Commentary
On January 27, 1945, the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp, whose gas chambers claimed the lives of more than a million people, most of them Jews, was liberated. Never again, it was assumed. But, following the 2001 United Nations’ “anti-racist” conference that made “Durban” a metonym for orgiastic Jew hatred, right-thinking national and institutional leaders around the world recognized the need for a collaborative response to antisemitism’s contemporary, virulent iteration, one that puts the Jewish state, rather than race or religion, in its crosshairs.
In 2005, Jan. 27 was designated International Holocaust Remembrance Day to ensure continuity of education on the Holocaust. Still, global antisemitism has continued to escalate. Even in pluralist Canada, where antisemitism was traditionally social and non-violent, the incidence of hate crimes is mounting….