Dean Lavi

Executive Director of Jewish London working to strengthen Jewish community & fight antisemitism 🇮🇱🇨🇦

[WikiBias @WikiBias]

Meanwhile, on Wikipedia, the deletion of Jewish heritage and identity continues.

[Nicole Lampert @nicolelampert]

Excellent from @LordIanAustin on yet ANOTHER debate on the evils of Israel:

As he says: ‘Over the last few years, Parliament has discussed Israel more than any other issue, not just any international issue, more than any domestic issue: more than the economy, unemployment, crime, the NHS.
‘The public out there look at Parliament and think this is utterly mad, utterly, utterly mad.’

Lord Ian blames Parliament for helping fuel antisemitism adding:

‘Does Parliament not understand that singling out the world's only Jewish state, holding its standards not applied to anywhere else, falsely accusing Israel of committing these terrible crimes? ‘This is bound to drive hostility towards people who are identified with Israel, which is the vast majority of the Jewish community, and I have to say this is why I believe Parliament is playing a large role in driving the explosion of anti-Semitism that we've seen on the streets of Britain.’

[Dean Lavi @DeanLaviX]

@MarkJCarney recognising antisemitism is a problem matters, but it cannot be the endpoint. We don't need another diagnosis. We need action.

Jews shouldn't have to decide between childcare, and bollards. That's not normal and it shouldn't be accepted as normal.

[Dean Lavi @DeanLaviX]

https://t.co/J23gzNSpuN

[Dean Lavi @DeanLaviX]

https://t.co/J23gzNSpuN

[Dean Lavi @DeanLaviX]

@JesusTaint69 @KevinGo54401921 @rich_toronto Pray tell

[Dean Lavi @DeanLaviX]

@KevinGo54401921 @rich_toronto Everyone you don’t agree with is a “monster”, a “grifter” etc. Go where? Look where? You don’t know what I’m doing off of X. The police and community are doing their job. Again. What is your point with all the malice, where is it being projected and diverted from?

[Dean Lavi @DeanLaviX]

@KevinGo54401921 @rich_toronto In order,
No (I live in a different town two hours away but have family and friends in Toronto),
Yes (because there’s a missing child),
What point are you even trying to make?

[Dean Lavi @DeanLaviX]

@KevinGo54401921 @rich_toronto There are literally multiple videos of ripped down and torn posters of the missing child in toronto. Savagery is tearing down the poster of a missing 14 year old girl in toronto because she’s Jewish.

[Israel Now @neveragainlive1]

People are ripping down posters of the missing 14 year old Jewish girl Esti. This is a new level of Jew Hatred.

[ArchaeoHistories @histories_arch]

The revival of the Judean date palm is one of the most significant achievements in archaeobotany. The project began with the discovery of ancient seeds during excavations at King Herod’s palace on Masada and other sites in the Judean Desert.

In 2005, a 2,000-year-old seed nicknamed "Methuselah" was successfully germinated, marking the first time a plant from this era had been brought back to life.

These seeds remained viable for two millennia due to the intense heat and extreme aridity of the Dead Sea region, which acted as a natural preservation chamber.

Beyond the biological miracle, this project has allowed scientists to study the genetic makeup of a fruit that was world-renowned in antiquity for its size, sweetness, and medicinal qualities.

By germinating multiple seeds, researchers were able to grow both male and female trees, eventually leading to cross-pollination. In 2020, this resulted in the first harvest of ancient dates in over eight centuries.

DNA analysis shows that these trees were a sophisticated hybrid of Eastern and Western palm varieties, suggesting that ancient Judean farmers used highly advanced agricultural techniques to create their legendary crops.

One crucial detail missing is the specific cultural and economic impact these palms had on the ancient world; they were so vital to the regional identity that the Roman Empire featured the tree on "Judaea Capta" coinage to symbolize their conquest of the land. These dates were a luxury export across the Mediterranean, praised by writers like Pliny the Elder for their distinct honey-like flavor and ability to be stored for years without spoiling. The destruction of these groves during the Jewish-Roman wars and subsequent climate shifts led to their total disappearance by the 14th century, making their modern "resurrection" not just a botanical feat, but the recovery of a lost cultural icon that sustained entire economies in the ancient Levant.

#archaeohistories

[Dean Lavi @DeanLaviX]

@gilileoB כקנדי, המצב יותר גרוע ממה שאתם חושבים

[Jon Liedtke יוני שמואל לידקי @jonliedtke]

There is a specific brand of cowardice in watching a mob scream, “Go back to Europe” at Jewish residents while the Toronto Police stand by clutching clipboards and “notices.” We have seen this script before – a historical tragedy we’ve collectively sworn to “never forget,” yet one our current leaders seemingly refuse to stop. Since the immediate aftermath of the October 7 Hamas massacres, Canada has witnessed an unprecedented explosion of Jew-hatred that has transformed from heated rhetoric into firebombings and shootings at religious institutions and Jewish girls’ schools. This is no longer a fringe movement; it is a breakdown of the Canadian social contract.

The numbers tell a story of a nation in freefall. In 2023 alone, B’nai Brith Canada recorded a record-breaking 5,791 antisemitic incidents, a 109% increase from the previous year. Data for 2024 and 2025 suggests the fever has not broken. From the firebombing of a synagogue and community center in Montreal to three shootings at a Toronto Jewish girls school, the message is clear: Jews are not safe here. This is not mere “protest”; it is a systemic campaign of intimidation intended to make Jewish life in Canada untenable.

The escalation is increasingly real. Earlier this month, three Toronto synagogues – Beth Avraham Yoseph, Temple Emanu-El, and Shaarei Shomayim – were targeted by gunfire in a single week. Every weekend in the Bathurst neighbourhood – a predominantly Jewish neighbourhood often referred to as the “longest Jewish street in the Diaspora” – anti-Israel and anti-Jewish rallies curdle into targeted residential harassment. Mobs descend upon Jewish neighborhoods, not to debate policy, but to hunt for a reaction.

“Go back to Europe” isn’t a mere taunt or academic debate. It is a nativist slur designed to “other” a community, stripping them of their history and their fundamental right to exist in Canada. It is a verbal eviction notice served under the guise of activism. We know, with absolute certainty, that this would never be tolerated against any other minority group. If a mob descended on any other ethnic enclave to scream, “Go back to Africa” or “Go back to Asia,” the hammer of the law would have dropped by sundown on Shabbat.

In Toronto, the rules of civil society have shifted. Mayor Olivia Chow speaks of “balancing” Charter rights as if harassment is a protected hobby. The Toronto Police Chief leans on “Strategic De-escalation,” a hollow phrase that serves as a shield for inaction. The Criminal Code of Canada isn’t a suggestion; it’s a mandate. Between Causing a Disturbance and Intimidation, the police have every tool necessary to make an arrest the moment a resident is harassed on their own sidewalk.

Instead, we get the Public Order Unit and information pamphlets. We’ve actually had the stomach-turning sight of police officers handing out coffee and donuts to the harassers while residents are left to fend for themselves – something the Chief was forced to embarrassingly apologize for.

The result is clear: the mayor’s office is functionally vacant. After three synagogues were shot at, the leader of Canada’s largest city opted for a Polar Plunge photo-op instead of a Jewish community press conference. This is a total vacuum of character.

The rot is being institutionalized at the federal level. In a move signaling a total surrender of moral clarity, the government recently abolished the office of the Special Envoy on Preserving Holocaust Remembrance and Combatting Antisemitism. By folding this vital role into a generic “Advisory Council on Rights, Equality and Inclusion,” the federal government has effectively told Jewish Canadians that their safety is a secondary concern, best managed by a committee rather than a champion.

This happened despite the abrupt resignation of the previous envoy, Deborah Lyons, who reportedly left the post with a “heavy heart” over the impossibility of getting leaders to speak with clarity. For a brief moment, Jewish Canadians had a dedicated watchdog; now, we are buried under bureaucratic platitudes. As David Baddiel made clear, Jews Don’t Count. This is dismantling the smoke detector while the house is ablaze.

Contrast this with the rare flashes of actual leadership. While Toronto Council “studies” 20-metre bubble zones – a distance so small you can still spit slurs into a sanctuary and hit the Bimah -Vaughan Mayor Steven Del Duca passed a 100-metre “Safe Access” bylaw with $100,000 fines. He understands that the right to protest does not grant the right to terrorize people at prayer. Del Duca is practically begging the Prime Minister to meet the Jewish community and see the reality on the ground. It is 2026, and a Canadian Mayor must plead with the Prime Minister to acknowledge the plight of his own citizens and to meet with his Jews.

Even in Windsor where I live, Mayor Drew Dilkens has moved to protect the city through proactive measures and public safety investments. Windsor isn’t waiting for the fire to burn down the house before buying the extinguisher.

Too many elected officials are too busy counting votes to count the bullet holes in Jewish community centers and synagogues. They are so terrified of the ballot box that they’ve abandoned their duty. They treat the safety of Jewish children as a “complex issue” with “two sides,” when there is never a second side to a drive-by shooting at a school.

This is Canada today because we’ve allowed it to be. We’ve allowed mezuzahs to be mass ripped from doors, not once but twice, and firebombings to be met with a shrug. Our leaders tell us “this isn’t who we are,” but their silence proves otherwise.

To those shouting “Go back to Europe”: You couldn’t gas the Jews out of existence, and you won’t harass them out of Canada. We aren’t going anywhere. This is our home, and we have outlasted empires far more formidable than a mob with a megaphone and comment section.

But to our political leaders: Neutrality is a choice, and it has consequences in blood. Jew-hate doesn’t vanish because you issued a “Notice to Protesters.” It vanishes when you stop straddling the fence and start enforcing the law.

An elected official who cannot define “unacceptable” has no business defining our future.

Canada is at a crossroads: we can either be a nation of laws or a nation of mobs. It’s time for our leaders to decide which one they represent.

[Roy K. Altman @RoyKAltman]

In 1918, King Hussein of the Arabs—one of the great heroes of Arab history, the leader of the Arab revolt against the Ottomans along with the British—wrote an op-ed in the Al Qibla newspaper.

He says that if the Arabs want the British and the rest of the world to care about their claim to their ancestral land, which they want back now that the Ottomans are gone, then they cannot deny the Zionists’ claim to their ancestral land in the Land of Israel.

This isn't me. This is the leader of all the Arabs, King Hussein himself.

And he says at the end of the op-ed, and I quote, "The Jews are the original sons of that land."

If you don't care about King Hussein, nine months later, on December the 29th of 1918, King Hussein's son, Prince Faisal, who becomes King of Iraq, the first King of Iraq, has a banquet in his honor thrown by a bunch of British dignitaries, along with Lord Rothschild.

And he stands up and gives a toast, and at the end of the toast he turns to Lord Rothschild and he says, "We Arabs cannot in good conscience deny the ancestral home of the Jewish people."

And he turns to Lord Rothschild and he says, "To my Zionist friends, I say to you, welcome home."

[Carly Pildis @CarlyPildis]

Temple Israel shared these photos today. They are terrifying and deeply disturbing.

This was plot to kill babies in strollers and preschoolers at play. This is what antisemitism in America looks like.

[David Jacobs @DrJacobsRad]

It seems that not a week goes by where there isn't a gross act of antisemitism at the University of Toronto.

Here, a candidate for a student election at the @UofT Munk School is running on a pledge to detach "the school from its Zionist roots".

Peter Munk was a Hungarian Jew who narrowly escaped the Holocaust with his life.

With approximately 95% of Jews being Zionists, and Zionism being one of the main tenants of Judaism, this represents either thinly veiled antisemitism, or ignorance.

The irony is that this candidate will probably win. That's how normalized antisemitism has become at the University, and that's how tolerant the University is of antisemitism.

@munkschool @munkdebate

[Aviva Klompas @AvivaKlompas]

Alarming finding: One in five university students in the United Kingdom say they don’t want to share housing with a Jewish student.

The figure comes from a new poll commissioned by the Union of Jewish Students.

[Casey Babb @DrCaseyBabb]

Canada is no longer safe for Jews.

[Dean Lavi @DeanLaviX]

@TheDanLevy @zehavi_ When sanctioned terror supporting org are your advocates…

[Dean Lavi @DeanLaviX]

@Rightanglenews Those are some serious treason laws he’s breaking

[Dean Lavi @DeanLaviX]

@fahoo_foray @fordnation You mean like the IRGC hiding the bodies of hundreds of female protestors? You’re sharing a video of an Iranian women. Ask her why she feels that way and what the regime did to cause her anger. But go ahead and obfuscate