TORONTO — In France, guards armed with sub-machine guns patrol outside Jewish schools and other community institutions – a reflection of the danger French Jews face in the home of liberty and fraternity.

In Toronto, it hasn’t quite come to that. But at a Jan. 14 memorial service and solidarity rally in support of France and French Jews, police were visibly present and beefy security guards were everywhere. Security was tight in what has become the new normal for Jews when they gather to celebrate or to mourn.

Organizers and security personnel were not responding to any specific threats, said Steven Shulman, campaign director of UJA Federation of Greater Toronto. “After events in France and the general tenor in the world, we pay heed to that.”

UJA Federation, along with the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA), hosted the event at Shaarei Shomayim Congregation. Some 600 people gathered to pray for the victims, stand in solidarity with France and French Jews, and hear the attackers condemned. 

The audience listened to a variety of speakers: Berl Nadler, co-chair of CIJA’s Toronto council; rabbis representing congregations across the religious spectrum; and French and Israeli diplomats.

Politicians from three levels of government were there, as were advocates of Christian-Jewish dialogue and representatives of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress and the Church of Scientology. Also present was a Shia imam who advocates interfaith dialogue.

Nadler began by pronouncing that “we in the West are at war with Islamist terrorists, all of them, for the future of western civilization.”

He recounted incidents of terrorism around the world in the name of Islam, calling the attacks in Paris on Charlie Hebdo an attack on the fundamental value of free speech, while the deadly attack on a kosher grocery was an attack on the values of tolerance and pluralism.

Deputy Consul General of France Dominique Faille called the attacks that left 17 French citizens dead “barbaric acts of violence.”

“French men and women were murdered because they represented free speech. French people were murdered because they were Jewish. French men and women were murdered because they supported free expression and the respect for all faiths,” he said.

“Freedom of speech is essential in a democracy. Anti-Semitism is an unacceptable attack on democratic values. 

“Together, we must defend democratic values. We owe it to ourselves to fight anti-Semitism, racism and hatred for others. We must keep matters clear. Let there be no mistake as to who the enemy is.”

Faille didn’t identify the enemy, though Israeli consul general DJ Schneeweiss wasn’t so reticent. Linking the “Islamist terror” attacks faced by Israel to the recent ones in France, Schneeweiss said the proclamations in France of “je suis Charlie, je sui francais, je suis Juif… [are] an expression of a common heritage and a common fate shared by western civilization as a whole.”

Jews are members of a broader society, “heirs to the western way of life infused with the values of tolerance, peace, freedom and individual rights, justice and the rule of law,” he said.

“The battle lines are real. There is no escape from the consequences of the militant Islamic assault on our democratic values and way of life. We’re all in this together. We must stand together, with each other and for each other, if the threat posed to us all by those who hate Jews, modernity and freedom is to be defeated,” he said.

“When you see Jews being attacked, know that this is an attack on you. When you see Israel being maligned… know that this too is an attack on you.

“Don’t airbrush the anti-Semitism inherent in much of the militant Islamic and Arab education out of the story,” he continued. “No matter how much you may wish it weren’t so, this hatred of Jews is a core component of militant Islam’s aggressive agenda vis-a-vis the west and as a whole.”

Schneeweiss ended on a hopeful note, saying Jews must stand together, never surrender to victimhood, and be comforted that they have many friends in Canada and elsewhere who are horrified when they’re targeted for being Jews.