Achi news desk-
Ottawa –
Jewish students on major university campuses are forced to hide their Jewish identity and fear for their safety as they face a tide of antisemitism that school administrators are failing to protect them from, a student group said Wednesday.
Six students from schools in Ontario, Quebec and Alberta appeared on Parliament Hill to raise the alarm about an increase in anti-semitism on their campuses, which was fueled by the Israel-Hamas war.
They spoke to several Liberal MPs including Anthony Housefather, who helped launch a parliamentary committee study into anti-semitism on campuses due to start on Thursday, which was supported by all parties.
“My friends who used to wear kippot on campus are now wearing baseball caps instead,” says Nati Pressman, founder of the Canadian Union of Jewish Students.
“This is not because we are less proud to be Jewish, but because our universities have fostered and created an environment where Jewish openness could be a threat to our physical and emotional safety.”
Many say they are experiencing a dramatic increase in anti-semitic behavior since October 7.
That day, Hamas militants launched an attack on southern Israel, killing 1,200 Israeli civilians and military members. The retaliatory siege, bombardment and ground attacks in the Gaza Strip have left more than 30,000 Palestinians dead, regional health officials said.
Protests fuel concerns
Recently, pro-Palestinian students and activists have set up camps at some universities in Canada – including McGill University, University of Toronto, University of Ottawa and University of British Columbia – to protest Israel’s war against Hamas.
Jewish administrators and leaders have raised concerns about antisemitic chants and slogans featured in the protests saying hate will not be tolerated.
McGill student Claire Frankel says she has heard slogans that “dehumanize Jews,” but believes many students are demonstrating “for the right reasons” and want to see lasting peace.
“The chants heard during this past school year and at the camp at McGill include, ‘All Zionists are racists,’ ‘All Zionists are terrorists,’ ‘There is only one answer, an intifada revolution’ and ‘Leave Palestine alone and go back to Europe,'” she said.
Walking to class recently, Frankel said she saw a sign that read, “Zionists are not welcome.”
Intifada, which means “shaking” in Arabic, was coined to describe an uprising against Israeli military occupation that erupted in 1987. The so-called first intifada was marked by widespread Palestinian protests and a fierce Israeli response.
In the second uprising, which began in 2000, Palestinian militants carried out deadly suicide bombings on buses and in restaurants and hotels, prompting Israeli military retaliation.
The role of spectators
Yos Tarshish, who directs the Queen’s University chapter of a national Jewish organization, says that while much of the conversation surrounding the rise in antisemitism focuses on how universities should respond, he questions the role of bystanders.
“Where are ordinary, individual, everyday, regular, run-of-the-mill Canadians in this?” he said.
“Where are you when you hear someone calling all Jewish students terrorists, or (saying) any Jewish student who believes their ancestors’ right to self-determination in their homeland is racist – where does the Canadian turn around and saying, ‘How dare you … how dare you say that to anyone?'”
Anastasia Zorchinsky, who attends Concordia University and is Israeli, said that the situation on campuses has been allowed to rise to the level that Jewish students do not feel welcome in the country’s academic institutions.
“We are no longer students, because instead of begging for an assignment extension, we have to beg for our safety on the campuses as we sit in class with the same people who praised the terrorism on October 7.”
Zorchinsky said she woke up to read threatening comments on her Instagram account that read, “We will find you on campus.”
University of Alberta law student Rachel Cook detailed how her request last December to display a menorah at the school instead led to the removal of Christmas trees, which were on the site.
“I had one of my own faculty members sign an open letter stating that we should put the cruelty in context on October 7 because it didn’t happen in a vacuum,” he said.
Cook said she is also “deeply sorry” for what her Muslim classmates and the wider Muslim community are experiencing, adding, “there’s a lot of hurt on both sides.”
The students on Wednesday described what they call a failure by school administrators to respond to their safety concerns and hold people accountable for targeting Jewish students.
Sydney Greenspoon, who attends the University of Windsor, said that when she and other Jewish students were harassed and “forced to flee an incident” by people who called them murderers, they filed a complaint with the school and they were told that nothing could be done because there were not enough people to deal with the deluge of similar complaints.
This report was first published by The Canadian Press on May 8, 2024.
With files from Dylan Robertson and The Associated Press
