"[Our] findings indicate that many Jewish students face widespread and persistent antisemitism on Canadian campuses as a defining feature of post-secondary life that shapes their behaviour, their ability to fully participate in campus life, their safety, and their well-being."
"[The Campus Antisemitism and Student Experiences report] provides the most comprehensive national evidence to date on antisemitism in Canadian post-secondary institutions."
"These accounts reveal a university culture that is both not welcoming
to Jewish students and actively and systematically trying to exclude and
vilify them."
Jack Jedwab, Paul Holley, Association for Canadian Studies and the Metropolis Institute
"What this study has confirmed is that Jewish students are being targeted simply for being Jews, and that is completely and utterly unacceptable."
"[I hope the findings will become a] wake-up call [for college and university administrators across Canada."
Jay Solomon, senior executive, Jewish student network Hillel Ontario
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| Pro-Israel demonstrators protest outside a pro-Palestinian encampment
set up on McGill University's campus in Montreal in the spring of 2024. A
new national report says a vast majority of Jewish students have
experienced or witnessed antisemitism on campus. (Christinne Muschi/The Canadian Press) |
According to a newly-released report commissioned by Heritage Canada, Jewish students in academic institutions throughout Canada face open hostility which has become a "normalized and systemic feature of campus life". Released on Wednesday, the Campus Antisemitism and Student Experiences (CASE) report concludes that over nine in ten Jewish students have experienced or witnessed campus antisemitism over the past year. In actual point of fact, the situation has been ongoing for the past three years, since the invasion from Gaza into southern Israel by Palestinian terrorists led by Hamas which resulted in a horrendous bloodbath.
A survey of 900 Jewish students, along with 755 students from the broader campus population at over two dozen colleges and universities across Canada formed the basis for the survey conclusions. Over one in five Jewish students stated that they had witnessed physical violence targeting Jews, while seventy-one percent reported antisemitic graffiti on campus. Targeted incidents such as mezuzahs torn from Jewish dorm room doors in residence halls were reported.
The survey results point unreservedly to a systemic crisis of antisemitism on the campuses of Canadian post-secondary institutions. "My sense is that, when you see such a high level of reporting of antisemitic incidents, the only way to describe it is systemic", cautioned Mr. Jedwab. Jewish students are not merely facing antisemitism from classmates -- points out a key insight of the report -- but also from professors and other university employees.
Faculty involvement in harassment and instances of pure antisemitic virulence was cited in 18 percent of incidents reported in the survey. According to seven in ten Jewish survey respondents their academic institution failed to take antisemitism seriously. Teaching assistants or non-teaching staff were cited as being involved in antisemitic incidents by a further 14 percent of respondents.
Of those taking part in the survey, thirty-six percent had encountered antisemitic or biased course content or classroom discussions. Another 34 percent revealed that a professor brought up Jews, Judaism, Israel, or Zionism at times when such references were completely unrelated to the course subject. According to over three in ten students, consideration was given by them to leaving a course or their program as a result of antisemitism expressed by professors or other students.
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In response to the report's findings, federal Heritage Minister Marc Miller characterized the situation as "alarming". "[The findings] echo what we are seeing across Canada. Statistics Canada's most recent data shows that 71 percent of all police-reported religion-motivated hate crimes targeted Jewish Canadians", he pointed out.
It is, needless to say, his Liberal government that bears a good deal of responsibility for the situation. The swell of antisemitism arising from the presence of Palestinian student groups on Canadian campuses joined by non-student instigators and prompted and paid for by foreign entities invested in maligning and isolating Jews through the medium of Zionism-slander masking their pure antisemitic hatred has never been addressed by the federal government.
The Trudeau, and then the Carney Liberal governments invested heavily in the trifecta of Critical Race Theory, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, and 'progressive' left wokeism, to set the stage, filtering down through lower levels of government, businesses, unions; permeating throughout society where Canadians seemed to shrug with the notion that it was only Jews being targeted and they could look after themselves. That the entire society, its culture, laws, values and customs have been eroded when one community among all others becomes a target of hate seems to have eluded the consciousness of conscience.
If the situation is addressed at all by executive-level politicians, it is to express the formula of 'this isn't Canada', when it clearly is. Declarations of disgust with antisemitism come with no sustained institutional efforts to reverse the trend, even when laws are being broken. Politicians can't seem to be able to resist equating the scourge of antisemitism and its meteoric rise with the tepid rise of 'Islamophobia' which evokes a much stronger response from them.
The most telling reaction, however, is municipal, provincial and federal governments' failure to speak of the obvious, a failure that communicates its message to Canada's police forces -- that it is from among the Muslim communities in Canada that the wave of hateful antisemitism arose and that the fundamentalist Islamists among them organized, perpetrated and perpetuated 'protests' against the Jewish community in Canada alongside disparagement and incitement against the state of Israel responding to a terrorism war of jihad against its very existence.
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"At a time when synagogues, Jewish schools, and Jewish-owned businesses are being shot at and firebombed, and when Jews are disproportionately the victims of hate crimes, this report makes clear that antisemitism has also taken root in our public institutions -- including our universities."
"We call on university leaders and governments at every level to
carefully consider this report.The drivers of
this hatred — including antizionism — are well known, and the time to
act is now. We need concrete actions to protect Canadian students."
Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs
B'nai Brith Canada
Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center
Labels: Campus Antisemitism and Student Experiences Report
Canada's Liberal Government, Heritage Canada, Post-Secondary Institutions