WARMINGTON: Walk for Israel disruptors don't scare 98-year-old Holocaust survivor

· Toronto Sun

When antisemitic protesters try to interrupt next Saturday’s Walk for Israel, they won’t be scaring off 98-year-old Holocaust survivor Nate Leipciger.

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He fended off Adolf Hitler, so Toronto’s current Jew-hating crowd does not worry him. He won’t be hiding from them. They may recognize him by the 133628 bar code the Nazi’s at Auschwitz tattooed on the then-15-year-old Jewish teenager’s arm.

“That number represents life and it represents truth,” Leipciger said.

Truth can be ugly. Here’s another truth. Nobody will keep him from joining 50,000 other members Toronto’s Jewish community on June 7.

“I will be there,” Leipciger said Friday, just before members of the Jewish community gathered for a special Shabbat event at The Collective Makom, which through the leadership of co-founders Carly Nemtean, Sharon Zohar, Rocco Verrilli has been “vigorously” fighting antisemitism since 2023.

Special night remembering The Holocaust

On this evening, Holocaust survivors Nate Leipciger, Renate Krakauer, Gershon Willinger, Sol Nayman and Alis Zohar were in attendance as well as Jantina Devries Veld and Kevin and Rebecca Prins of The Righteous Among the Nations.

“They are all special people,” said Leipciger, who added Collective Makom makes sure no one forgets what happened and no one who lived through the horrors of the 1930s forgets the Righteous who “risked everything” to make sure some made it out of the Holocaust alive.

Leipciger was one. His mom Leah and sister Blima were not so lucky.

“They were murdered in the Auschwitz gas chamber,” he said.

Sadly, Jew hatred did not end with those atrocities.

Whether it’s shooting up synagogues or tearing down a Jewish teenaged girl’s missing poster , anti Jewish hate shows up every week now.

“It’s not even hidden,” Leipciger said of the status of antisemitism in 2026. “It’s out in the open. But no one should hide. Be proud to be Jewish.”

An example of the haters not even hiding their hate shows up as Toronto prepares for next Saturday’s Walk for Israel. There is word of efforts to have demonstrators hold their own protest walk against Israel.

On Social media one man said “Yo, on June 7 thousands of Zios From all over, North America are coming to Toronto for the annual walk for ‘Is Not Real’ … and “we’re going to counter that. We’re walking against Is Not Real. June 7, at 9 AM, I implore you people of conscience join us walk on the side of humanity walk on the right side of history walk against Is Not Real.”

Canadian leaders let antisemitism go

Imagine the outrage if someone wanted to disrupt an Eid event or any other religious or cultural day. Or if someone made fun of the name of a group’s home country or created mocking names for their people.

Some Canadian leaders and law enforcement let a lot this go . They treat it like there are two equal sides to it when there is only one side. Members of the the Jewish community don’t heckle Muslim holidays or events. It’s just radicals against Jews from communist groups or those who are pro-Hamas or IRGC militia pushing the boundaries to try to instill fear in Jewish people.

And police have no answer for it.

This threat on the Walk For Israel video came on the same week as Scarlett Grace of Rebel News captured a troubling incident outside a Tim Hortons coffee shop on Sheppard Ave. near Bathurst St. last Sunday in which Toronto Police officers escorted a throng of anti-Israel protesters in keffiyehs carrying Palestinian flags into the restaurant while literally blocking the door and not letting Jewish people protecting the neighbourhood go inside.

Leipciger has seen this kind of thing before.

“It reminds of how of 1938 (in Poland) where Jews were not allowed in certain stores and facilities because they were Jewish,” said the Torontonian who came to Canada in 1948 and became an engineer.

“We saw discrimination at that time in Canada too in that we were not welcome in some clubs, hotels, resorts and organizations,” Leipciger said. “I remember when I first got here seeing a sign on the beach that said, ‘No Jews or dogs.’”

Things got better. And then Oct. 7 hit and the hatred came back.

Nate not afraid

The Jewish women, who were not a threat, were not allowed to go inside the Tim Hortons to use the facilities and get a coffee while the people who came to intimidate the neighbourhoods had free reign.

“Like then, it all started with words,” Leipciger said.

But he’s not afraid of them.

When you survived the holocaust as Leipciger did, no one is going to tell him where he can walk, stand or what store or restaurant he can go into.

No one should stand for it.

“You have to speak out,” Leipciger said. “We live in a terrible world that is upside down, where the haters and terrorists are being protected and the Jews are being kept out.”

Who should be kept out of parade routes and Jewish neighbourhoods is anybody openly displaying antisemitism. Unlike the Walk for Israel, which has a permit from City Hall and pays for police, the harassers don’t have a permit and pay for none of the police who must babysit them at taxpayers’ expense.

It would really help if Mayor Olivia Chow, Premier Doug Ford and Prime Minister Mark Carney would make a strong statement that they are with the Jewish community by showing up to the Walk for Israel like they do for other groups.

Such a gesture would send a clear signal that antisemitism is not acceptable here.

Either way, no matter what roadblocks are in his way, Holocaust survivor Nate Leipciger will be there.

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