It snowed on Dec. 7 in Calgary.
Its mayor, Jyoti Gondek, needs to take a walk in it. A long walk.
When she’s finished, she needs to sit down at her laptop, type out a brief letter of resignation, clean out her desk, develop a new plan for her life, and leave city hall.
For good.
The shame and embarrassment Ms. Gondek brought to her city, when she turned on its tiny, beleaguered Jewish community—by boycotting its annual lighting of the menorah in recognition of Hanukkah—can be mitigated, but it cannot be forgiven and won’t be forgotten. At least not until she does the right thing and leaves office.
Around 8:30 pm on the eve of the annual city hall event—a mainstay of Calgary’s faith culture, along with Christmas and other religious festivals—Ms. Gondek posted a lengthy letter on X expressing her shock at seeing a poster for the event that mentioned celebrating Israel. She interpreted this as a late-in-the-day politicization of the event which, as Councillor Dan Maclean would later point out, has maintained the exact same format for 35 years.
“I am saddened that this change makes it impossible for me to attend … And I am incredibly concerned that people wishing to celebrate Hanukkah will have their good intentions compromised.”
In doing so, she not only became the first mayor in Calgary’s history to snub the event, she also fuelled antisemitism and left her city’s 8,500 or so Jews feeling hurt and abandoned.
As Lisa Libin, president of the Calgary Jewish Federation, told Calgary Herald columnist Don Braid, the mayor’s insistence she’d been duped “is actually a very antisemitic claim.”
“It does go back to the old antisemitic trope that Jews are conniving,” she said.
Within 12 hours of Ms. Gondek’s post, the National Post’s Rahim Mohamed filed a column excoriating her decision.
“Gondek somehow managed to shoehorn pro-Hamas talking points into” her letter, Mr. Mohamed wrote, noting the mayor raised the issue of the Israel-Hamas war by insisting that “the killing must stop in Gaza because it is spreading division and hatred far and wide.”
Mr. Braid, not one to rush to judgment, followed within hours and flatly stated “Jyoti Gondek is not fit to be mayor of Calgary.”
The alarmed Jewish community unsurprisingly pressed on, called for support, and in the end the menorah was lit without incident, talk of politics, or war in front of what from all accounts was a record turnout.
“Great event at city hall,” posted one attendee, Brad Tennant. “It’s a shame that the Jewish community faces the discrimination they do in 2023, but they’re wonderful … . Calgary rules.”
“The Mayor’s boycott reflects a profound ignorance of Jewish history, and the reality that Israel lies at the heart of Jewish identity,” Mr. Kenney wrote. “Her offensive boycott comes two months after the largest massacre of Jews since the Shoah, and in the context of a growing wave of antisemitism across Canada.”
Calgary is commonly viewed as the capital of Canadian conservatism, but it has a long history of electing liberal mayors and “activist” city councillors. They have ranged from pragmatists such as Dave Bronconnier to relentless idealists such as Naheed Nenshi.
Ms. Gondek is not just the latest version of those. She is the most extreme. Upon taking office she immediately tore up the agreement with the Calgary Flames (later reinstated) for a new arena and, unrelated, declared a state of “climate emergency.”
She is, in other words, the epitome of the modern left.
It should come as no surprise then—in the same week the world watched presidents of leading American universities equivocate on whether calls for the extermination of Jews were acceptable—that Ms. Gondek would find herself boiling in a similar pot.
Only she knows for sure, but it appears that the mayor succumbed to not only her own worst instincts but last-minute, reactionary pressure from the local pro-Palestinian lobby, with whom Canadian leftists such as she and many of her council colleagues have traditionally allied themselves.
In doing so, she failed in her moral duty as a civic leader. In invoking the “conniving Jews” allusion, she breathed new life into an ageless antisemitic slur. In continuing to blame the Jews, she has made it clear there’s more to come.
She proved herself not only wrongheaded and ignorant about Hanukkah, but also disinterested in learning about and respecting the roots of Judaism.
In doing so, she inspired hurt and division within her city, and embarrassed it before the province, the nation, and the world.
It’s time Ms. Gondek takes a walk.
