The soaring brick façade and sparce windows of Congregation Machzikei Hadas are easily mistaken for a school or a prison, its faddish 1970s architecture masking the Ottawa synagogue’s century-old roots. Inside, Rabbi Idan Scher tends a congregation of about 350 Jewish families cycling through their religious calendar and life’s unstoppable milestones. In the year since the October 7 attacks on Israel, along with marriages, bar mitzvahs, bat mitzvahs and funerals, Scher found himself vexed by something new.
“One thing that has really stood out,” Scher said, “is the number of times I’ve been asked, ‘When do we know?’” He paused before making sure the meaning of the question was clear. “When you look back to the 1930s in Germany or Poland, you ask the question: When should the Jews of that area have realized this is not going to end well? When should they have left? And that’s a question that I, myself, have been asked so many times to weigh in on since Oct. 7.
” The question Scher is asked is not about a time past or another place, but about Canada, today. “When do we know? Where is that tipping point? “We don’t feel as safe as we used to, but how unsafe do we have to feel? How many more synagogues must be graffitied? How many more windows must be broken? How many more times do I need to be called an antisemitic slur on the street before we know, that, OK, this is no longer the place for us, that this is on a very dark trajectory that will not end.
