Canadian Jews to Florida-Now!

By Geoffrey Clarfield

Canada’s lame duck Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his coalition of far-left socialists (the NDP) and left leaning fellow Liberals, recently cut off arms supplies to the State of Israel while it was and still is fighting a war against implacable enemies, who have killed and taken Israeli hostages and who are reported to be torturing them on a daily basis.

This unprecedented act of anti-Semitic anti-Zionism by the Government of Canada has driven the nail in the coffin of anyone who may still naively feel that Canada and Israel may be allies in the fight against terrorism and the international Jihad, which viscerally affects Canadian Jews as well as non-Jewish Canadians in growing, menacing ways.

This Jihad is first and foremost dedicated to the destruction of Israel and the enslavement of its people and then to the domination of Western countries through religiously motivated immigration (legal and illegal), that results in no go zones, sporadic terrorist attacks emanating from these zones, and self-righteous accusations of “Islamophobia” against the tolerant and in the Canadian case, still largely Anglo Canadian hosts when these “New Canadians’’ disruptive, and usually outrageous anti-Semitic behavior is challenged or even criticized.

This coordinated, multilayered Jihadi assault on Western Civilization has included a successful campaign to harness the largely politically and financially subsidized Canadian media (such as the national CBC) to scapegoat Israel, portraying it as a genocidal, white, apartheid state nobly opposed by a so called “resistance,” which now includes a seven front war by state and non-state terrorist groups, all orchestrated by the tyrannical theocratic government of Iran and cheered on by one of  Canada’s so called NATO allies, Turkey.

The Jewish communities of Toronto and Montreal have endured an explosive rise in arson attempts and shootings at schools and synagogues, as well as violent attacks on person and property, including organized and threatening demonstrations directed at Jewish neighborhoods where the police mostly stand down and refuse to disperse these aggressive and threatening violators of the “King’s peace.”

The largely government subsidized colleges and universities of Canada have endured illegal “Gaza encampments,” many of which took months to close due to the Stockholm syndrome of contemporary university administrators, so many of whom are influenced by the majoritarian cultural Marxists among the nation’s so called academic and media elites.

Do not doubt for a moment that most of today’s academic and media elites in Canada are vocal supporters of Israel’s enemies and love to blame the Jewish people for most of the world’s ills. If you want a daily report, go to the Honest Reporting link here to read about the latest outrages. This is a growing trend. The sociologist in me does not see any of these trends dying out during the next 20 years. The dye has been cast.

My family came to Canada more than a century ago on both sides. My late father was a WWII veteran. My family and numerous relatives have worked hard, paid their taxes, and contributed to the state. There are many articles and books about the contribution of Canadian Jews to the betterment of Canadian society during the last 150 years and it is a proud record.

Today some of the major charitable donors to the hospitals and universities of this country still come from members of  the Jewish community. Despite the anti-Israel DEI that permeates these same Canadian institutions, very few of these donors have yet to publicly  withdraw their funding in protest.

They should, because when history is denied, in this case Canadian Jewish history, there is no political will to recognize past and ongoing contributions from a once poor and persecuted religious minority that has done well for themselves, despite the “structural inequality” which defined our lives here until two decades after WWII (when there were still “quotas” on Jewish students entering Canadian institutes of higher learning).

One may sadly conclude that it is possible that the “shelf life” of a free and freedom loving, patriotic religious minority, that is to say Canadian Jewish citizens, may be coming to an end in Canada. I hope not.

The strongest evidence of a sea change in government behaviour towards Canadian Jews and Israel, can be found in a recent report from Israel based NGO Monitor that has mapped out all the “Palestine” activist groups in  Canada, so many funded by the Federal government, who then “listens” to these fabricated “civil society” groups to justify its anti-Israel foreign policy. This trend goes unopposed.

The NGO Network Driving Antisemitism in Canada

Today, if you are Jewish, it is no longer safe to walk the streets of Montreal and Toronto and  so many other cities and towns in this country, if there is any physical evidence that you are Jewish, such as wearing a star of David around your neck or sporting a religious head covering, the kippa or yarmulka. You are at risk of attack if you do.

Likewise, Jewish students in high schools, colleges and institutions of higher learning are being harassed by other students and their professors. They are frightened to speak out and many must now hide any evidence that they are Jewish. This has been well documented. The small Canadian independent press is full of these kinds of stories and every Jewish family in the country is discussing them.

At the municipal, provincial and of course at the federal level, there is no political will to speak out and act in such a way that would reassure Jewish Canadians that they have the same rights as all other citizens, and when asymmetrically targeted by imported foreign as well as local actors, deserve a level of protection commensurate with the ongoing and I daresay growing existential threat to the security of Canadian Jews.

Canadian Jews  have been abandoned by state institutions. The courts have become an activist Woke joke where your ethnicity is often announced during jury selection if you are about to face trial. I have witnessed this with my own eyes and ears! So much for being judged as an individual with equal rights in the state.

The situation is fast becoming like that of the Jews of France who live and work in daily fear of attack by anti-Israel Muslim and leftist activists, who do not distinguish between Jews and Israelis, epitomized in their vicious slogan, “Globalize the Intifada.”

For those who want a more in depth and detailed report on this latest explosion of Canadian Jew hatred one should read Canadian journalist Terry Glavin’s sobering  description in the link below.

The Explosion of Jew-Hate in Trudeau’s Canada

But before doing so, know that anti-Israel sentiments have been mainstreamed into the teaching system by the Ontario “scholars” from the University of Toronto based Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, OISE, whose professors, and trainees purvey a  radical, woke “intersectionality” and that now and then has fallen into Holocaust denial (Go on the internet and read about the intersectional “From Turtle Bay to Palestine” movement to get a taste).

I genuinely believe that the younger generation of Canadians have been indoctrinated by the far left and yet, they think that they themselves thought up their own indoctrination. This is a great step backward towards the kind of anti-Semitism that was mainstream before WWII in Canada, when it was legal to prevent Jewish Canadians from buying houses or cottages in various places because of their faith. Today Canadian anti-Semitic anti Zionism has simply put on the new costume of identity politics.

The left leaning OISE types are the people who design the curriculum for the province of Ontario’s primary and secondary schools and train the teachers who are now vocal advocates of “intersectional” LGBTQ indoctrination (which includes an annual obligatory “Pride” month in public schools and public libraries) and who increasingly and aggressively  support the surgical gender bending of underage minors.

Ontario, if not all of Canada, is now saddled with a younger generation of anti-capitalist, poorly educated, ahistorical, anti-Zionist indoctrinated young men and women aged 15- 50, who will soon, and in many respects, are already running the country. Many of them also believe that Canada is itself a sin and that it should be returned to its Indigenous first nations.

For those who want to lead a full Jewish life 100% of the time Israel is still  the best place to go. Despite the ongoing war, more than 30,000 Jews have moved to Israel from the Diaspora last year.

Israel is an outdoor culture, family oriented, worldly, merit based and dedicated to its children. It is the startup nation par excellence and welcomes immigrants. Israelis are unapologetically patriotic. However, if you cannot move your young family to Israel, for Canadian Jews, Florida  comes a close second.

There is a historical precedent here. In 1976 when the Parti Quebecois, a French Canadian movement that argued for the independence of Quebec as a sovereign nation was elected as the majority in the Quebec legislature up to 40,000 Montreal Jews left the province ( alongside many thousands of English speaking non Jewish Quebeckers, who have seen their rights as a community diminish  by the day).

I have met many of them. They rightly feared that a far left Quebec nationalist party would not care about protecting its Jewish minority and would side with Israel’s most vicious enemies. They were not wrong.

And so, I would like to propose that young Jewish Canadian couples, with or without children and  who cannot move to Israel for family and other reasons, consider relocating to Florida for both “secular” and “religious” reasons. Here are just some of them.

Canada is a beautiful country for six months a year. Then winter comes. Florida has no winter. It is a semi tropical country with countless lakes, majestic rivers, and endless beaches. Life is lived outdoors, and children grow up here playing outdoors. Older people suffer less during the winters here and younger folks, like their elders, simply put on a sweater if they get cold.

The sun almost always shines here. The climate is conducive to family and community-oriented activities and sport rules. Florida is good for your health (and here you can choose your doctor-you are not a victim of a top-down, rationed, socialized medical system with a eugenic vestige-let us not forget the “inessential” patients whose ailments would not be treated by the unimodal Canadian  medical establishment during Covid lockdowns). Do also bear in mind that more than 15,000 Canadians died before they could receive surgery or diagnostic scans over the past year (2024). The CBC is not keen on advertising such facts.

Florida resisted the Covid mandates and lock downs recommended by the mad doctor Fauci and his side kicks at the CDC, and most horribly at the WHO (which should have been closed yesterday). This week one Florida city decided to take the fluoride out of its drinking water as there is no evidence of a health advantage, despite decades of this practice.

During the height of the Covid pandemic no one in Florida was coerced to be vaccinated. Those most at risk chose whether they should or should not try this experimental treatment, which was neither safe nor effective as promised by the Federal authorities at the CDC (Fauci once again).

Unlike in Canada no one in the municipal or state governments of Florida, its firefighters, police, or teachers, were intimidated or fired because they refused the vaccine. Nor were truck drivers or taxi drivers. And finally, there were no lockdowns here. If you wanted to wear a mask inside buildings that was your prerogative.

Be aware that the allies of Big Pharma will surely push for more lockdowns in the future and do remember that Toronto’s lockdown was one of the most extreme in the world. Canada and Canadians continue to praise and idealize the UN despite the corruption and catastrophes of the WHO and other useless and costly UN institutions like UNESCO. This will not change anytime soon.

I have written about this perverse love affair in the National Post. Here is the link for those interested.

https://nationalpost.com/opinion/geoffrey-clarfield-how-the-un-is-trying-to-sneak-its-uncanadian-values-into-canadian-schools

Florida is a Red state. This means that its elected leaders and the civil service are dedicated to upholding the US Constitution, an enlightened document suffused with Judeo Christian values.

Florida governor Ron DeSantis is one of the most outspoken US politicians in his defense of the Republic and its embattled democratic ally in the middle east, the State of Israel. He has insisted that all state institutions and authorities ensure that Florida’s Jews are safe, and that they have the same guaranteed constitutional rights as all its other citizens. DEI is discouraged here as it has a clear anti-Semitic sub text. Florida is where DEI comes to “DIE.”

Florida is frontier like. Floridians come from all over North America and the world. In the northeast of the USA one of the first questions people ask of each other ism “What school did you go to?” Meaning, “Are you Ivy League or not?” This means nothing in Florida.

In Florida you are judged by who you are now and what you can do now. It is a friendly, transactional place that honors both community and individuality. Florida is also famous for its innovative eccentrics and so New England style conformity is not necessarily the order of the day here.

There are Jewish Federations and many synagogues in all the major cities. Chabad is ubiquitous and seems to have a branch everywhere. There are Yeshivas and Jewish schools in the major cities and, if you live in a good neighborhood no doubt you will find a more than adequate government primary or high school for your children.

Florida is also chock a block full of colleges and universities that train people at the highest level of their professions. In Florida a doctor is a doctor, an engineer is an engineer, not a DEI appointee.

You can live a full Jewish life in Florida if you choose, and Governor DeSantis has announced that any Jewish student persecuted in America’s northern or coastal woke colleges is welcome here.

Florida real estate is reasonably priced, and the cost of living here is still less than in the northeast, but that may change as Florida absorbs more wealth and more people. Farmer’s markets are ubiquitous here and there is a natural and alternative medical system that you can access along with more conventional diagnosis or treatment. Unlike Ontario where the government is trying to overregulate and restrict access to dietary supplements, these are all still available in the State of Florida.

Floridians cherish the first amendment. Free speech is protected here, and you cannot be persecuted by a weaponized judicial system for expressing a reasoned opinion online or in print. “Disinformation” is widely recognized as a Californian “non-word” by most Floridians.

Finally, people are happy to be here. Most Floridians come from somewhere else and so this is their “chosen land” whether they are Jewish or not. Floridians are optimistic about the future of their state and their own futures. You are judged by your merit here.

As one young conservative Floridian told me, “We want to be exemplary. We want to provide a model for what it means to be a family-oriented constitution supporting US state in the 21^st century. We do not want to just sit in the sun. We want other states to follow our example. We want to lead.”

I have met many young conservative Floridians who speak like this. It is the direct opposite of the woke garbage that comes out of the indoctrinated mouths of so many of today’s younger and entitled, Keffiyeh wearing Canadian college graduates, especially in Ontario and Quebec.

I am sure I can produce other reasons to move here. And so, if you are a young Canadian Jewish family with children in primary school,  high school or even college and cannot move to Israel, this is the place to raise your kids so, come on down!

Florida  is the last great American frontier. I have already bought a property here.

 

First published in the Times of Israel