Yom Kippur, interrupted

One of the limited joys of Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement) is the ability to temporarily disconnect from the outside world and engage in deep reflection. The goal of the holiest day on the Jewish calendar is to get yourself sealed into the Book of Life for the coming year. Part of the service focuses on prayers known as short and long Confessions. The shorter one catalogs a litany of sins we’ve committed such as abuse, betrayal, cruelty, destruction, rebellion, theft and transgression. The longer one begins each sentence “We have sinned against You…” Together, they enable Jews to beg for forgiveness and atonement, which speaks to the holiday greeting, Gmar chatima tova or “Have a good final sealing.”

And yet, the desire to disconnect from the outside world proves impossible even on Yom Kippur.

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The recent shooting outside the Sons of Jacob synagogue in Belleville, Ont., on the evening of Yom Kippur serves as a horrible reminder of our inextricable connection. According to conservative and unelected Jewish groups that dominate discourse and claim to speak on behalf of all Jews, the shooting “must be a wake-up call for Canada.”

“This is the predictable violence that ensues when hateful language and inciting conduct are normalized,” B’nai Brith said in a statement Monday. The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) struck a similar tone in its condemnation. “For three years, our community has warned that escalating demonization of Israel and conspiracy theories can have consequences here at home.”

Belleville Police Services Constable Jeff Smith is in stable but critical condition in hospital after being shot. Ontario’s police watchdog said the alleged shooter was 29-year-old Sean Ward, a former member of the Canadian Armed Forces. Ward is now dead after suffering from a life-threatening critical condition. Based on reports, he was a conspiracy theorist who blamed Jews for COVID-19. And many Canadian Jews, who were already worried about increased antisemitism before the shooting, now have more evidence to confirm their worst fears.

However, it’s important to note that Canada, despite Jewish institutional perceptions, is not the most antisemitic country in the West as alleged by a debunked Israeli ministry report in 2024.

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Canadians, from Prime Minister Mark Carney on down, have broadly condemned the Belleville shooting with a universal message: “Jewish people must be able to worship safely. To live free and open Jewish lives,” Carney said. Bay of Quinte Pride, an advocacy organization for LGBTQ2S+ in the area, posted that “Jewish people deserve to gather, worship, and live safely in our community. A place of worship should always be a place of peace, a place of connection, and a place of belonging, but never a place of fear.”

This support is confirmed by survey results from Robert Brym and Rhonda Lenton’s 2026 Jewish Barometer from Canadian Jewish Studies. They found that 82 percent of people hold positive attitudes about Jews. This is supported by anecdotal experience. When I told non-Jewish colleagues that I was observing Yom Kippur, two of them wished me a Gmar chatima tovah.

I attended High Holiday services in Toronto this month for the first time in more than a decade because I finally found non-Zionist and anti-Zionist prayer groups. It’s not enough to wish for moral and inclusive Jewish institutions; those that exist deserve support. I attended relatively small gatherings, probably 150 people or less, in public spaces that attracted no attention. We were just Jews practising Judaism.

Despite their broad support for Jewish people, Canadians increasingly hold unfavourable attitudes towards Israel. This tracks with surveys conducted by Pew Research in June and Leger in April, both of which found that a majority of Canadians viewed Israel unfavourably because of the genocide in Gaza and settler terrorism in the West Bank. Yet many Jews find these factual terms to be objectionable and antisemitic because any criticism of Israel is perceived to be an attack on their Jewish identity. It’s an insoluble loop: the worse Israel acts, the sharper the criticism becomes, which is perceived to be antisemitic.

Institutions such as B’nai Brith and CIJA encourage this behaviour out of deference to their idolatry of Israel — which is a sin in Judaism, as it puts it above evidence-based criticism. Rejecting Judaism’s emphasis on constructive disagreements in search of truth, they expend excess amounts of time policing Israel-Palestine discourse for perceived antisemitism when they should be fighting the real haters of Jews. To do that, Brym and Lenton point out, the institutions need to build bridges across different communities to “moderate opposition and build support.”

Accomplishing that would require an end to worshipping Israel like an idol and adopting a more universal approach. It’s highly unlikely. But the broad condemnation of the Sons of Jacob shooting is, if anything, a positive sign because it shows a widespread belief that Jews, like anyone else, must be able to attend services safely wherever they live in Canada.

We can get there by recognizing that two truths can simultaneously coexist. The first is that antisemitism has risen in Canada as people can wrongly hold Jews accountable for Israel’s crimes or engage in harmful stereotypes out of fear or ignorance. The second is that Israel, despite being deeply meaningful to many Jews, should be held accountable for its crimes in Gaza and the West Bank.

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Blake Lambert is a college professor, university instructor and co-author of the More Life Substack.