In a gentrifying West Toronto neighbourhood full of signs advocating for Black lives, transgender youth and the unhoused, the clerk’s refusal to hang up a sign of my own design was disappointing. But it was also not surprising.

You see, I wanted a typically hip video store called Vinegar Syndrome to formally denounce antisemitism. The staffer’s response spoke volumes: Jew hatred is not a real problem anymore.

I might have been inclined to agree on Oct. 6, 2023. But on the day after—and every agonizing day since then—I’ve felt differently. To one of the last surviving video rental clerks in town, we didn’t need to worry about Jew hatred, but perhaps we did need to worry about Jewish people themselves, whose attitudes about their ancestral homeland put them on the wrong side of history.

Roncesvalles Village is a quiet strip of Toronto, sitting just east of High Park. Traditionally a Catholic Polish area due to a large number of immigrants who settled here after the Second World War, it’s now filled with towering trees, beautifully manicured gardens, and loads of families with young children. It’s idyllic in many ways. I really loved living here—until things changed.

I can only speak first hand about my neighbourhood, but I’ve heard similar stories from similar areas ranging from Le Plateau in Montreal to Salt Spring Island, B.C. In these spaces, Jews must choose: abandon their progressive views or abandon core parts of their identity and culture. For spaces that claim inclusivity as their core value, a specific group of people who maintain a right to self-determination are excluded.

Despite contentious political stances being generally bad for business, this is apparently not a real concern in Roncesvalles. where nearly everyone seems white, progressive, and moneyed—even in these tough economic times,........

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