Kristallnacht in Slow Motion

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On the night of November 9, 1938, and into the next morning a violent, state-sponsored wave of anti-Jewish pogroms that took place across Nazi Germany, annexed Austria, and the Sudetenland. We now refer to it as Kristallnacht or the "Night of Broken Glass."

The pretext was the assassination of German diplomat Ernst vom Rath in Paris by Herschel Grynszpan, a 17-year-old Polish Jew. The Nazis used the assassination as an excuse to launch the coordinated attacks.

Over 1,400 synagogues were desecrated or burned. Approximately 7,500 Jewish-owned businesses were looted and demolished, and countless Jewish homes, hospitals, and schools were vandalized. Around 30,000 Jewish men were arrested and sent to concentration camps like Dachau, Buchenwald, and Sachsenhausen. This was the first time the Nazi regime imprisoned Jews on such a massive scale solely because of their identity.

Officially, 91 deaths were reported during the riots, but modern historians estimate the true death toll was much higher, including hundreds who died from injuries or suicide in the following days.

It’s 2026, and we are witnessing another Kristallnacht but at a much slower speed. Around the world, Jewish communities are under attack. If you are a Jew in London or Toronto, if have to be asking yourself, “What’s next?”

On April 30, members of the Toronto Jewish community were shot by a replica firearm in a heavily Jewish neighbourhood, in what the Toronto Police Service is investigating as a hate crime. The weapon suspected in the assault was described by police as an Orbeez-type gun, a gel blaster type of replica firearm often filled with water beads and used for recreational purposes.

The day after the gel blaster shooting incident, York Regional Police released photos of the suspected shooter in the March 6 and 7 shootings of the Beth Avraham Yoseph and Shaarei Shomayim synagogues in Vaughan and Toronto, two of the three synagogue shootings in Toronto that month. Those incidents, along with the March 12 shooting at the U.S. consulate in Toronto, prompted the Police Services to deploy a special, highly visible anti-terrorism squad.

The gel blaster shooting occurred a few days after a man attempted to force his way into the Sephardic Kehila Centre in Vaughan (just outside Toronto) and assaulted a victim prior to fleeing the scene. That incident is also being investigated as a hate crime.

The suspect first attempted to make his way into the building. He was questioned by the synagogue’s security team and turned away due to his suspicious behaviour. The suspect left the building but then crossed paths with a member of the synagogue who was walking to services with his son. The suspect punched the synagogue member in the face.

A day after that, a Judaica shop in Toronto had its window smashed. Aleph Bet Judaica has been vandalized before, however the owner said those incidents were before the Hamas attacks in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

On April 29, a knife-wielding assailant with a history of extremism, mental illness and violence, attacked two visibly Jewish men in London’s Golders Green, one of the U.K.’s most Jewish-concentrated neighbourhoods. The victims were treated in hospital for serious stab wounds.

It comes after an arson attempt in London last month, which police are treating as an antisemitic hate crime, an attack on the Jewish ambulance service, an attempted firebombing at a London synagogue, and the deaths of two Jewish men at a Manchester synagogue in October last year.

Fifteen people were killed in December when two gunmen opened fire during a Hanukkah celebration at Bondi Beach in Australia. A father and son, Sajid and Naveed Akram, are accused of carrying out the attack using legally owned firearms, despite Australia’s strict gun laws. Authorities said the assault, which came after a wave of antisemitic incidents across the country, was inspired by the Islamic State group. Australia began public hearings into the Bondi Beach attack and rising antisemitism.

According to the report published by B'nai Brith Canada, 6,800 anti-Jewish incidents were documented in the country in 2025 – 2.5 times as many as in the year that preceded the October 7 attack.

There can be no ambiguity about the motive. These incidents are not occurring in only Canada, Britain, and Australia. Jews in Ireland, the USA, Germany, and other communities. Our synagogues, schools, and community centres are becoming armed fortresses. It’s been a long time since I could casually enter a foreign synagogue while travelling.

People are scared, scared to show who they are in their community, scared to go to synagogue and practice their religion, scared to go to university as a Jew, to send their children to school as a Jew, to tell their colleagues that they are Jewish.

Nobody should live like that, but Jews do.

Let’s be clear, hate is being normalized. I see it from just “regular” people online. People I never considered to be radical. The Democratic Party in the US is adopting anti-Jewish positions. It’s an issue that is not being addressed by our leaders.

So often, I see antisemitism being called out - with qualification. How hard is that to do? Instead, after an antisemitic incident, the community hears the message that the government is opposed to antisemitism or and all other forms of hate including Islamophobia.

Islamophobia and all forms of hate do matter, but given the exceptional levels of antisemitism – Jews face religiously motivated hate crimes at levels that far exceed any other religion. It’s time to be clear and call out antisemitism without qualifiers.

Former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau always referred to antisemitism and Islamophobia together. Toronto, Mayor Olivia Chow has been no different. But if there is a mosque is targeted, you will never hear a politician reference antisemitism alongside Islamophobia.

Unlike Nazi Germany, where Kristallnacht was a planned event by the government to persecute Jewish communities, we are witnessing the same impact on our community but in slow motion by governments unwilling to act decisively.

Now someone explain to me the Holocaust can’t happen again.