'It’s needed now more than ever': Jewish community optimistic ahead of Walk with Israel fundraiser

Toronto Jewish community leaders are hopeful that the 2025 Walk with Israel will build on the record-breaking attendance, fundraising and public support of last year’s march. “The Walk with Israel really represents a moment of solidarity and togetherness and pride for the Jewish community in Toronto,” Sara Lefton, the chief development officer of the United Jewish Appeal Federation of Greater Toronto (UJA), told National Post. “I think at a moment where there has been so much antisemitism and so much isolation of the Jewish community that it’s needed now more than ever.” Last year, the UJA Walk with Israel down Bathurst Street in northern Toronto drew an estimated 50,000 participants, the largest ever in the event’s history. Noah Godfrey, a co-chair of the event alongside his wife, is similarly upbeat that this year’s walk will be a positive gathering for Toronto’s Jewish community and their allies supporting the Jewish state. “We are big believers in the need for the State of Israel, for Jews, and for the need for self-determination. It’s been pretty important a role Israel has played for Jews, not only in Israel, but for the diaspora,” he told the Post. While sporadic groups of anti-Israel protesters lined the walk’s path last year, some of them yelling antisemitic slurs, Lefton noted that UJA is taking safety precautions seriously ahead of this year’s march. “The Jewish security network is working on behalf of the community with Toronto Police to make sure that there’s a coordinated plan to deal with any counter-protesters and to make sure that we’re safe and secure.” Godfrey agreed that organizers were taking any potential threats seriously, but emphasized it would not distract them from the importance of the event. “We’re not deluding ourselves that the people will show up. But we also are not also going to let it ruin our day. We’re gonna have a wonderful day, a wonderful walk,” he said. Upholding a peaceful environment in which Jews and non-Jews alike show their support for Israel is vitally important, Lefton said. “This is a celebratory march about pride,” she said. “We’re marching as Canadians who are standing with Israel.” Another major goal of the walk is to raise money for Israelis. Lefton shared that the 2024 event fundraised over $1 million, which was earmarked to help “people in Israel who are suffering as a result of the current situation.” The UJA executive explained that some of the donations had been used to assist families in Sderot, a town which was attacked during the October 7 invasion by Hamas, who are struggling to find mental health and trauma support. Last year’s walk was buoyed by the return of four Israeli hostages abducted by Hamas and held in Gaza, and this year’s event is equally timely, Lefton said. “It’s a scary time to be a Jew in Toronto and in Canada, in general. We have never seen this kind of hate targeted against our community before,” she said. “Our children are waking up and going to school knowing that there are very real threats that they’re facing. For the last year, our community has really been banding together to make sure that we stand up against this hate and use our voices, because we need to call attention to the fact that we’re facing this kind of hatred and antisemitism and that it’s not acceptable.” The adversity Canadian Jews have faced throughout the days and months since the October 7 atrocities — swastikas graffitied on schools, bomb threats against synagogues, shootings at Jewish day schools — underscored for Godfrey the unending struggle of the Jewish people to never give up or be complacent. “We can never take freedom for granted…. I think that is even more palpable today, post-October 7, than it has been in my entire lifetime,” he said. “It’s even more important now to show our friends in Israel and around the world that they are not alone and that the Jewish diaspora is here and strong and supportive of what we’re fighting for.”

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