Your Ward News publishes new edition, continues attacks against Jews

The cover of the Winter 2018 edition of Your Ward News.

Bernie Farber hasn’t held a leadership position in the Jewish community since just before the demise of the Canadian Jewish Congress in 2011, yet he continues to live rent-free in the mind of accused anti-Semitic hatemonger James Sears.

As has often been the case, Farber’s image made another unsolicited appearance in Your Ward News, dressed in a black hat with payot and depicted in a cartoon montage as “an eternal victim,” while addressing Ontario Attorney General Yasir Naqvi in a derogatory manner.

The cartoon is one of several in the Winter 2018 edition of Your Ward News, whose editor in chief, Sears, and publisher, Leroy St. Germaine, were charged in November with promoting hatred of Jews and women.

In the current edition of the free paper, Sears doubles down on a number of anti-Semitic stereotypes.

Its cover features a bottle of Chateau Rothschild wine decorated with a star of David, with the caption, “Essence d’Enfant,” a reference to the historic blood libel that claimed that Jews consumed the blood of gentile children.

READ: EDITOR, PUBLISHER OF YOUR WARD NEWS CHARGED WITH PROMOTING HATE

And the anti-Semitism doesn’t stop there. In a cartoon speech bubble, Jewish investor George Soros gives Prime Minister Justin Trudeau instructions on advancing a “zio-globalist” plan, with the prime minister responding by saying, “I’ve followed your orders” – suggesting Jewish control over political figures.

“The man (Sears) is just a hatemonger. There’s no other way to describe him,” said Farber. “It’s the kind of things you’d see in Stormfront, the neo-Nazi website in the United States.”

Your Ward News makes no secrets of its pro-Nazi sympathies, with fawning references to Hitler and even a photoshopped image of a child wearing a Nazi brownshirt with a swastika armband.

Your Ward News has been a lightning rod for controversy for several years, ever since residents of the east end of Toronto found it in their mailboxes, delivered by Canada Post, along with the rest of their mail.

At the time, Canada Post employees voiced concerns about delivering the material, while community groups and individuals complained about receiving the paper unbidden.

James Sears

In 2016, Judy Foote, the minister responsible for Canada Post, ordered the Crown corporation to stop delivering the publication, while community organizations and Jewish groups called on law enforcement to lay hate crime charges against its proprietors.

“The anti-Semitism, racism, misogyny and other hateful content spewed by this publication is repugnant and shameful. We were encouraged that charges were laid against the paper’s editor and publisher, and we will continue working to ensure that Canadian families do not receive hate propaganda on their doorsteps,” said Noah Shack, the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs’ interim vice-president for the Greater Toronto Area.

Warren and Lisa Kinsella have been among the loudest critics of Your Ward News, and they, like Farber, have often been featured in its pages.

They allege that the paper published death threats against them, and they filed separate civil actions against the paper and the people behind it.

For his part, Sears is contesting all the legal steps taken against the paper and rejecting the allegations that have been made by his critics. He told CBC News that, “Being criticized by mentally deranged Marxists has never caused us to consider shutting down our truth tract.”

The Winter 2018 edition notes that it is responding to six legal attacks and that, “We are fighting to overturn the Canada Post ban.” Meanwhile, Sears claims that 305,000 copies of the publication are being distributed by private companies and a “volunteer army.”

The man is just a hatemonger. There’s no other way to describe him.
– Bernie Farber

Warren Kinsella said that seeing a new edition of Your Ward News after its two principals were charged criminally was somewhat unexpected.

“I wish I could say I was surprised, but common sense doesn’t seem to be a characteristic of these individuals,” he said.

Kinsella speculated that they ignored the advice of lawyers not to publish, or “they have a bottomless” amount of money.

There are rumours, he continued, that the publication is receiving financial support from extremists in Germany and South Africa.

“Based on the evidence, they must be getting support from somewhere. We think it’s offshore,” he said.

According to Kinsella, who wrote a book on the racist fringe in Canada, Your Ward News is being distributed as far as Kingston and Niagara Falls, Ont.

He noted that it appears as though Sears has become something of a hero among extremists around the world who share his admiration for the Nazi cause. Photos on the Your Ward News website show German Holocaust “revisionist” Alfred Schaefer, who is awaiting trial on charges of Holocaust denial, with a copy of the paper, as well as French writer Robert Faurisson, who testified on behalf of neo-Nazi Ernst Zundel, also holding a copy of Your Ward News that was presented to him by “Canadian nationalist” Paul Fromm.