nor are there are any democratic mechanisms for the Canadian Jewish population to choose new leaders for these organizations.
Corey Balsam, national coordinator for IJV Canada, called the handbook’s quote shocking. It “circumscribes Jewish identity by the Canadian government as Zionist.” (I’ve written about the history and heterogeneity of anti-Zionist Jews.)
The handbook explicitly emphasizes that the definition is not legally binding but does encourage its use. Nestel told me that activists are concerned that IHRA is creeping into law, pointing to the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Centre’s announcement of training police. “This is the yardstick to measure whether something is antisemitic or not,” she said.
This aligns with the Ontario government — Canada’s largest outside of the federal government — providing money to CIJA and Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Centre to help combat antisemitism in its schools during Holocaust Education Week in November.
Senator Yuen Pau Woo said he believes the primary point of IHRA is to shield Israel from criticism in Canada, not to tackle antisemitism. “And that has been one of the biggest problems in the last few years in terms of raising awareness about the crisis in Palestine, which is that even people who see it very clearly are afraid to raise their voices because nobody wants to be labelled an antisemite,” he said.
Woo’s viewpoint aligns with the one legal decision on this subject that exists in Canada, a decision on the removal of the 2024 encampment at the University of Toronto. Ontario Superior Court Justice Markus Koehnen wrote that heightened sensitivity to antisemitism has, on occasion, “crossed into a new form of McCarthyism against those who express support for Palestinian rights.”4
I’ve long argued that two points can be true at the same time. That’s the case here. A lot of Canadian Jews do feel unsafe and under threat, while their organizations attempt to restrict and limit Palestinian advocacy through the IHRA definition.
“I can, on the one hand, empathize with my Jewish compatriots and friends because of the fear they have expressed,” Woo said. “And, at the same time, [I can also] legitimately criticize strongly the definition of the IHRA booklet because I think it actually exacerbates the problem of antisemitism.”
All quotes in this story from Corey Balsam, Sheryl Nestel and Yuen Pau Woo come from interviews that I conducted with them.
Canadian Dimension, Israel’s genocide betrays the Holocaust: https://canadiandimension.com/articles/view/israels-genocide-betrays-the-holocaust
Canada’s IHRA handbook, p. 12: https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/services/canada-holocaust/antisemitism/handbook-definition-antisemitism.html
Ontario Superior Court decision on University of Toronto encampment: https://www.canlii.org/en/on/onsc/doc/2024/2024onsc3755/2024onsc3755.html#_ftn12