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My family never really spoke about Remembrance Day when I was growing up, although we observed it and it held personal significance for us. Relatives on both sides of my family served in Canada’s armed forces, and one was killed in Normandy. I can’t remember any families in our community that weren’t staunchly loyal to this country. We viewed Canada as a truly safe place for Jewish families like ours.

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Mine was the generation after many institutional acts of discrimination, like who could own property at a beach or a Winnipeg suburb or who could attend the Faculty of Dentistry, were abolished.

Antisemitism — the hatred of Jews — was found mostly on the fringes of society among far-left and far-right extremist political academics and movements, and to some extent, among families harbouring old-country beliefs and grudges who kept their hate to quiet whispers and didn’t act on it. The number of high school scraps over being Jewish almost entirely evaporated from my father’s time to mine. Physical confrontations and threats involving the Jewish community were unheard of for decades.

But times have changed. And the approach of Winnipeg police leadership to it has changed.

Unfortunately, to many members of the Jewish community, the change resembles how Jews were treated in Germany after Kristallnacht — it’s our fault, we bring it on ourselves, can’t we stop causing problems?

The change of approach started in May of 2021 after police were overwhelmed by a large pro-Palestinian car rally staged in front of the Legislature, opposite a........

© Winnipeg Sun