VANCOUVER, British Columbia – Masha Kleiner sits at a campus café, a Star of David necklace prominently displayed against her sweater as well as another necklace showing the map of the State of Israel, with all the disputed areas as well.
A year ago, she would have never imagined herself as a public figure standing against pro-Palestinian demonstrations with homemade signs or documenting antisemitism across Canada in weekly reports.
Born in the Soviet Union, Kleiner immigrated to Israel in 1990 when the USSR collapsed. After living in Israel for 18 years, she moved to Vancouver in 2008, drawn by the city's outdoor lifestyle.
"I love challenges," Kleiner said. "I love skiing and mountain climbing. Vancouver seemed like a nice adventure because it's an ideal place for both."
Her life in Vancouver was quiet. Her daughter was born in Israel, her son in Canada. She worked from home in software development and had little involvement with the local Jewish community.
"I wasn't involved with the community at all," she explained. "I had friends who did Birthright, but that was it. Just friends. And very few Canadian friends, honestly, because I worked from home. Everything was really nice and pretty relaxed."
Then came October 7, 2023.
In the initial days, the Hamas attack seemed like a terrible crime that had happened in a faraway place. "It looked heartbreaking and scary and terrible, but it was something that happened in Israel," Kleiner said. But within days, her perception shifted dramatically.
Q: When did you start to feel that something was changing in Canada?
"Gradually – I don't remember a specific moment – but the realization fell pretty quickly. Within about 10 days or a week, it became very clear that something terribly frightening was happening here."
The feeling that Israel is all alone in Canada, especially under the incumbent Liberal government, has come to the limelight recently ahead of the federal election set for April 28.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lashed out at his Canadian counterpart, Prime Minister Mark Carney of Canada, on X after the latter appeared to concur with a heckler at a rally that Israel was committing genocide in Gaza.
"Canada has always sided with civilization. So should Mr. Carney," Netanyahu wrote. "But instead of supporting Israel, a democracy that is fighting a just war with just means against the barbarians of Hamas, he attacks the one and only Jewish state. Mr. Carney, backtrack your irresponsible statement!"
Canada has always sided with civilization. So should Mr. Carney. But instead of supporting Israel, a democracy that is fighting a just war with just means against the barbarians of Hamas, he attacks the one and only Jewish state. Mr. Carney, backtrack your irresponsible… https://t.co/27ZcXjew85
— Benjamin Netanyahu - בנימין נתניהו (@netanyahu) April 10, 2025
Although Israel is not a major issue on the ballot, the differences between Carney, who has continued Justin Trudeau's frostiness toward Israel, and his main rival, the Conservatives Party leader Pierre Poilievre could not be starker. Poilievre has become a darling of the local Jewish community, and has vowed to protect Israel and support it in the fight against its enemies, including Iran. Carney, on the other hand, not only made the gaffe at the rally (although he later said he was not agreeing with the word genocide, which he supposedly didn't hear, just on the need to end the war), he has also for the first time publicly declared an arms embargo on Israel, and over the past weekend, issued a Passover greeting online without mentioning Israel once.
Q: What was the first indication of trouble you noticed personally?
"The situation at University of British Columbia campus. In one of the early days of October, I saw a video of a demonstration where they were walking with this big banner with a hammer and sickle on it that said 'Intifada (violent uprising) until victory.' That was a real shock. I called the police. I was sure they would come, clear them out, and put them in jail."
Q: What was the police response?
"I ran to tell the campus police that people were demonstrating, and I asked if they knew what 'intifada' meant. They told me, 'Okay, I understand this is upsetting to you, but this is just fundraising, not necessarily violence.' We talked for about an hour and I got nowhere. They told me, 'This is a Marxist club that has been active at UBC for 30 years. They say extreme things; it's not a big deal. You need to get used to it.'"
Q: When did you start becoming more actively involved?
"As I started researching more, I found out there was actually a pro-Hamas demonstration on October 8, already in the evening, packed in the Art Gallery square downtown. I learned that there is an organization based in Vancouver with its leaders connected to all the local neo-Nazis. They were behind all the demonstrations."
Q: So how did you move from concern to activism?
"At first, I didn't know anyone. A friend from [pro-Israel group] Stand With Us said, 'Maybe join a WhatsApp group.' I joined a WhatsApp group and met some people here and there, started to understand what was happening. I did various things – I really enjoyed sending emails to all kinds of news media like Globe and Mail, Vancouver Sun, The Province, The National Post, telling them, 'Here you lied, here you lied.' Of course, none of them sent a response to me."
Q: Were you surprised by the media bias?
"The media being so against us didn't surprise me that much. I remember even from 2015 seeing coverage where there was an attack in Israel where seven or eight people were stabbed in a synagogue, but the outlet wrote about it as 'Two Palestinians killed by Israeli police.' It was only in the very last sentence of the last paragraph that they mentioned the terrorist stabbings. So I knew this happens, but the scale was surprising. And the politicians too – most said it was terrible what happened on October 7, but very quickly they changed their tune."
Q: Can you talk about specific politicians' responses?
"Compared to all the European prime ministers and Joe Biden, Trudeau took an extra week to replace his first statement which was very weak. It became clear the situation was pretty disgusting. Politicians who had initially said 'this is terrible' quickly changed their messaging. The drama here in Vancouver was happening even before Columbia University had anything. It was already here in October and November."
Kleiner, who has led regular solidarity marches in support of Israel, most recently on April 6 to mark the 18th anniversary of the Oct. 7 atrocities, takes great pain to stress she is hardly the most important Jewish advocate in Vancouver. "I do my share, I have my niche and these are the things I can speak to best. But there definitely are organizations and individuals working hard on other things."
Q: How did the idea for the flag walks start?
"On Israel's Independence Day last year, in one of the WhatsApp groups for community security volunteers, someone threw out the idea at 2 p.m. that we should go support the city because they had agreed to light up the Burrard Bridge in blue and white. There was a huge fight about it because they'd received so many threatening messages not to light it blue and white. But in the end, they did light it, and we said we'd go with flags to support them. Someone suggested this at 2 p.m., and by 6 p.m. we were there, about 60 people with flags."
Q: What was the reaction?
"I had this tiny little speaker – really small, just for playing music – and what really surprised us was how much more support we got than hate. That was really nice to feel and really surprising because we were prepared for everyone to hate us. But no – someone even counted, we got 92 positive reactions and only nine negative ones. So I said, 'We need to do this again!'"
At Columbia University in New York, where a massive encampment set up illegally by pro-Palestinian marchers created chaos on campus and led an intimidation campaign against Jews studying there. A similar encampment set up on the UBC campus in Vancouver tried to do the same and to a certain degree it did disrupt the lives of many students. Jews seen as Zionists were prevented from entering the encampment of passing through it on the way to class. However, what is left of the encampment as of April 2025 is nothing but an empty tent not blocking anyone's way. Likewise, the pro-Palestinian demonstrations in Vancouver lack any energy now, with the events often transformed into children activities like "Kite-Flying in Solidarity with Gaza." In that sense, Kleiner and the rest of the Jewish organizations can feel vindicated that the momentum is on their side, despite the prevailing narrative in the Canadian mainstream media.
Q: Let's talk about the UBC encampment. When did that start?
"The encampment started on April 29. They stole wooden pallets from construction sites nearby – I have video of them explaining this. They connected them with nails, and it became like tall floors. They put up fences."
Q: How did the university administration respond?
"It's really a circus, it's embarrassing how they behaved. If they had brought police to evict them on the first day, it would have been really easy. But over time, they built a fortress. The police couldn't do anything because it's a campus. The university administration needed to ask them to leave, but the president was too afraid. He's such a fearful Canadian guy – he isn't prepared for these things."
The university sent a vice president to negotiate with the protesters, but Kleiner described watching the video of this interaction with embarrassment. "It's humiliating to see a mature person in a good position with a good salary humiliating himself before these rude young people who handed him some paper with demands written in pencil. He's saying sorry and thank you and how important it is that they're willing to talk."
Q: Tell me about the time you went into the UBC encampment.
"The encampment was less frightening because I regularly go there to 'measure their temperature,' to see how things are progressing. It seems like a defense mechanism for me – I want to know what's happening and what they're doing all the time. Because it's much more frightening, dangerous and violent on the East Coast, which gives me an indication that here it's relatively safer. They had a strike at UBC about a week ago, so I went there. I really tried to hide because I just wanted to take pictures – no signs, nothing, just document. I put on a camera, a mask, and I had an umbrella, so I thought nobody would notice. But they noticed pretty quickly. They surrounded me and wouldn't let me move. They put flags in my face."
Q: Was that on campus?
"Yes, near where the bus loop is, behind the Nest building [the main student union building and a major place for all students]. It wasn't scary because it was daytime, so they weren't going to kill me there. But it was unpleasant."
Q: You mentioned divisions in the Jewish community. Can you elaborate?
"There's a whole spectrum. There are those who are openly hostile – the most famous in Canada is Independent Jewish Voices, IJV, which in the United States is JVP, Jewish Voices for Peace. It's two sides of the same coin. The media and politicians really love them and always amplify their voice: 'Look, Jews said this.' Then there are those somewhere in the middle who say, 'We really love Israel, we're Zionists, but Israel is doing this and that.' Then they tell you the whole anti-Zionist narrative – there's genocide, apartheid, all these left-wing extremist talking points – but they say, 'We're saying this from a place of love. We need to stop giving weapons to Israel because it's from a place of love.'"
Kleiner said that after the successful blue-and-white lighting of the Burrard Bridge, the city received a backlash from pro-Palestinian groups. The rules have since changed, she notes, and she claims the city no longer allows light displays on the bridge if they are part of a political messages. Nevertheless, she has nothing but good words to say on the city's handling of the anti-Israel attacks on her and her community (the city is not officially in charge of campus-related matters or the encampment, since the university is not on city land).
Q: How has Vancouver's city government responded?
"The mayor is not super pro-Zionist, but in terms of supporting our community, I think he's doing what he can. He's received many threats, and there was even vandalism at his house with violent messages painted on his fence.
Q: Because you his support for Israel?
"Yes."
Q: Have you encountered antisemitism in schools?
"There have been documented cases. There's been a teacher's guide on how to teach the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that's been used in schools here for eight years. They claim it's balanced, but the sentence I love most from it is: 'One nation's terrorist is another nation's freedom fighter.' That's a direct quote – it's the sentence I hate most. Twice they mention the Intifada, but they never define what it is. They just write the word. But they say it's the 'excuse' Israel used to build the separation barrier. It's really not balanced, and there are teachers who teach like this – there are reports of it."
Q: Tell me about your petition against teaching the Nakba [the Palestinian term to denote the 'catastrophe' of Israel's creation] in schools.
"In March, I created a petition against Nakba education in schools. Plus, the teachers' union in November had sent $50,000 to UNRWA [the controversial UN agency handling Palestinian matters whose employees allegedly helped Oct. 7]. When I did the petition, CBC interviewed me, but it was a joke because they threw out everything I said and kept only one sentence mentioning I was from Israel. We talked for 20 minutes. Half the article was from the pro-Palestinian side, and the other half featured anti-Zionist Jewish organizations. Just one sentence from me in the middle."
Q: Is that when you became more recognizable in Vancouver?
"From that moment onwards, people have been paying a bit more attention to my face and my name. But the next thing I did made me far more visible. I stole the idea from an Iranian activist in London – I made a big sign saying 'Hamas is a terrorist organization,' took a friend, and we went to their demonstration at the Art Gallery in Downtown Vancouver. I stood there with the sign. So anyone who didn't know me before knew me after that. We stood there for half an hour. The police were there. They [the pro-Palestinians] grabbed my sign and broke it."
Q: You've done many of these counter-protests since then?
"I've done it several more times. We were there on October 7 for the anniversary with some friends as the pro-Palestinian marchers burned the Canadian flag. We were there with signs saying 'Hamas is a terrorist organization.' There was a police line between us because they really didn't want us to go there. And some Canadians who were walking by stopped and held signs with us. We had one sign that was really popular with Canadians, it read 'Take your Jihadi terror back to where it came from.' They really loved that one, and we held both the Israeli flag and the Canadian flag."
Q: Do the anti-Israel protesters sing the Canadian anthem like pro-Israel demonstrators do?
"No, they don't sing. They actually hate Canada too. They often don't even say 'Canada' – they say 'So-called Canada' or put Canada in quotation marks. Because it's the same narrative that this land was also stolen, that it's First Nations land. And we all need to 'decolonize.' Now, I haven't had a chance to have a conversation with them about this, like, where do they want us to go? Especially since many of them are also immigrants."
Q: Have you had any personal safety concerns from your activism?
"It's a bit frightening sometimes, but I don't really focus on personal security. I have received no personal threats that I could take to the police. I did have someone write to me on LinkedIn and then find me on all my social networks after I reported a person who was relabeling Israeli products at Costco. He worked in HR at CIBC, a big bank, at a senior level. I put it on Twitter and it went viral. He was fired, and then his friend started messaging me, saying what a terrible person I am. He seems a bit unhinged, sending long messages on Instagram. That's starting to be a bit unpleasant because it's someone local."
Q: Have you lost friends over your activism?
"I lost one friend who works for the Red Cross. She's not Jewish, but somehow relative to all the other things happening, you feel it in proportion. It wasn't that she was pro-Palestinian, but she wasn't willing to listen. We sat and talked, but she said it's all so complicated and sad, and she wanted to stay neutral. That's not enough for me."
Q: What would you tell Israelis considering moving to Canada right now?
"I can't recommend anything to anyone. Everyone makes their own calculations. The first thing that really flashed in my mind in October was 'I want to go home.' I had never had that thought before."
Q: Home to Israel, even after 17 years away?
"Yes, but I have various circumstances – I have children with their own things. So for now I'm here, and I said, okay, while I'm here, I need to try to fix something here because that's important too."
Q: What concerns you most about the future here?
"All the pro-terrorist organizations are promoting what they call 'anti-Palestinian racism,' which is a 60-page PDF I could send you. To summarize, there are various things you're not allowed to say because they're considered racist. You can't say Jews are indigenous to Israel. You can't say anything connecting Palestinians to terrorism, not even Hamas. If these policies suddenly become official policy of the government, or university policy, or school policy, you're really in trouble. Israelis coming here need to know there's a possibility their fifth-grade children might suddenly receive this manifesto."
Q: Have there been instances of this in schools already?
"Yes, there was a case – it was publicized, but I'm sure there are many that aren't – where a teacher in a high-level district, still a good job with a good salary, asked on an exam, maybe for sixth or seventh grade, 'Does Israel have the right to exist, yes or no?' There are teachers who go to all the demonstrations and shout into megaphones. I know them personally."
Video: Marchers sing the national anthems after the rally / Erez Linn
Q: Do you see any hope in the situation?
"When I walk around the city with a sign that says 'I'm a Zionist, ask me questions,' I get different reactions. What's most interesting is that many people, even a year into the war, say, 'I don't know anything about this conflict.' So there are many people you can talk to and reach, which is really hard. The silent majority is still out there, but it's increasingly difficult to reach them through the noise."
Q: Are you optimistic about the future?
Kleiner smiles. "No comment. I don't know. It depends day by day. The planning horizon is very short now."
