Members of Toronto’s Jewish community gathered at Adath Israel Congregation on Monday evening, for a city-wide Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremony, with survivors, families and civic leaders, including Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow, in attendance.
The April 13 event was organized by the Toronto Holocaust Museum in partnership with several Jewish organizations. It featured survivor testimony, a candle-lighting ceremony honouring living survivors and their families, musical performances, and tributes to those survivors who died over the past year.
The commemoration aimed to remember the six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust and reinforce the responsibility to preserve their stories. A segment of the evening included descendants of survivors stating the names of relatives they were named after — a symbolic act underscoring continuity and remembrance.
In a keynote address, Israel’s Consul General Idit Shamir drew parallels between the normalization of antisemitism in pre-Holocaust Europe and what she described as rising tolerance for anti-Jewish hatred today.
“The Holocaust did not begin in the gas chambers,” Shamir said. “It began with permission — permission to dehumanize, to isolate, to mark and to exclude. Each step made the next one easier.”
She warned that the danger lies not only in overt acts of violence, but in what she characterized as gradual societal acceptance of hate — including from political leadership.
“When we ask, will you act, will you protect Jewish students and Jewish communities, they don’t answer. They call this freedom of expression,” Shamir said. “We know this language — it is not new. It echoes old lies, even blood libels, repackaged for today.”
In a more pointed passage that referenced municipal leadership, Shamir added that such dynamics are shaped locally as well, with inaction equating to institutional permission for hate to spread.
She delivered the remarks as Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow sat among attendees. Chow has faced scrutiny from segments of the Jewish community over her public comments on the Israel-Hamas war. In November 2025, she drew criticism from organizations including B’nai Brith Canada and the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) after referring to the situation in Gaza as a “genocide” during a speech at a National Council of Canadian Muslims fundraising gala. Chow defended the remark, saying her view was informed by international reports and reiterating her calls for peace, the return of hostages and a ceasefire. She also apologized for missing a Toronto vigil marking the one-year anniversary of the Oct. 7 attacks, attributing her absence to “miscommunication,” a response that drew disappointment from some Jewish community leaders.
Since Hamas’s attack on Oct. 7, Chow has consistently called for a ceasefire in Gaza, including in a March 2024 op-ed in The Toronto Star, where she described the Oct. 7 attacks as “horrific” while also calling conditions in Gaza “unbearable.” At the same time, she has publicly condemned rising antisemitism in Toronto, acknowledging fear within the Jewish community while also addressing concerns raised by Muslim, Arab and Palestinian residents.
Dara Solomon, executive director of the Toronto Holocaust Museum, who sat next to the Toronto mayor during the event, said turnout and engagement have grown over the past year as community members seek connection in a difficult moment.
“I think the community just really wants to come together, both to celebrate beautiful things … but also to remember,” Solomon said. “Participation has really grown. People are connecting to different parts of our heritage, and the Holocaust sits at the centre of that.”
She said the evening’s goal was “to bring people together and to hear from as many Holocaust survivors as possible,” noting that this year’s theme of family shaped the program.
“It was beautiful … everything was so touching,” she said. “The theme made it joyful, even through the hard parts.”
Solomon added that the museum continues to play a key educational role in the city.
“We are the only place in Toronto bringing school groups through every day to hear survivor testimony, to look at primary sources and artifacts, and to learn how to think critically — so that we hope they will stand up against hate and bigotry of all kinds.”
At a ceremony marking Yom ha-Shoah in Toronto, April 13, 2026, attendees were encouraged to hang photos and the names of their family members who died in the Holocaust. (Credit: Shay Markowitz for the Toronto Holocaust Museum.)
Among the program elements were recorded video testimonies from Holocaust survivors, who spoke about the hope and purpose they acquired while raising families in Toronto. Included among these testimonies was a message from Paula Goldhar, who survived the Holocaust as a child in Nazi-occupied Poland, enduring years of hiding and displacement after her family was torn apart. Much of her early life was shaped by constant danger, secrecy and the loss of loved ones, before she eventually rebuilt her life after the war and later immigrated to Canada. She is currently 103 years old and lives in Toronto.
Speaking with The CJN after the event, her son, Sheldon Goldhar, reflected on the importance of preserving those stories as the survivor population declines.
“Every year that goes by, unfortunately, there are fewer and fewer survivors,” he said. “As we always say, we must never forget. This is a way to keep the memory of the Holocaust alive and inspire our children.”
He said hearing and sharing his mother’s testimony remains deeply meaningful.
“I always feel I’m blessed that she’s still with us today. Every moment with her is special,” he said. “Seeing her testimony is very inspiring. I hope it is for others, too.”