A year ago, I had a vivid nightmare about apocalyptic war. As someone who normally dreams about things like discovering a cheese shop I hadn’t known existed, this startled me to say the least. I woke up and realized this was either some kind of unconscious communing with the Jewish people or that I had (I don’t think this was it, but cannot rule it out) glanced at my phone in the middle of the night, forgotten this, and fallen back asleep.

Nothing is the same since Oct. 7, 2023. Not globally, but globally is beyond my expertise, even if I have studied Hebrew and spent more time in Israel than some freshly-minted experts. This being The Canadian Jewish News, I am going local.

Immediately, my West Toronto neighbourhood of Roncesvalles Village was covered in flyers, some with paraglider imagery, supporting the freeing of Palestine by any means necessary. While I knew from non-flyer-based interactions with friends and acquaintances that the entire area was not hell-bent on the destruction of the Jewish state, the feeling I got upon leaving the house was that… how to even put it? That Jewish lives don’t matter, that Jews are a people who cannot be microaggressed or macroaggressed.

After the flyers, and the graffiti, so very much and still ongoing (shout-out to Mr./Ms./Mx. “Shame On Israel” graffiti artiste who apparently thinks whoever’s doing Israel’s military decision-making shops........

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