"TDSB Trustees Must Vote NO" - CHR Ignores Antisemitism
Strategy for Combating Hate and Racism Ignores Antisemitism
Toronto, ON – June 18, 2024 – Tonight, TDSB’s Program and School Services Committee met to vote on an update to the TDSB’s Combating Hate and Racism – Student Learning Strategy Update Report, 2024 (CHR). Committee members voted 5-3 to receive the Report, which will now be sent to the TDSB Board of Trustees to vote on its adoption.
While representatives of the organized Jewish community were not allowed to address the committee, CIJA submitted a written delegation outlining the community’s concerns. CIJA urged committee members to vote “NO” due to proposed updates outlined in the CHR, which failed to address antisemitism and disputed the identity of Jewish Canadians.
With the report now moving forward for review and vote by the complete Board, CIJA is urging Trustees to vote against adopting the CHR and ensure that community priorities relating to antisemitism and discrimination against Jews and Israeli Canadians are addressed.
In response, Jess Burke, Director, Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Training, Liaison to 2SLGBTQIA+ Partnerships, Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, issued the following statement:
"Amidst unprecedented levels of antisemitic incidents occurring across Canada, the TDSB’s CHR is flawed, failing to address the drastic, sharp increase in antisemitic incidents, anti-Jewish racism, and anti-Israeli hostility in Toronto schools. We are very disappointed that the Trustees chose to disregard the Director of Education’s expressed concern regarding the report’s missing focus on antisemitism and her recommendation that the report be sent back to staff for further consultation.
“Furthermore, the adoption of “anti-Palestinian racism” in the CHR will result in the censorship of core aspects of Jewish identity. Endeavouring to redefine what does and does not constitute antisemitism, APR is inherently oppressive. No other anti-racist, anti-oppressive definition seeks to deny and dispute the lived experience of another marginalized or multiply-marginalized group. No one other than the Jewish community gets to define what is or is not antisemitism. This should have been avoided at all costs.
“More time and proper study are needed to understand how the specific examples and uses of APR in the CHR can be adapted to avoid further polarization and division of Israeli, Palestinian, Jewish, and Arab students. A definition that speaks over an equity-deserving group is not appropriate and perpetuates abject harm, failing to uphold a safe and inclusive learning environment.
“The repeated, unnecessary politicization of our students, staff, and faculty based on imported international conflicts furthers division, curbs peace-building initiatives, and creates a sub-optimal learning environment for students in which psychological safety cannot be guaranteed.
“We call on the entire TDSB Board of Trustees to vote NO. Any strategy to combat hate and racism must be centred on the Ontario Human Rights Code, creating an inclusive environment for all. The CHR does not meet this standard. Its adoption will not only harm the Jewish and Israeli community and other minority groups not addressed in the Report, but will have a lasting detrimental effect on society, and diminish our intercultural competency for generations to come.”
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Additional Background
- Press release: CIJA Disappointed by TDSB Failure to Address Antisemitism in Proposed Strategy for Combating Hate and Racism
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The IHRA non-legally binding working definition of antisemitism: "Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and / or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities." Full details and contemporary examples of antisemitism can be found here.
- The IHRA working definition of antisemitism provides policymakers, law enforcement, and community leaders a tool to identify, understand, and combat contemporary forms of antisemitism in public life, the media, schools, the workplace, and in the religious sphere. IHRA is the consensus definition of antisemitism that best reflects the lived experience of Jews today. Developed by IHRA’s Committee on Antisemitism and Holocaust Denial, it is grounded in the research of the world’s foremost experts on antisemitism and the Holocaust and is supported by the UN, EU, and 35 countries including the US and Canada. It is also used by Ontario, British Columbia, Quebec, Alberta, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador.
- Press Release: Anti-Jewish Hate Crimes in Toronto More than Doubled In 2023
- Statement: Shots fired at Toronto Jewish Girls School
- Press Release: Disturbing surge in antisemitic discourse in Canada tied to online activity, reveals joint NCRI and CIJA study
- Press Release: Top Jewish Advocacy Organizations Form J7 Global Task Force to Fight Antisemitism
- CIJA policy asks related to fighting antisemitism:
- 91 percent of Canadian Jews believe Israel has the right to exist as a Jewish state 2024 survey Jews and Israel 2024 Survey: Ten Further Insights | Canadian Jewish Studies / Études juives canadiennes (yorku.ca)
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