'I'm terrified': Rising Canadian antisemitism unnerves gold-medal-winning Jew
It is the middle of an ordinary weekday in Toronto and Paul Rosen is fieldside, looking on proudly as one of his six grandchildren plays in an inter-school soccer game.
Someone asks Rosen about his own playing days, when he starred as a one-legged goaltender with Canada’s gold-medal-winning Paralympic hockey team.
And then the conversation shifts to what is perhaps foremost on his mind these days: the rampant rise of antisemitism.
Rosen is proudly Jewish, and profoundly worried. He worries that the Canadian government has done little if anything to try to protect Jews from the heinous attacks and assaults aimed at them. He worries that police forces are turning the other cheek at open antisemitism on Canadian streets. He worries about the safety of his grandchildren.
“Actually, I’m terrified,” he says with detectible fear in his raspy voice. “When I grew up, there was antisemitism, sure, but we handled it. Nowadays, in the past couple of years, the antisemitism is evident in ways I never dreamed of – with shootings at Jewish schools and institutions. My grandkids go to Jewish schools. So, yes, I worry about them a great deal.”
Rosen knows first-hand just how sick and how hurtful antisemitic targeting can be.
“I would lose it when it was aimed at me during the three Paralympics I played in and the many international tournaments,” he recalls. “I mean, here we were in the middle of high-level competition, and in the Paralympics for crying out loud, and this is the kind of thing that comes to their minds.
“It was devastating. Heck, it still is.”
On more than one occasion during his netminding days, Rosen’s immediate reaction was to react with fisticuffs. It was hockey, after all.
“A German player was in my crease during the Paralympics and was pushing in a scrum after a whistle, so I routinely I shoved him back,” Rosen remembers. “Then he looked straight at me and said, ‘Hitler should’ve killed all you Jews.’ That obviously crossed the line and my immediate reaction was to start swinging away at him. I broke his jaw.
“Some of the guys with the United States team were antisemites as well. I made a save off one of them and his reaction was to yell ‘You dirty f—–g Jew’ at me. I didn’t go after him there, but I did in the post-game handshake and that started a wild brawl.”
The on-ice antisemitism followed him off the ice; he had trouble letting these incidents go.
“The hate, the disgusting slurs, they haunted me, especially when I’d be in bed at home, and they still do,” he says. “They depressed me. I am a proud Jew and I simply find it unfathomable that people in this world despise us for one thing – our religion.”
He retired from hockey in 2010, and the transition was rough. Addiction issues. Mental-health issues. There were even suicide attempts.
“People may remember me for playing for Canada in the Paralympics,” Rosen says, “but they certainly wouldn’t know about the demons that were in my head.”
The demons first began more than 25 years ago, when Rosen broke his leg in 14 places, catching his skate in a rut that ultimately led to numerous surgeries and an amputation.
“Even after the amputation, there was phantom pain,” he says. “I used painkillers and things, but I’m happy to say now that I’ve been clean and sober for about four years.”
Rosen joined Canada’s national team in 2001. At 40, he was the oldest rookie in Paralympic hockey history. He competed in three Paralympic Winter Games. He earned gold in 2006 in Torino and finished in fourth place in 2002 and 2010. He also led Canada to world championship gold in 2008.
During his career, Rosen amassed a record of 55-15-1 and a remarkable 1.04 goals-against average. He also recorded 25 shutouts in 72 career games.
In 2021, he wrote a book entitled ‘’Never Give Up – The Meaning of my Life.”
At 66, Rosen spends much of his time these days enjoying the company of his grandkids. He also is TSN’s colour commentator for the World Challenge, an annual event that pits the top four para teams against each other and he travels throughout Canada as a motivational speaker, where he talks about addictions, mental health and pursuing dreams.
And he talks about the rise of the antisemitism that is contorting Canada into something unrecognizable.
“Never,” he says, “will I stop fighting Jew hate. Never.”
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