Confronting antisemitism to create change

By Adam Waxman

This past February my family received such warm outpouring of support from across the Jewish community and on social media for the vandalism of the statue of my Dad, Al Waxman. It was deeply moving, and we appreciated it very much. I was more heartened by the support than disheartened by its cause.

Despite all the millions of dollars that the City of Toronto had invested into remodelling Bellevue Park to make it more accessible for families, that one corner of the park where the statue stands has been neglected. My Mom and I even met with city council members during the planning stages, and were assured it would not be forgotten. It was all lip service. I’ve rarely known it to be unblemished by graffiti. That one corner of the park across from the historic Kiever Shul is dark at night and, without any cameras, left alone for someone to spray paint “Vote Hamas” on the effigy of my Dad.

I was asked many times what I felt upon seeing that vile and offensive desecration. Was I sad? Was I scared? Was I angry? In truth, I felt none of that. My Dad was afraid of no one; and the solidarity of our Jewish community is the envy of the world. I’m more touched by the stones respectfully placed at my Dad’s grave, wondering who came to visit him, than I am by some disaffected hoodlum confronting a statue with a spray paint can full of misguided anger. I also felt it would be self-indulgent to take it personally, akin to idol-worship, especially since there have been so many acts of antisemitism across Toronto that have been far more destructive.

(At the time of this writing, I’ve just learned that there has now been a theft at the Keiver Shul. The perpetrator broke in, ransacked the shul, and stole the silver crown and two silver adornments from the Torah. This is obviously despicable, and demands action. Our resilience as a diaspora of congregations is not dependant on absentee elected officials, but on our own collective fortitude to make sure each one of our sanctuaries are safe.)

There have been 989 hate crime calls to Toronto police since October 7^th. According to the Toronto Chief of Police, hate crime in Toronto is up over 93% from this time last year. And where are our elected officials charged with the responsibility to lead this rudderless chaos? Their silence is complicity; their negligence, permissiveness.

And herein lies what I did feel with profound hurt: in the cold and grey of that February afternoon, I stood in front of a desecrated statue of my Dad alongside my young son who, while clutching my hand, looked up at me with his innocent eyes and sweet voice, and asked, “Why?” More than anything else, I felt that.

We had driven there from Holy Blossom after religious school, and this was a conversation I hadn’t planned: to talk with my son about hate; that when times get tough, and political leadership abrogates moral responsibility, racism is shown the welcome mat.

Antisemitism is the lazy man’s racism. It’s the gateway drug to all other forms of racism. And it’s been forever thus. I explained to my son that there is ignorance borne out of prejudice and there is ignorance enabled by lack of education, and this is just one example. But what I assured him of is that we can’t be intimidated by any of that. It has to motivate us to learn from it, and do something positive about it.

I shared with him that his grandpa Al was a proud Jew—who also grew up in a time of rampant antisemitism. At that time, Jews were not even allowed to play in the Toronto hockey league. That didn’t stop him. He was tough. He played goalie, and he didn’t even wear a mask. And my Mom: when she entered Canada with her parents, the Canadian immigration policy at that time was “None is too many.” That didn’t stop my grandparents from settling in rural Manitoba and raising a Jewish family.

And when my Dad began his storied acting career, he was advised to change his name to something less ethnic, like “Al Gardner.” He responded defiantly, “I’m Al Waxman. That’s what I am.” Years later in an episode of Cagney & Lacey, he improvised a scene that was kept in the final edit, in which he debated with another character—in Yiddish—about whether or not it was acceptable to put raisins in your challah! My Dad loved being Jewish. He was also an educated man, and a very good listener. These are the points I felt I needed to convey to my son.

In the days that followed, despite all the interviews and phone calls about the vandalism of the statue, I was told that the City of Toronto would require a thirty-day approval process to remove the antisemitic graffiti, and that the clean-up required a special kind of solution that could only be applied by someone with a special kind of skill… That was the line from the City of Toronto. In total contrast, the Toronto Police Department—likely spurred into action by the continued pressure to act by Jewish groups across Toronto since October 7^th—made one quick call to the right person who, within one day, cleaned and restored the statue to its lustre, so that the following Sunday after Holy Blossom religious school, we could drive down there and experience it as it’s supposed to be.

When I was a kid, around my son’s age, my family would sometimes attend the Kiever Shul, where my Dad attended services with his family when he was a kid. When I’d get bored, we’d go outside to the park where my Dad would say to me, “Hey, why don’t you show the old man some chin-ups.” He’d stand right there, where the statue is now, and watch me, beaming his cherubic smile. As my son and I took pictures at the shul and at the statue, I said to him, without even thinking about it, “Hey, why don’t you show the old man some chin-ups.” As he ran over to the chin-up bar, he called back to me, “Are you watching daddy?” I cried.

These are the moments that reinforce my gratitude; that being Jewish, being part of a Jewish continuity and community of strong voices, educated and engaged, is really a blessing. It’s a unique value that no act of antisemitism can ever take away, and that’s why we can all say, Am Yisrael Chai!

 

Read the article here: https://www.stratfordtoday.ca/local-news/opinion-confronting-antisemitism-to-create-change-8376039