Anti-Semitism in Toronto.

Toronto--The Toronto media have been covering the recent vandalizations of a number of Jewish cemetery monuments and Jewish homes defaced with anti-Semitic slogans. That the vandalism occurred is not in doubt. But the reasons behind such a "river of poison that runs beneath civilization" (Robert Fulford, Nat. Post, Mar. 27, 2004) are not so clear.

Fulford is not surprised by the revival of anti-semitism, but points out that, from a historical perspective, it pales in comparison with government, private sector and "big name" Jew-hatred that abounded 80 years ago. His article was entitled, "Anti-Semitism can't be explained or cured."

Michael Valpy of the Globe and Mail (March 27), on the other hand, seemed to know much more. First he questioned a recent Toronto police report that hate crimes are at a record low. Valpy then suggested that recent news stories on Mel Gibson and his The Passion of the Christ, were the source of the trouble. These supposedly had inflamed the "centuries-old Christian demonization of Jews as Jesus-killers." He quoted a Toronto police spokesman accordingly.

Christie Blatchford, also of the Globe, preferred fact to fiction. In her column entitled "How multiculturalism breeds hate" (Globe, March 27), she points out that much of the current vandalization of Jewish sites has a "juvenile and moronic flavour to it." She reported, for example, that a Catholic school was also defaced with anti-Semitic graffiti, which, she said, makes one wonder about the intellectual ability of the perpetrators.

The only person arrested before March 30, she noted, was a 46-year-old Iranian-born industrial designer who was nabbed by Toronto police in the act of spray-painting property with anti-Semitic graffiti. So it was not The Passion of the Christ after all.