Antisemitism in Ontario’s K-12 Schools

"Since October 7th, 2023 – and even before – there have been growing concerns that Jewish students in K-12 schools are experiencing antisemitism. Much of this was based on anecdotal reports or complaints that remained unresolved or undocumented."

"To obtain a clearer picture of the situation, the Office of the Special Envoy on Preserving Holocaust Remembrance and Combatting Antisemitism commissioned Professor Robert Brym to conduct a survey on the subject in Ontario, where most Jewish children in Canada reside. The survey examines the prevalence, nature, and impact of antisemitic incidents in elementary and secondary schools across the province."

Executive Summary: Antisemitism in Ontario's K-12 Schools 

 Viral antisemitism in Canada has reared its ugly head, roared its growling threat, and roamed the streets of Canadian cities led by Palestinian student groups and their Muslim cohorts who have seen enthusiastic cooperation on the part of a good number of Canadians whose latent antisemitism leaking feebly over the decades when to be recognized socially as a bigoted Jew-hater would invite censure, now feeling free to vocalize that simmering hate, join the Palestinian flag-waving, accusations of Israeli 'genocide' in Gaza, and threaten Canada's Jewish population with another 'final solution', chorusing 'from the river to the sea' and 'globalize the intifada'.

 

Against this backdrop of ongoing public displays of hate, condemnation, ostracization and threats, authorities sit on their hands while Muslim groups and their supporters in Canada close down city intersections, deny passage to traffic, kneel in groups of public prayer sessions in defiance of municipal and federal laws against demonstrations of hate, incitement to violence, and traffic bylaws. Murmured censures by public authorities decrying 'antisemitism and Islamophobia' emphasize studied neutrality while police forces are out in numbers maintaining 'order' by ensuring that counter-demonstrators do not provoke the haters.

 

People take part in a pro-Palestinian protest in Toronto on Saturday Sept. 7, 2024.THE CANADIAN PRESS/Doug Ives

 

Jews entering hospitals do so with a sense of caution, carefully removing any obvious hints of their Jewish heritage in justified fear of 'reprisals' by medical staff who just happen to be Muslims aversive to treating Jews. Jewish students at post-secondary institutions taking course classes by faculty who happen to be Muslim, aggrieved that the Israel Defense Forces invaded Gaza in pursuit of Hamas terrorists who on October 7, 2023 flooded by their thousands into southern Israel to perpetrate a mass atrocity of rape, murder and hostage-taking, are met with contempt and curses.

 

And just as Jewish-majority areas of Canada's major cities have seen mobs of keffiyeh-clad, masked Hamas supporters gather and march through their streets clamorously shouting imprecations and threats, children in public schools have been singled out as Jews for special treatment that sets them apart socially from their non-Jewish peers. These are scenarios -- taking into account the vandalizing and boycotting of Jewish-owned businesses, the fire-bombing of synagogues and Jewish social centres, the night-time shooting at Jewish parochial schools -- reminiscent of the Nazi WWII approach to the Holocaust. 

 

A screen capture from a cellphone video showing Windsor police vehicles escorting pro-Palestinian marchers on Victoria Boulevard in South Windsor on Dec. 31, 2023. (CBC News)

"In the public [school] system, Jewish students are frequently ostracized, isolated and assaulted verbally and physically. Jewish schools are targets of graffiti, vandalism, bomb threats and shootings at school buildings."

"In more than four of ten cases, antisemitic incidents are Nazi-inspired, expressing the hope that all Jews will soon be gassed and cremated, for example."

"Little is being done to resolve the crisis. In about six of ten reported cases, schools do not investigate, deny that the incident involves antisemitism, or effectively punish victims by recommending that they take remote classes or switch schools."

Survey on Antisemitism in Ontario Schools, author, Professor Robert Brym  

The report issued under the aegis of the special envoy on preserving Holocaust remembrance and combating antisemitism has laid bare the issues of antisemitism that Jewish schoolchildren in Ontario

have been subjected to. That teaching staff in these public schools, from kindergarten on up to Grade 12 have been involved with, and complicit in tormenting Jewish children is an additional shock. A six-year-old child informed by her teacher that as a little girl with one Jewish parent, she is only 'half human'.

 

That teachers can submit themselves to this type of shameful demeanor and feel entitled to express themselves in such a manner, and that complaints by parents fail to move school administrations to act on their complaints points to the level of the moral rot that has set in. Some children in the public school system were penalized as a result of complaints that they were being harassed and verbally assaulted by other students by being themselves removed from the schools' student rolls, while others were forced to attend classes virtually. 

Key findings of the survey include the following:

• More than 40% of antisemitic incidents involved Nazi salutes, assertions that Hitler should have finished the job, and the like. Fewer than 60% of antisemitic incidents refer to Israel or the Israel-Hamas war.
• Nearly one in six antisemitic incidents were initiated or approved by a teacher or involve a school-sanctioned activity.
• Just over two-thirds of antisemitic incidents occurred in English public schools and nearly one-fifth were directed at Jewish private schools. Fourteen percent of incidents occurred in French, Catholic, and non-Jewish private schools.
• Nearly three-quarters of antisemitic incidents took place in the Toronto District School Board, the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board, and the York Region District School Board.
• The most common emotional reactions to antisemitic incidents on the part of their victims involved anger (31%), fear of returning to school or of being bullied (nearly 27%) and worrying about losing non-Jewish friends and being socially isolated (more than 27%).
• Some children insisted that their parents not report an antisemitic incident, fearing it would become public and they would consequently become the target of increased harassment or bullying. Some removed clothing and jewelry with Jewish symbols and Hebrew lettering so they would not be identified as Jewish.
• Forty-nine percent of antisemitic incidents reported to school authorities were not investigated. In another nearly 9% of cases, school authorities denied the incident was antisemitic or recommended that the victim be removed from the school permanently or attend school virtually.
• In under one-third of cases reported to school authorities, schools responded by providing counselling for the targeted child or the perpetrator, taking punitive action against the perpetrator, creating or modifying a program to promote ethnic, racial, and religious tolerance of Jews, or reporting the incident to the police.
• Because of antisemitic incidents experienced by their children, 16% of parents moved their children to another school or are considering doing so. Some moved house to enroll their children in different schools.
• At 39% of the total, Jewish private schools are the most frequent choice of parents who have moved or are moving their children to new schools.

 The campaign of persistent hounding of Canadian Jews has made international news. Canada stands out as a country now where to be a Jew is to be regarded as less than an ideal, respected citizen. A country were Jews are demonized, hounded, Jewish neighbourhoods are targeted and anti-Israel mobs regularly call out for its destruction. A situation not lost on Israel itself -- leading Israel's National Security Council to warn Canadian Jews to shield their identity from public scrutiny because being a Jew in Canada has become unsafe. 

And while the federal and provincial and municipal governments and heads of political parties decry the situation, intoning that Canada is not like that at all, none have committed, save the leader of the official opposition in Parliament, to upholding the law that would prosecute those who savagely violate hate laws and incite to violence. Declarations against antisemitism are guaranteed, but no action follows. Demographics play a role, where Canadian Jews despite having been in Canada as citizens for hundreds of years total one-third the number of Muslims arriving in Canada in numbers far surpassing those of Jews in more recent years.  

"More than 40 percent of responses involve Holocaust denial, assertions of excessive Jewish wealth or power, or blanket condemnation of Jews -- the kind of accusations and denunciations that began to be expunged from the Canadian vocabulary and mindset in the 1960s and were, one would have thought, nearly totally forgotten by the second decade of the 21st century."

"One is immediately struck by the high percentage of responses that have nothing to do with Israel or the Israel-Hamas war." 

Survey results analysis