David Katzman says that when he was a teenager in Saskatoon, he believed antisemitism was largely a thing of the past.
He remembers older members of his synagogue, Congregation Agudas Israel, telling him in the 1970s that “antisemitism never truly dies,” but “goes to sleep” and waits for the right conditions to return.
“At the time, I thought they were being overly pessimistic. Today, I know they were right,” Katzman said in Saskatoon provincial court Monday.
He was giving a victim impact statement at the sentencing for Brandon Taylor Moore, who pleaded guilty earlier this year to publicly inciting hatred against Jewish people.
Moore, 45, was arrested last December after police investigated complaints about antisemitic comments on his account on X, formerly Twitter. He was also charged with wilfully promoting hatred, wilfully promoting antisemitism and unsafe storage of a firearm; those charges were stayed at the conclusion of his sentencing on Monday.
According to the agreed facts on his sentencing, Moore operated an account on X that had approximately 180,000 followers. Between February 2024 and December 2025, Moore communicated “prolifically,” with certain statements inciting hatred against Jewish people.
“Those statements included hateful invective directed at Jewish people including public communications calling for their removal or exclusion,” Crown prosecutor David Piche said.
As of Monday afternoon, Moore’s account was still online, although he hasn’t made new posts on it since his arrest in December, when he was released on bail conditions that included not posting anything on the Internet.
Now, as a condition of his sentence, Moore will be required to delete all his posts on it between Feb. 1, 2024, and Dec. 17, 2025.
Katzman, other Jewish people and representatives of Jewish organizations spoke in court of the anxiety, hurt and fear that Moore’s posts caused.
Police charged Brandon Taylor Moore, 45, with publicly inciting hatred after they received a complaint. He made his first court appearance Thursday.
“Brandon Taylor Moore’s posts were not merely offensive or insulting,” said Rochelle Direnfeld, on behalf of the Alliance of Canadians Combatting Antisemitism.
“They drew on familiar antisemitic tropes and dehumanizing narratives that have been used for generations to marginalize, expel and persecute Jewish people.”
Piche and Moore, who represented himself in court, presented a joint sentencing recommendation for an 18-month conditional sentence order — a jail sentence that is served in the community.
Moore will be under house arrest for the first six months, then have to abide by a curfew of 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. for the following six months.
He must also take personal counselling and educational programming for hate speech as directed, and perform 150 hours of community service.
When Judge Sanjeev Anand asked Moore if he had anything he wanted to say, Moore read a brief prepared statement.
He said that he has served on boards, worked on inner-city outreach, volunteered with Big Brothers Big Sisters of Saskatoon and taught “children’s church” at his church for years.
He said that when he watched what was happening to the children in Gaza, “I couldn’t look away.”
Sentence prompts different reactions
Piche said he thought the sentence struck the right balance between consequences and rehabilitation.
“It shows a person with no record can receive a very significant sentence, going all the way to a CSO right off the bat,” he said in a scrum with journalists, adding this was an unusual case for Saskatchewan.
“Hate speech cases are quite rare. So, it was a first for me, and again, prosecutors in our office don’t get them very often.”
A Jewish advocacy organization said the sentence didn’t go far enough.
“We don’t believe that the sentence reflects the gravity of the charges or the severity of the harm which Mr. Moore inflicted on the Jewish community,” said Richard Robertson, B’nai Brith Canada’s director of research and advocacy, who also read a community impact statement into the court’s record.
He said B’nai Brith spent years investigating Moore’s posts and filed complaints to authorities. Robertson said a plea deal meant not enough evidence was allowed in the sentencing hearing.
“That, in our opinion, was insufficient to really demonstrate the totality of Mr. Moore’s antisemitism, the totality of the hate that he incited, and really the veracity of problematic conduct,” he said.
The group released a statement saying the sentencing shows provincial governments should establish teams that focus on prosecuting hate crimes.
A United Nations Commission of Inquiry has said that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza, during the war following the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack that killed 1,200 people in Israel. The Palestinian death toll from the nearly three-year war has surpassed 74,000, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.
Moore said that he understood he was in court because of how his words could be read by the public and “that’s on me.”
Judge Sanjeev Anand told Moore that his comments “crossed a line” by making comments that went beyond a government’s actions and were directed toward “an entire people” who have been historically subject to systemic discrimination and attempts at extermination.
“Don’t let your passions for individuals who may have been the victims of injustice colour your perspective on the good people who are your neighbours,” Anand said.