Advocacy @ HBT: The week of October 24, 2025

Advocacy @ HBT: Advocacy Day in Review 

Last week, our Advocacy Committee, together with several Temple members trained by CIJA, went to City Hall to meet with the leadership of our city. Our entire group met with Councillors Bradford, Chernos Lin, Pasternak and Saxe for an intimate conversation, expressing our appreciation for the work that they have done over the last several years. We also shared with them our deep concerns about the normalization of hatred in Toronto’s streets, the lack of enforcement of Canada’s good laws, and our view that a communal sense of safety has been lost in our city.  

Rabbi Splansky, Temple President Eric Roher and Tom Friedland of our Advocacy Committee also met with Mayor Chow to convey these same messages and to share the anxieties that many members of our community feel every day. 

Walking away from our meeting with the City Councillors, we felt heard and understood. Importantly, we took away important insights and strategies to incorporate for the future. Chief among these is that further advocacy work with our city leadership must include a broad and more diverse group, unified by our love of Canada and our communal concerns regarding hatred, public disruption, and safety. The committee and our volunteers are coming away from this meeting more dedicated than ever to expanding our network amongst our interfaith allies and partners.   

Alexis Singer, a Holy Blossom member who joined us for training with CIJA and then raised her voice at City Hall, shares the following.  

“It is comforting to know that there are City Councillors who support a safe city, free from hate for everyone, where everyone matters and everyone is worthy of protection from harm. It was good to be reminded of this and to be reminded that, as Jews, we are not alone in this huge place. Hopefully, we can hang onto this feeling as we reach out to other councillors who may or may not be as understanding of our hopes and fears as Brad Bradford, Rachel Chernos Lin, James Pasternak and Diane Saxe.   

The suggestions coming from the councillors in our room – that we reach out to the centres of power to create dialogue and how to go about it – were constructive and realistic. I was also frankly blown away by the Holy Blossom contingent. I feel privileged being in this group, and I hope to be able to come again when you go forth. What a good day this has been.” 

As we look towards the future, our committee will be scheduling additional training opportunities as well as arranging further delegations to meet with our elected officials. 

Please keep in touch with us to be involved. 

A special thanks to Ben Mogil for his hard work in making our Advocacy Day possible.  

Learn more about Advocacy@HBT here.  

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