About the Jews

A Canadian WWI recruiting poster.

I read with surprise recently that Canada actually has the world's fourth largest Jewish population, after Israel, France, and the US.

Good for Canada.

But then, I think if Canada were smarter, the Jewish population of Canada would be far larger. I advocate for Canada an absolute “right of return”: automatically accept any Jew as an immigrant.

First, on humanitarian grounds. Jews are in principle in danger and at risk everywhere. They always have been, for thousands of years. They are the ultimate and archetypal refugees. Not excluding in Israel, where odds are, over the course of time and changing demographics, they will sooner or later be wiped out. As many of their neighbours openly advocate.

If there is one place on earth with the available space to offer the Jews a home, it is Canada. If there is one place on earth where they would be safe over the long term, it is Canada, bounded by seas on three sides, and with the Russian advantage of vast distances. Why impose on the Arabs, by taking some of their traditional land? If they do not want the Jews, very well. Their mistake. We should. Take them all; end the trouble in the Middle East.

For any sensible person must see that a Jewish presence is a net benefit wherever they are.

Ask Hitler's ghost. Ever wonder why it was the Americans who first detonated the atom bomb? What if it had been Germany? Imagine what that might have meant. But it was not going to be Germany, because Hitler had killed or forced into exile all the Jewish scientists who knew much of anything about the atom, beginning of course with Albert Einstein. And Julius Oppenheimer, whose parents had fled Germany. And Niels Bohr. They left for America, and did it there. Getting rid of Jews was suicidal for Nazi Germany. It amounts, in effect, to getting rid of the best minds in your country or culture. You are cutting off your head to spite your face.

Why, you might ask, then, does everyone hate the Jews?

Not hard to explain. It is right there in the Bible, almost at the start, in the story of Cain and Abel. The Jews are the shepherd brother. Others envy them because they are smarter and more successful. And so they want to murder them. We see the same tendency today in the general pogrom against “Anglos” or “straight white men.”

Yes, it is true, Jews are great at starting businesses, just as everyone says. Bronfmans, Aspers, Steinbergs, Mirvishes, Snidermans. Stronger economy, more jobs. All Canadians would be poorer had such families not settled in our midst. But there's more. Where would Canadian culture be either without Leonard Cohen, Irving Layton, Mordecai Richler, A.M. Klein, Wayne and Schuster, Sharon, Lois and Bram, Ed Mirvish, Frank Gehry, Moshe Safdie, Lorne Greene, William Shatner, David Cronenberg, Lorne Michaels, Robbie Robertson, Barbara Frum, Peter C. Newman, Barbara Amiel, and on and on? There'd be quite a hole if they had not been around, wouldn't there be?

All of this from a tiny minority within the country. One percent of the population. There are more Portuguese, Welsh, Spanish, or Norwegian in Canada.

Now imagine if we had twice or three times as many such creative and enterprising types?

Not welcoming Jews wherever they want to settle is its own punishment.