Toronto police have provisionally concluded that last Sunday’s murder of David Rosenzweig was not a hate crime and so the media have pretty much decamped, since the story’s essence for them was never a murder but its connection to anti-Semitism.

Yet the conclusion feels counter-intuitive: How likely is there to have been no feeling about Jews involved? Of course, what the police mean is technical: They lack grounds to lay a hate charge, which would mean additional prison time etc. So excluding a hate crime doesn’t exclude a hate element. And people know anti-Semitism still exists, alongside other forms of hate in this society.

For this you don’t need to be a professional expert on anti-Semitism. In fact, it might help if you aren’t. The pros were awfully quick off the mark. Bernie Farber of the Canadian Jewish Congress said he had “a gut feeling on this. We’ve been the victims of hate crimes for eons”; in such situations, “our antennas begin to swing wildly.”

Others tried to work in a larger agenda. One report said Jewish groups feel “intemperate criticism of Israeli actions by mainstream commentators . . . encourages a small segment of Canadians that has always hated Jews.” It all seems to have been less complex than that, even if we assume anti-Semitism had a role.

It certainly wasn’t Kristallnacht, the national pogrom in Nazi Germany in 1938 — and I grant no one claimed it was. But there is ongoing anxiety about such events being harbingers. In fact, I’d say they prove pretty much the opposite.

In Nazi Germany, a government, its propaganda apparatus, its police and bureaucracy, instigated and encouraged the behaviour. Ancient anti-Semitism was there to start with, but built up over decades into a potent ideology that might seem to make paranoid sense of harsh times, and buttressed by respected institutions.

Here, the premier, leader of the opposition, mayor (who is Jewish) and police chief deplored the event and attended the funeral. We, too, have the ancient tradition, and the human propensity to hate — but the other elements are lacking, and our official ideology is tolerance.

Still, those inclined to hear the footsteps of Nazism will do so. In this realm, rationality tends not to prevail. Pollster Martin Goldfarb recently wrote, about criticism of Israel in The Toronto Star: “The Jewish community . . . feel we have lost a friend who can be depended on in a time of crisis or in periods of anxiety,” as if The Toronto Star has a duty to be something other than a newspaper in its Mideast coverage.

Since media play such a central role in the way we react to an event such as the Rosenzweig murder, let me turn finally to two examples that, I’d say, made a positive contribution by introducing elements other than anti-Semitism.

I’ll start with The Toronto Sun. It issued an editorial call to “stand against all crime that cheapens life in this city. Murder over a cover charge at a dance club. Murder over mistaken identity. Murder over a spat between teens.”

The Toronto Sun’s obsession with crime (along with sports) enabled it to stand clear of the rush to focus on anti-Semitism and yet still find a viewpoint from which to comment passionately. From reading The Globe and Mail, you might have thought this was the first murder that ever happened in Toronto.

The other case is the Ottawa Citizen, which reported the background of the man accused of murdering David Rosenzweig, Christopher McBride, who grew up in Ottawa. It said Ottawa police are “very familiar” with him, had “dozens of contacts” with him since he was sixteen — and likely before, since those cannot be reported publicly.

He’s been criminally charged seven times there; has “no family,” i.e., was probably in foster care as a “ward of the state”; and had “expressed no goal, other than dying,” which he almost did during a car chase a year ago when his friend died in the crash. The reports of his court appearance on the murder charge jibe with all this, i.e., he “remained stonefaced.”

Now I have no problem with police or media investigating the hate-crime possibility. But tell me: Do you not feel more enlightened about the senseless “meaning” of this event after reading an account like the Ottawa Citizen’s than you do from speculation on race hate and the effects of Mideast media coverage?

I don’t really think it’s likely that someone with Christopher McBride’s background was strongly influenced by mainstream media commentators who criticize Israel. Nor are the two approaches mutually exclusive: Someone emerging from his life might well be susceptible to race hate, along with self-hate.

As for a flicker of redemption — one Rosenzweig family member said they feel the arrest “is the first step to justice. We don’t seek vengeance.” Compare this to Mayor Mel Lastman, who said he wants to see the killer “suffer.” It’s a blessing that there are people around from whom the mayor could learn something about human dignity, if he ever has the inclination.

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Rick Salutin

Rick Salutin is a Canadian novelist, playwright and critic. He is a strong advocate of left wing causes and writes a regular column in the Toronto Star.