Toronto billboards aim to raise awareness about antisemitism

Mar 23, 2022 | News

With antisemitism on the rise in recent years, some organizations are taking to billboards to raise awareness on the said antisemitic increase.

Jewish non-profits Stand With Us and Jewbelong teamed up to help raise attention to the issue by renting out billboard spaces across the GTA that aim to spread understanding of the antisemitic problems further.

Stand With Us‘s Senior director of Campus Affairs Rebecca Katzman, helps with the program, in addition to helping university/colleges campuses combat.

“We work on university campuses across Canada and high schools across Canada,” Katzman told Humber News, adding that “we train our students in Los Angeles to combat Antisemitism.”

This campaign extends across multiple cities in both the United States and Canada, in order to help city populations get a grasp on the situation.

Katzman says the movement is intentionally done to draw attention.

“I think it’s definitely to draw the eye,” said Katzman.

“There’s been lots of social media campaigns done by our community, and different campaigns draw awareness, but this is something a little different and we wanted to bring these billboards to kind of make you stop and think about Jewish people on a daily basis experiencing anti-Semitism.”

Katzman further expanded that if others want to help blunt the antisemitic charge, one should look to Jewish communities for assistance.

“If someone wants to help,” said Katzman.

“What they can do is if they know somebody Jewish and they see something, let them know, let a community member know. Really read into different Jewish groups that exist, don’t just jump to the ones that are just the fringe Jewish groups, really learn from the mainstream Jewish community about antisemitism, and if you see a hate crime report it to the police.”

The response to the billboard campaign, according to Katzman, has been positive.

“I’ve had some people message me personally that aren’t Jewish, that were just like ‘Whoa. My friend told me they saw it on the highway and it really made them stop and think and they didn’t realize that Jewish people really face so much antisemitism.'”

With this endeavour, the efforts of both non-profits have reappeared to bear fruit, which gives Katzman hope.

“It seems like people are getting this general awareness of what Jewish people have to face on a daily basis,” she said.

“That was really was the goal of this partnership with Jew Belong and Stand With Us.”