Batya Jerenberg

Jewish patrols set up to protect students at Canadian university

Security agency JForce and the volunteer Magen Herut Canada want to ensure the undergrads’ safety in a violent atmosphere of antisemitism.

Two new volunteer groups have begun ensuring the safety of Jewish students on the campus of a Canadian university suffering from a violent atmosphere of antisemitism that continues from the spring semester, The Canadian Jewish News reported Friday.

Magen Herut Canada was established to help protect local Jewish community events in the months following Hamas’ invasion of Israel on October 7 that sparked the ongoing war in the Gaza Strip.

It set off a concomitant huge upsurge in anti-Israel demonstrations and antisemitic assaults in cities throughout the world, especially in colleges and universities, including the University of Toronto.

Founder Aaron Hadida said many students’ parents called him for help as their children were afraid and felt under siege.

“They’re constantly worried about their kids on campus,” he said. “We decided that we’re going to be a visible presence on university campuses this year, that Jewish students who (go) to class (are) going to know that, no matter what, somebody (is) outside keeping an eye on them.”

Several volunteers stood outside the university along with city police officers Friday as some 150 pro-Hamas demonstrators marched through the campus and faced off with the police, shouting slogans and chanting, while a small group of Israel supporters stood behind a barricade with Israeli flags and pictures of some of the 101 hostages Hamas is holding captive in defiance of international law.

Tochi Osuji, a non-Jewish member of the protective group who got involved after seeing an older Jewish man attacked at a rally, said, “We’re not here to fight people, we’re here to protect. If we see kids attacked, that might play out a little different. But I feel like it’s just our physical presence that changes the dynamic.”

He added that the university administration’s “slow response” to the evident antisemitism on campus was “shocking” and accused it of being “a lot of times complicit.”

Watchdog Canary Mission has documented a few hundred cases of antisemitism at the U of T, especially at its anti-Israel encampment in the spring, which was backed by numerous faculty members.

A security company called JForce that provides neighborhood patrols and event security has also joined the safety teams.

As the demonstrations came to an end, two elderly women asked JForce members standing by to accompany them to the nearby subway station as they felt “unsafe,” said one of the men who walked them to their destination.

On Saturday, a short clip was posted to X of four athletic-looking men wearing what looked to be bulletproof vests with the JForce logo and holding nothing more offensive than an umbrella or walkie talkie, walking steadily in a row along a main campus street.

The filmer called them a “vigilante pro-Israeli group” that “prowls around now on campus” and complained that their walking by “is highly intimidating to your students and faculty.”

A pro-Israel tweeter mocked the post in response, saying, “Apparently, a Jewish safety patrol called Jforce has shown up at the University of Toronto. Their goal is to protect Jewish students from insane pro-Hamas encampments, harassment and assaults like we saw earlier in the spring. This is making them so mad lol.”

(Screenshot/Instagram)