Canadian Member of Parliament Anthony Housefather of the Liberal Party condemned on Wednesday an antisemitic flyer calling him a neo-Nazi and telling him to “get out of Canada.”
Housefather tweeted a photo of the flyer on X. The flyer, taped to a concrete lamppost in Montreal, shows a Nazi flag and an Israeli flag whose Star of David is replaced with a swastika.
Written on the flyer: “Housefather = Neo-Nazi,” “Get out of Canada” and “Zionism = terrorism.” Also written on it were the statements: “Housefather: We helped build this country,” and “We built the autobahn & much more.”
Housefather wrote in his post, “My family has been here since the 19th century and we have indeed helped build this country. I am not going anywhere. Sorry antisemites. You may not like what I have to say but I will keep saying it.”
Housefather told CBC News that he learned of the poster when community members sent him a photo. It wasn’t posted in his district but in a neighboring one.
The Montreal MP is a pro-Israel advocate within the Liberal Party and in March pushed for a House parliamentary committee to study antisemitism on and off university campuses, CBC News reported.
“The Jewish community in Canada is feeling frightened to a level that I have never seen,” he told the committee at the time.
In March, Housefather talked openly of leaving the Liberal Party after it supported a motion in support of Palestinian statehood. He decided in April to stay on after conversations with party leader and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Trudeau tweeted in support of Housefather: “Anthony, I’m angry that this happened to you. It’s antisemitic, and it’s disgusting. Jewish Canadians indeed helped build this country and will always have a home here. We stand with you, and the entire community, against this hate.”
Others tweeted their support, including Liberal MP Marco Mendicino.
“This isn’t 1938. It’s 2024. I don’t give a shit what party you’re in (or not), the condemnation of this antisemitic garbage should be universal and deafening!” Mendocino said on X.
Antisemitism has spiked in Canada since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack.
The number of antisemitic incidents more than doubled from 2022, leaping to 5,791 incidents from the previous record of 2,799 in 2021 (2022 saw a slight decrease to 2,769), B’nai Brith Canada reported in its annual audit released in early May.
“The 5,791 incidents of antisemitism in 2023 captured by B’nai Brith Canada represent the worst year ever recorded in the history of our Audit,” Richard Robertson, B’nai Brith Canada’s director of research and advocacy, wrote in the report’s introduction.
Most recently, a tombstone in a Jewish cemetery was defiled with stones placed in the shape of a swastika.
Jeremy Levi, the mayor of Hampstead (Québec), wrote, “Justin Trudeau, step aside and get out of the way so we can reclaim our country,” expressing dissatisfaction felt by some Canadian Jews that the prime minister hasn’t done enough to fight growing antisemitism.
Before that incident, on June 30 a vandal threw rocks through the windows of two synagogues in Toronto.
And on June 19, a Jewish-owned restaurant in Montreal’s Mile End neighborhood was struck by projectiles, believed to be fired from an airsoft gun.