The Canadian Government's War on Jewish Charities
"Any money that is going over to Israel, they seem to have an issue with it. And it ramped up after October 7th."
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This is a guest essay by Israel Ellis, author of the books “Moving Through Walls” and “The Wake Up Call.”
You can also listen to the podcast version of this essay on Apple Podcasts, YouTube Music, YouTube, and Spotify.
I have been writing about the subversive current of antisemitism running through Canada’s institutions for over a year now.
In my book, “The Wake Up Call,” I warned that the greatest threat to Canadian Jews would not come from the mobs in the streets, but from the quiet machinery of government.
When I sat with Dr. Mordechai Kedar, a prominent Israeli scholar of Arabic literature and culture, he confirmed it. When I sat with Michael Westcott, chief executive officer of the organization Allies for a Strong Canada, he described it in plain English. When I sat with Jewish-American lawyer Alan Dershowitz, he predicted it would reach the universities first.
And then I sat down with Nathan Disenhouse, the National President of Jewish National Fund Canada. What he revealed is a story of institutional betrayal so methodical, so calculated, that every Jewish Canadian needs to hear it.
JNF Canada has been operating in this country since the 1920s. It received its official charitable status in 1967. For decades, it underwent routine audits with no issues. It connected Canadian Jews to Israel through tree planting, environmental work, and social infrastructure. It was one of the largest charitable organizations sending money to Israel from Canada.
In August 2024, the Canada Revenue Agency revoked JNF Canada’s charitable status. The agency’s own website outlines a process: education, compliance, warning, and then, only in the most egregious cases, revocation. Disenhouse told me JNF Canada received none of that process.
“In our situation, they went from zero to four, just like that,” he said. “Revocation is when someone does something egregious with their charitable status. We feel that there’s bias. We feel there’s a lack of due process. And we also have a misapprehension of facts and law.”
Judge, jury, and conviction before any proceedings.
The Canada Revenue Agency had been auditing JNF Canada for 10 years. They raised concerns about agency agreements, and JNF Canada tightened them. They raised concerns about direction and control, and JNF Canada hired someone on the ground in Israel. They raised concerns about projects near military sites, and JNF Canada stopped doing them. The Canada Revenue Agency dropped those objections — and then revoked them anyway.
They published the revocation in the Canada Gazette on a Jewish Sabbath. Draw your own conclusions.
Through the Freedom of Information Act, JNF Canada discovered that the organization Independent Jewish Voices, one of their most aggressive detractors, had met with the Canada Revenue Agency back in 2016 without JNF Canada’s knowledge. JNF Canada did not learn of this meeting until 2024. An activist organization with a clear anti-Israel agenda had direct access to the body deciding JNF Canada’s fate, and JNF Canada was never told.
I asked Disenhouse directly: Is this anti-Israel bias?
“I do believe that it is anti-Israel bias,” he said. “There are a lot of other charities that have had audits, and there’s an unusual number of them who send money to Israel. Any money that is going over to Israel, they seem to have an issue with it. And it ramped up after October 7th.”
And then there is the comparison that should make every Canadian’s blood boil. The Muslim Association of Canada underwent a Canada Revenue Agency audit. The lengthy report, which became public through court proceedings, alleged ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and to the International Relief Fund for the Afflicted and Needy-Canada, a designated terrorist entity linked to Hamas. The Canada Revenue Agency’s preliminary findings identified what federal lawyers called “several serious issues” including alleged involvement with an apparent Hamas support network.
The result? A compliance agreement, and a financial penalty. The Muslim Association of Canada remains a registered charity in good standing.
“They give them a choice,” said Disenhouse. “You either get your ducks in order, a compliance agreement, and if you don’t agree, we’re gonna revoke you. They gave them choices. We weren’t even given anything.”
A charity with alleged ties to a Hamas support network gets a conversation. JNF Canada gets executed. If that is not a double standard, what is?
Disenhouse’s story is not an isolated case. JNF Canada, an institution with over a hundred years of history in this country, has had its charitable status stripped. So has the Canadian Zionist Cultural Association. Meanwhile, a report from the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy documents $50-to-$60 million flowing through Muslim charities and Islamic centers in Canada that the Canada Revenue Agency has flagged for concerns. Many of those organizations remain fully operational. Their charitable status remains intact.
Charities with documented links to terrorism — untouched. Jewish charities supporting parks, hospitals, and resilience centers in Israel — destroyed.
Any Canadian who reads the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy’s report will understand how deeply the Muslim Brotherhood has infiltrated the fabric of this country. If this report does not cause you concern, even terrify you about the future for Canada, I don’t know what else will. This report is factually based, unveiling the maddening extent that the Muslim brotherhood has infiltrated itself into Canadian society.
This did not happen by accident. Successive Liberal Party of Canada governments cultivated a voting bloc hostile to Israel. They overworked our electoral system with an anti-Israel population and politicians who pander to that vote. They placed people sympathetic to anti-Israel causes into highly sensitive positions across our public institutions. And once those people are entrenched, they outlast any government.
This is not a policy that changes with an election; it is an army of antisemitism embedded in the machinery of the state. Tax, security, health, welfare, public works — every corner of public life. The barrier of radicalized ideology of hatred against the Jew and the social contract of Canada has been crossed in the most concerning of ways.
There still remains a website that is literally “hunting” Jews in Canada. Despite my appeals to all levels of government, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and the police — nothing is done to take this website down. It is a clear incitement of hatred that puts Jews in Canada at risk — hiding behind “free speech.” I wonder how long a website outing every jihadist with terror links in Canada would be allowed to operate.
The protests in the streets are visible. The flags and the chants and the masked thugs outside synagogues — those are obvious. But the thing that should keep us up at night is the subversive current beneath all of it — the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation president who instructed journalists not to call Hamas terrorists, the passport office employee who told a Jewish woman to put “Palestine” instead of Israel, the flight attendant wearing a river-to-the-sea pin at 35,000 feet on an Air Canada flight that I personally experienced and, now, the Canada Revenue Agency coming for the economic backbone of Jewish communal life.
The real danger is not what we see; it is what we don’t see. It is the bureaucrat with a pen who wakes up one morning, opens a file on a Jewish charity, and decides to build a case. Not because the law demands it, but because the political winds permit it.
Charitable institutions are the economic and social backbone of Jewish life in Canada. These organizations fund education, resilience centers, PTSD treatment, and social services. They are how Canadian Jews express their connection to Israel and to each other. If you can strip the charitable status of any organization that sends money to Israel, you have placed a chill over all of them.
And Disenhouse confirmed that this is exactly what has happened.
“All the other organizations have treated us like we’re radioactive,” he said. “We haven’t asked for financial support. We just asked other organizations to stand by us. And some Jewish organizations threw us under the bus.”
That was the point. JNF Canada was the sacrificial lamb. The message to every other Jewish charity in this country was clear: Step “out of line” and we will do this to you too. The revocation was designed to divide, and divide is exactly what it did. The best way to conquer your enemy is to divide your enemy.
Disenhouse is not rolling over. JNF Canada continues to operate as a nonprofit. A new entity, Friends of JNF Canada, was registered in September 2025 and holds full charitable status. The work in Israel has not stopped.
The legal fight continues, funded by an anonymous donor so that no charitable dollars are diverted to litigation. Every court loss so far has been on jurisdiction and technicality. The meat of this case, the proof of institutional bias and political interference, has never been heard in a courtroom. Not yet.
Disenhouse’s lawyers told him never to fight on principle because you will always lose. But they believe they have a strong case on bias. And so he fights for JNF Canada, for every Jewish charity watching, and for every Canadian who believes that the rule of law should mean something.
When I asked Disenhouse for his final message, his answer was simple: “Keep your head up high. Keep fighting what you believe in. And we shall prevail.”
What happened to JNF Canada is what happens when antisemitism becomes systemic and institutional. When it is no longer just a protester with a sign but a bureaucrat with a pen. When it is not a mob outside a synagogue but a quiet revocation published in the Canada Gazette on Shabbat.
That is where the real danger lives for Canadian Jews. Not on the front lines of a street protest, but in every corner of public life where biased actors have been given license to act on their prejudice.
Who is next? Which Jewish charity, which Jewish institution, which Jewish family will feel the weight of a system that has been quietly turned against them? It will only get worse as this bias takes hold in every corner of public, welfare, and health services.
Canadian Jews are under attack. Canada has betrayed its Jews in favour of a pendulum swing of the Muslim tipping point brought about by the last 11 years of aggressive and irresponsible “we couldn’t give a damn” Liberal Party immigration policy.
The threat to Canadian Jewry is driving its Jews to reconsider living here. I am three generations Canadian, and yet, I am thinking that this country may not be safe for my children or grandchildren. The questions of “Is it too late?” is on the top of my mind every day. Is the cancelling of Jewish Canadian charities just the beginning?
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Canada is no longer safe for Jews.
But then again, neither is NYC. The worldwide Marxist-Muslim effort to wipe us out is now putting its plan into action and the only possible way it stops is for Israel to treat attacks on the diaspora as an attack on Israel itself.
Unfortunately, its ability to retaliate against NATO nations protected by Article 5 is limited, given that three of those nations are nuclear powers
My children are fourth generation Canadian. Yet I saw the writing on the wall ten years ago and we moved to Israel. They’ve all learned what’s most important in life - and spending 20,000$ on flowers for their weddings isn’t it.