Features
The World in 2025 May Become an Even Darker Place
By HENRY SREBRNIK On November 12, the former New York Times journalist Bari Weiss, did a brave thing. Speaking to the annual conference of the General Assembly of the Jewish Federations of North America, in Washington, DC, she didn’t provide uplifting words or an assurance that things will somehow get better.
She is the founder of the Free Press newspaper – “for free people,” as its masthead states – and has been courageously fighting against the antisemitic tide that has enveloped the Western world since October 7, 2023. I can do no better than to quote her opening statement:
“When did you know?
“Looking back, now that we are on the far side, I wonder: When did you realize that things had changed?
“When did you know that the things we had taken for granted were suddenly out of our reach? That the norms that felt as certain as gravity had disappeared? That the institutions that had launched our grandparents had turned hostile to our children?
“When did you notice that what had once been steady was now shaky ground? Did you look down to see if your own knees were trembling?
“When did you realize that we were not immune from history, but living inside of it?
“When did you see that our world was actually the world of yesterday — and a new one, one with far fewer certainties, one where everything seems up for grabs, was coming into being?”
How well we now realize that it applies even more so, in Canada, where a veritable chasm has opened up, as in a horror movie, and it is filled with antisemites as vicious as rarely before seen in this country.
Since October 7, 2023, all levels of government in Canada have failed, either by design or due to incompetence, to understand and act on the gravity of the moment.
Those on the front lines already feel it. Jewish students at the University of British Columbia this past summer hung posters throughout campus that read: “I am a Jew. I hide my identity because I feel threatened and unsafe,” and “Stop terrorizing Jews.” No police chief instructed them to hide; Jewish students could detect the tenor and a mounting risk of violence on campus.
And it keeps getting worse. Dawson College in Montreal shut down classes for almost 10,000 students on November 21 after students voted 447-247 in favour of a strike to demonstrate solidarity with Gaza. The closure of the public college was prompted by numerous emails and calls from members of the community expressing concerns about the safety of students and employees on the day of the boycott.
Demonstrators gathered outside Dawson’s campus and left after an hour, marching east to Concordia University, where they met up with more strikers. Concordia had a phalanx of security guards manning the doors, police officers inside the lobby and large panels of plywood on the inside of their windows. Dozens of other student associations voted to strike. At McGill, activists planted a tree in solidarity with Palestinians.
There were several protests a day later, including one at Université du Québec à Montréal. An effigy of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was set on fire and smoke bombs were lit as demonstrators chanted “Free Palestine” and “Israel is terrorist, Canada is complicit.” Rioters that evening clashed with police officers, smashed windows of businesses, and even set vehicles ablaze in the downtown area.
How has all this come about? We must face facts: Canada in recent decades adopted a policy of unfettered and incautious immigration, and with it have come some immigrants who are steeped in antisemitic values. We now realize that, in our big cities, they have changed the very nature of Canadian society. They have not adapted to liberal western values. Rather the reverse: they are bending this country towards theirs – to the detriment of Canada’s Jewish population. The examples are many, and they would have been beyond belief a mere decade ago.
A vigil that was scheduled to be held in Mississauga, Ont., November 26 in memory of “the great Martyr” Yahya Sinwar –the Hamas leader responsible for the Oct. 7 attack on Israel — did not, after numerous complains, occur on the originally scheduled date. A flyer for the event, which was shared on social media, used the slogan, “Lest we forget our heroes,” and red poppies on top of a black and white photo of the architect of October 7.
However, the city’s mayor, a onetime Liberal MP, had no problems with it, even comparing Sinwar to Nelson Mandela. “I just want to point out, and I’m not being facetious, Nelson Mandela was declared a terrorist by the United States of America until the year 2008,” Carolyn Parrish stated. “Your terrorist and somebody else’s terrorist may be two different things.” Not surprisingly, anti-Israel rallies are almost a weekly occurrence in her city.
An Ottawa school played an Arabic-language Palestinian protest song associated with fighting in Gaza as the soundtrack to its Remembrance Day presentation, causing outrage and distress for some students and parents. Principal Aaron Hobbs of Sir Robert Borden School defended the selection, saying it was chosen to bring diversity and inclusion to Remembrance Day.
Speaking of Remembrance Day, the New Democratic Party, which was once led by David Lewis, a Jew, and supported by many in the Jewish community, is now completely supportive of the Palestinian cause. Edmonton NDP MP Heather McPherson, one of the most vocally anti-Israel members of the House of Commons, had just delivered a statement accusing Israel of genocide, compared her wearing of a watermelon pin to the wearing of a Remembrance Day poppy. The watermelon slice has been adopted by the anti-Israel movement as representative of the Palestinian flag because it has the same colour scheme, of black, red and green. “I stand here proudly wearing a pin that shows that I stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people,” she stated.
The University of Victoria in British Columbia cancelled a scheduled November 24 on-campus talk by an extremist preacher who is on record calling for the annihilation of Jews. Invited by the Muslim Students Association, one of the central organizers of anti-Israel rallies outside the B.C. Parliament Buildings, the event was widely criticized on local forums, forcing the university to decline the booking request for the event.
Sheikh Younus Kathrada himself blamed the cancellation “on a Zionist run organization which is clearly pro-ethnic cleansing, pro-genocide, pro-apartheid and pro-murder.”
Meanwhile, Canada finally listed the pro-Palestinian group Samidoun, based in Vancouver, as a terrorist entity October 15, after endless hesitation. Known as the Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, it has close links with and advances the interests of another group that Canada already lists as a terrorist entity, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
Vancouver police launched a criminal investigation into a rally Samidoun organized on the one-year anniversary of the Hamas attack on Israel, which included a masked speaker who told the crowd that “we are Hezbollah and we are Hamas.” She also led cries of “death to Canada, death to the United States and death to Israel.” More recently, the home of Charlotte Kates, a director of Samidoun, was searched by the police.
Behind much of this we find a web of more than 100 anti-Israel organizations operating in Canada, according to a recent study by NGO Monitor, and nearly all of them overlap in activity and funding.
“The NGO Network Driving Antisemitism in Canada” was released on November 4. It highlights the structure and dynamics of the NGO network. The “dangerous spike” in Jew-hatred is concurrent with “an increase in activity by an interconnected and coordinated network of NGOs, whose campaigns of anti-Israel demonization, antisemitism and intimidation create a hostile environment throughout Canada,” the report declared. “A number of the leading groups are linked to Palestinian terror organizations and hide their sources of funding.”
Despite their small numbers, campus-operating organizations play a prominent role in the network, collaborating with many nonprofits, including those receiving funding from the Canadian government. These groups were “leading the campaigns, the attacks, the antisemitism on university campuses within Canada, and are closely interrelated,” according to Gerald Steinberg, president of NGO Monitor.
To top all this off, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau defended his assertion that he would support the arrest of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and ex-Israeli defence minister Yaov Gallant on an International Criminal Court warrant issued on November 23 should they come to Canada. The court stated that there were “reasonable grounds” to believe that the two intentionally targeted civilians in Gaza during Israel’s ongoing retaliatory war against Hamas. This is the first time that a democratic country, with a robust and independent judiciary, has had arrest warrants issued for its leadership. It is international lawfare in its most extreme form, and a reward for terrorism.
I could go on ad infinitum with other examples, but the bottom line is this: Everything I just described would have seemed unimaginable. Had you predicted it, you would have been laughed at or seen as a doomsayer.
But, as Bari Weiss knows, and so should the rest of us, we are in the midst of a worldwide eruption of antisemitism not seen since the Holocaust. And there’s no sign it’s going to get better.
Henry Srebrnik is a professor of political science at the University of Prince Edward Island.
Features
How beginners can profit from crypto
There are some people who have made money through investing in cryptocurrency. However, how can crypto help you make a profit if you are a beginner who doesn’t have a lot of technical expertise? Here is a list of some of the ways you can make money with crypto without having a lot of experience in the subject.
Get in early
One way you can, potentially, earn money from crypto without needing any deep technical knowledge is by finding opportunities to get in on the ground floor. If you study any upcoming crypto launches by, for instance, looking at the list of new crypto presales from Best Wallet, you might find a coin or token which you could make a profit from. Very often, a cryptocurrency’s presale price is lower than what it trades at when it first appears on the open market. So, if you are careful, do your own research, and have luck on your side, you could make a profit from a cryptocurrency presale.
Earn interest
If you want to make a profit in a slow but sure manner, then earning interest on a crypto savings account might just be for you. Much like a traditional, fiat, savings account, your money is lent out to borrowers or, in some cases, put into liquidity pools, and you earn interest, which can be as much as 10 per cent. Most major exchanges will let you do this, and they are often pretty user-friendly, too, so it won’t require a great deal of crypto expertise. If you do put your money into a savings account, make sure you research the platform and start with a small amount, the sort of amount of crypto you could afford to lose. It also helps if you diversify somewhat and use different platforms to avoid the risk of losses.
Earn as you learn
While the debate between centralized and decentralized exchanges isn’t going to go away at any point soon, something that can work in favor of centralized exchanges is how they can give you free crypto in the form of learn-to-earn programs. These involve surveys and quizzes about particular cryptocurrencies, which reward players with some of the subject cryptos once they have completed them. Although the rewards are not exactly massive – usually a few dollars’ worth of the said crypto – they are real. What is, perhaps, even more useful is that the quizzes are educational, so you won’t just gain crypto from doing them, you will also learn more about the whole cryptosphere.
Keep loyal
If you’ve been shopping at any point this century, the chances are that you will be familiar with the concept of loyalty cards. These give you rewards for doing your shopping, or eating and drinking, at a specific chain or store. And what’s true of traditional retail is becoming ever more commonplace with cryptocurrency. Whether it’s with crypto debit cards, which give users rewards in the form of crypto, shopping platforms such as StormX or Lolli offering points, or travel sites like Travala giving customers crypto cashback, there are plenty of ways in which you can get crypto just by getting things you would normally get. And, better yet, they usually just need you to sign up and link your card to your account, so there’s no mining or staking or anything like that. As ever, though, make sure that you read the small print and check that you comply with any tax requirements for any coins or tokens earned via a crypto loyalty program.
Hold steady
Crypto investors who make money know when to get into a market and come out of it. However, one thing that can work in your favor is the simple act of buying and holding crypto. Now, this isn’t foolproof. Firstly, because nothing is foolproof and, secondly, because prices can go down as well as up. That said, there is a theory that, ultimately, this is the best way to make money with crypto, because it can involve a long-term strategy. You will, however, need to make sure that you do your own research, remember that prices can go down as well as up, and never invest more than you can afford to lose. It also helps to be patient, because you might not see a profit you want to take for quite some time. So just buying and holding can help you turn a crypto profit without having to study the technical intricacies of cryptocurrency.
Features
Team Spirit: Jewish College Sports Programs Making Headlines
For many educational institutions, sports are no longer just an optional activity: they have become an important part of the educational process. They build not only physical endurance, but also social skills, values and a sense of belonging to the Jewish community, as is often written on the website jewishsportsreview.com. Let’s take a look at the place of sports in Jewish colleges.
Features of Sports Programmes
Jewish educational institutions have always placed a special emphasis on the harmonious development of the individual. However, in the past, sports activities often took a back seat to academic subjects and religious education. Today, the situation has changed: more and more colleges are realising that sports are not just physical activity, but a tool for character building.
Sports in Jewish colleges serve several key functions:
- Social integration: joint training and competitions bring together students from different departments and courses.
- Strengthening values through fair play, respect for opponents, the ability to lose gracefully and win without arrogance are fully consistent with the ethical principles accepted in Jewish culture.
- Leadership development: team captains and sports event organisers gain experience in team management and decision-making under pressure.
Participation in sports clubs helps maintain a balance between mental and physical development, which is especially important for students who often have a heavy academic workload.
Sports Programme and Discipline Opportunities
Sports programmes at Jewish colleges are diverse and tailored to the interests of students, as well as the infrastructure of the educational institutions. In addition to traditional sports such as basketball, football and volleyball, the schedule may include baseball, tennis, table tennis and even sports related to historical or cultural traditions.
Interestingly, some colleges take Jewish holidays and Shabbat into account when drawing up their sports calendars so that training sessions and competitions do not clash with religious obligations. Students can combine sporting achievements with preserving their cultural identity.
Participation in intercollegiate tournaments is becoming an important element of sports programmes. This is not only a test of skill, but also an opportunity to represent one’s college at the regional or national level, creating a positive image for the educational institution. In such tournaments, the emphasis is often not only on winning, but also on the ability to behave in the spirit of fair play, which creates a special atmosphere of friendship and mutual respect between teams.
Impact on Student Life and Career
Sport in Jewish colleges plays a significant role in shaping the student experience. It helps students develop skills that are in demand not only in sport but also in any area of life: the ability to work in a team, make quick decisions and take responsibility for results.
Many graduates who participated in sports programmes note that this experience proved useful in building their careers. For example:
- Team leaders subsequently demonstrate high managerial competence at work.
- Players who are used to constant training and discipline adapt more easily to stress and deadlines.
- Participants in intercollegiate games gain public speaking and networking skills that help in business negotiations.
In addition to career advantages, sport improves health and reduces stress levels, which is especially important for students who are balancing their studies with community projects and religious obligations. The atmosphere of support and mutual assistance created by sports teams helps many students adapt to college life more easily, especially if they have come from another city or country.
Joining a sports team or regular training can become an important part of student life. Those considering this option should take several factors into account:
- Assess your goals: do you want to play sports professionally or just to stay in shape and socialise? This will help you choose the right level of commitment.
- Check your schedule to make sure that training does not conflict with your studies or religious obligations.
- Take advantage of college resources: many institutions offer free gyms, coaching, and access to sports clubs.
It is equally important to remember that sport is not just about winning. It teaches patience, respect for others and a willingness to work hard. At Jewish colleges, sports programmes are designed to combine these values with cultural and spiritual elements, making them unique.
Sports programmes at Jewish colleges become a space where traditional values are organically intertwined with modern approaches to education and leisure. For many students, participating in college sports is just as important as academic success. After all, team spirit, the ability to work together and support each other are qualities that stay with a person for life.
Features
The Jewish Federation isn’t evolving on Israel. So it’s losing young Jews like me
By Lahav ZakenAugust 8, 2025
This story was originally published in the Forward. Click here to get the Forward’s free email newsletters delivered to your inbox.
I’m a Jewish Israeli American teenager and North Carolina resident, and I was delighted to see that the North Carolina Democratic party recently approved new platform resolutions that called for an arms embargo against Israel, a ceasefire, and the release of the hostages. Very few people and organizations have managed to articulate my views of both Oct. 7 and the subsequent genocide as well as my state party’s resolutions did. Unfortunately, it seems that my perspective is not very welcome at my local Jewish Federation.
I was particularly gratified by how balanced the resolutions were. They directly condemned the deliberate killing of innocent civilians by both parties and called for the end of the war. The resolutions also condemned antisemitism and Islamophobia, condemned Hamas and the Oct. 7 terrorist attack and decried both Hamas and Israel’s human rights violations. They advocated for basic human rights, dignity and peace for all Israelis and Palestinians.
Yet somehow, this language advocating for peace was objectionable to the Jewish Federation. The CEOs of the Jewish Federations of Raleigh, Durham, Charlotte and Greensboro released a statement attacking the resolutions. Their biggest objection was to the resolutions’ use of the terms “apartheid” and “ethnic cleansing,” which they specifically singled out as “radical and inflammatory.” They argued that the resolutions ignored Oct. 7 and undermined Israel’s right to self-defense. They even went so far as to accuse the Democratic Party of devaluing the “safety, identity, and lived experiences” of Jewish Americans.
I strongly disagree with the Jewish Federations and believe the statement they released was deeply harmful and inaccurate. While the federations may still be a hub of Jewish institutional power and influence, their perspectives on Israel and Gaza and continuing unconditional support of Israel’s actions do not represent many American Jews.
This statement is not an isolated incident, but an example of the ongoing silencing of the perspectives of an increasing number of American Jews by Jewish Federations across the country and Jewish institutions and youth groups more broadly.
I am just about as Jewish as you can get. I was born in Israel and lived in Jerusalem until I was 4, when my family moved to Greensboro, North Carolina. I did not visit Israel for most of my childhood, but I still felt an extremely strong connection to my home country. Growing up, I ate Israeli food, listened to Israeli music and watched Israeli shows. I attended Jewish day school, I volunteer with my local synagogue and know most Jewish services by heart. In 2023, I traveled back to Israel on a school trip led by the Jewish National Fund. I genuinely loved getting to see my home city and country for the first time that I could vividly remember.
However, my connection to my country of birth has almost completely eroded following almost two years of non-stop war and aggression in Gaza. I am enraged and heartbroken that Jewish Institutions will not recognize or acknowledge that pain.
Like most Jews and Israelis, my gut reaction after Oct. 7 was to stand strong with Israel. I was horrified by the atrocities Hamas committed that day. I wanted to wave the flag of my birth country more strongly, to support Israel’s right to defend its civilians and demand the hostages be freed.
However, after months of seeing satellite images of the complete devastation of Gaza and reading testimonials from doctors and journalists describing the humanitarian crisis, my perspective has shifted. I couldn’t help changing my mind when I saw hostage families being beaten by police in the streets of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem for calling for a ceasefire, or when I read statements from Israeli leaders making it clear that their goals were to destroy the entire population of Gaza. I do not hold Israel to a different standard than any other country, no matter my love and connection to it. It is precisely my Jewish values that have pushed me to speak out so strongly against Israel’s unjustifiable actions in Gaza.
I believe two wrongs do not make a right. What Hamas did was immoral. And the genocidal war of aggression that Israel has waged on the people of Gaza is also immoral. I am horrified and ashamed to see tens of thousands of innocent Palestinians killed, including the deliberate targeting of aid seekers at distribution sites. If I, as an Israeli-born teenager, can acknowledge the atrocities committed by Israel and that multiple things can be true at the same time, why can’t Jewish institutions?
For those reasons, along with the sheer brutality and immorality of the war, more and more American Jews oppose Israel’s government and their war on the people of Gaza. Unfortunately, those who dare to express opposition are being isolated and alienated from their Federations, synagogues and youth groups. All of these institutions explicitly and implicitly manufacture total support for the Israeli government and its actions.
The North Carolina Federations’ statement not only blatantly misrepresents the state Democratic party’s resolutions by falsely implying that they are apologists for Hamas, but also misleadingly implies they speak for all or most Jewish North Carolinians. A November 2024 J Street poll of Jewish Americans found 61% support an arms embargo against Israel. As of June 2024, according to a poll conducted by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, 30% of Jewish Americans believe that Israel is committing genocide, a number that has undoubtedly risen since then.
The Federation leaders are completely right to be concerned about the extreme rise in antisemitism since Oct. 7. I have had multiple personal run-ins with antisemitism since Oct. 7. Someone close to me experienced identity-based discrimination in a local progressive organization we are both a part of because they are Israeli-American and worked as a journalist in Israel. I have repeatedly been subjected to antisemitic comments online, and was once told that I should join the Israel Defense Force after I condemned the killing of innocent civilians on Oct. 7, implying that being Israeli and opposing the killing of innocent Israeli civilians meant that I somehow enjoyed killing Palestinian civilians.
Many Jews in America have had similar experiences, and I have no doubt that Jewish Federation and Jewish institutional leaders care deeply about fighting antisemitism and keeping their Jewish communities safe. However, statements like the North Carolina Federation heads made do not keep us safe.
When a local Jewish Federation, synagogue or youth movement chapter releases statements claiming that they stand fully with Israel in the conflict, they are isolating and ignoring those of us who offer critiques of Israel’s actions and policies. If these actions continue, millions of American Jews across the country will be pushed out of Jewish institutions, excluded from Jewish spaces and have their Jewishness questioned over their stance against Israel’s actions in Gaza. This is, unfortunately, already happening.
The reality is that in 2025, most American Jews do not stand unconditionally with Israel anymore. If Jewish federations and other institutions want to be the inclusive spaces for all Jews that they claim to be, then they must adapt to this reality.
If groups such as the Jewish Federations cannot reflect American Jewish opinion in 2025 or acknowledge the isolation from Israel that more and more American Jews feel, then millions of Jewish Americans with perspectives such as mine will be erased from the institutions designed to make us feel most at home.
Lahav Zaken is a junior at New Garden Friends School and a local progressive organizer in Greensboro, North Carolina.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Forward. Discover more perspectives in Opinion. To contact Opinion authors, email opinion@forward.com.
This story was originally published on the Forward.