Education report

As we come to the end of another week, our education team has been in consultation with both the York Region District School Board, the Toronto District School Board and the Ontario Secondary School Teachers Federation provincial and local District 12 (Toronto) given professional training. Following the OSSTF D-12 anti-Palestinian Racism workshop, our educators raised concerns that member-funded professional development opportunities were providing revisionist versions of Israeli-Palestinian history and at times, completely erased Jewish indigeneity from the Middle East. As such, we are happy that since reaching out to both the TDSB and OSSTF, an investigation has initiated into possible policy and procedure and practice violations. We look forward to continuing this conversation with the Ontario College of Teachers in the coming weeks. 

Members of the AGPI Education team were also on hand in the discussion of an anti-Israel and anti-Semitic slide that was shared at a YRDSB Elementary Math PD Session. Going seemingly viral, an image that was alleged used from a non-board website posing the inquiry question “I wonder if the United States defunded the Israeli military, how could this money be used to rebuild Palestine created a lot of discomfort and harm to educators in the room that the board was contacted to investigate. AGPI was happy to understand that the board immediately removed the hyperlink to said organization, issued a board-wide public apology, and committed to further investigate. We thank the YRDSB for the proactive measures they took. 

As our AGPI educators continue preparing for several school-based training sessions we have already book, we would like to invite educators interested in bringing the Power of One Human Rights Exhibit or to book a student-centric, class or school-wide Equity, Diversity and Inclusivity, Diversity, Anti-Racism and Equity activity to your school, to contact our Director of Education, Dr Neil Orlowsky at norlowsky@agpi.ca. 

October 7, 2022 

ATTN: Ms Vicki Kim

Principal, Carmel Valley Middle School

Cc: Assistant Principal Mr Nathan Molina

Dear Principal Lam and Assistant Principal Molina, 

It is with great concern that I write this letter in response to a teacher at your school who recently made headlines for allegedly praising Adolf Hitler's leadership qualities via an in-class activity. In recent years I have had to reach out to several schools and school districts across North America that encountered similar instances whereby teachers have either incorrectly or inappropriately examined the techniques used by Adolf Hitler in rallying much of Europe to commit one of the most heinous acts imaginable. 

So often I've had my students ask how Hitler did it, similar to the situation encountered in Todd Strausser’s book, The Wave. Like any good educator, I turned to the list of leadership qualities that I myself learned about when becoming a school administrator. The issue however is that this list looks at sterile traits, disconnected from context. As such, many educators focus on charisma and one’s ability to deliver passionate, emotionally driven speeches, not what those speeches rally a people to do. One only need turn to Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will to see how Hitler’s message differed greatly from MLK’s. As such, many fail to understand the connection between great power and great responsibility. 

For over two decades I taught social studies. Examining this whiteboard display, I understand how students are meant to engage in both geographic and historical thinking. As an educator, there is evidence that this activity and display were meant to drive inquiry and foster a sense of exploration; however, what it fails to do is distinguish between good and evil. How do the leadership qualities embodied by MLK differ from those of Adolf Hitler? So too, how might those qualities differ from Mussolini, Stalin, Pasha, Pol Pot or Hirohito? Without the appropriate guidance, one can conclude that all those depicted in this activity are equally “Great” leaders, though “Great” is a contentious term. Having failed to draw this distinction trivializes the Holocaust and the death of six million Jews and countless Americans who lost their lives fighting the Third Reich. 

As Director of Education with the Abraham Global Peace Initiative, my team and I would love to work with your school to co-create sound programming that centres the students' and their families lived experiences in the curriculum. Our Power of One Human Rights Exhibit deals with the exact lesson, “What Makes a Great Leader”, and we would be happy to schedule the exhibit along with one of our educators to come to your school and help restore bridges that might have been broken.

I look forward to speaking with you further.

Sincerely, 

Neil Orlowsky, OCT, MEd., PhD. 

Director of Education  

The Abraham Global Peace Initiative 

Toronto, Ontario, Canada

www.agpiworld.com   

On Tuesday, several York Region District School Board staff reached out to AGPI regarding a list of two upcoming virtual training dates scheduled for Brief Intervention for School Clinicians (BRISC) training for school-based mental health professionals through School Mental Health Ontario. After reviewing the listed dates and listening to their concerns, Dr Orlowsky reached out to Student Mental Health Ontario as these professional training events were scheduled for Rosh Hashanah and Simchat Torah. 

While we were informed that these training sessions aligned with the availability of their trainers, AGPI informed them that staff are being asked to choose between attending professional development and the needed support for their students or observing the holiest days for their faith. AGPI was happy to hear that alternative dates have been offered to accommodate staff. 

Following last week’s motion to indefinitely suspend discussions and a vote by the York Region District Board Trustees to ratify a vote to adopt IHRA’s working definition of antisemitism, Aurora High School became YRDSB’s first school this year to report an incident of antisemitic graffiti in a classroom. While the school went through all the appropriate measures to address this incident, Aurora High School has a long and troubled history of antisemitism in their school. In conversation with the school administration, Dr Orlowsky reminded them of the importance of ensuring this incident is reported in the YRDSB RESOLVE reporting tool that tracks all hate-motivated incidents and whose data we, AGPI, use to understand, review, and suggest future educational policies. 

AGPI will continue to be in discussion with the school board to ensure that YRDSB remains dedicated to dismantling antisemitism as they have been with other forms of hate and discrimination. 

In rounding out our advocacy work, several teachers from the Ottawa Carleton District School Board informed AGPI of the newly launched OCDSB Cares App. Yet, in the wake of increasing reports around veiled antisemitism and the decentring of Jewish experiences within the board, the board seemingly failed to include Jewish students as one of their “Essential Supports” within the App. In seeking further information as to why the Jewish voices and supports were absent, we were happy to hear that the Ottawa Carleton District School Board has now revised their list of essential student supports to include Jewish Family Services contact information. 

While remaining in constant communication with boards of education and stakeholders was one key aspect of last week’s work, AGPI was proud to partner with St Vincent Catholic Elementary School in the HCDSB to launch our Power of One Human Rights Exhibit during their Terry Fox events. While students were taken through the display and staff had access to our educational programming, we were happy to be in conversation with the school council who also wanted the exhibit showcased during their community barbeque. 

We thank the staff and administration from St. Vincent Catholic Elementary School and look forward to a continued partnership throughout this year and in the years to follow. The Power of One Human Rights Exhibit remains one of our top educational priorities and we are happy to announce that it is now fully booked for the remainder of this calendar year. As the exhibit travels between schools and the country, we look forward to building greater, student-centric programming that helps amplify the role and importance of the upstander mindsets. If you are interested in booking the exhibit, please reach out to Dr Orlowsky atnorlowsky@agpi.ca 

As we move into the high holidays, educators, educational stakeholders, and the larger community must continue to advocate for greater inclusivity of all bodies in all equity work. Sadly, it seems that education has siloed racialized and marginalized bodies and in efforts to create a more inclusive environment, inadvertently created an environment that is equitable only for some. Nevertheless, while it has been a week of hearing apologies, AGPI is happy that every institution we spoke with, acknowledged their scheduling error and has taken the appropriate steps and measures to ensure this does not happen again. 

Rising Antisemitism, Failures to Adopt IHRA, and Education

It has been a trying week in the education system in the fight to combat and dismantle the institutionalization of antisemitism. As academic institutions across North America remain plagued by campaigns to intimidate, harass, and discriminate against Jewish students on college campuses (as seen at CUNY, the University of California, and the University of Vermont), Jewish faculty at the newly renamed Toronto Metropolitan University are indirectly being asked to choose between their job and observing their religion. 

In conversation with several Jewish faculty at TMU, Dr Neil Orlowsky, AGPI’s Director of Education was informed that the University’s monthly Senate meeting would be held on Kol Nidre. While Senate meeting dates are advertised to faculty well in advance, Jewish faculty had formally requested that given the nature of this holiday, a religious accommodation should be made to postpone or reschedule Senate. In the Senate's reply to the request, they issued a statement noting that meetings are typically on the first Tuesday of the month which is their standard schedule. “The October meeting will be a very light agenda and we are committed to completing Senate before sunset and members also have the option of attending virtually. In consultation, this was determined to be a reasonable accommodation and recognition.”  

Earlier this week, the York Region District School Board Trustees met to ratify their August 30th vote on adopting IHRA’s working definition of antisemitism. As noted in AGPI’s press release (September 13, 2022) while Dr Orlowsky presented several supporting documents of precedence set by other school board trustee councils, as well as provincial and federal statements and bills of support, trustees voted to “indefinitely suspend discussion on adopting IHRA” claiming the board already has a definition of antisemitism (though predating Canada’s adoption of IHRA); that IHRA’s definition is too controversial and sensitive, and as one trustee noted, “after Googling antisemitism”, she has a good sense of what it is. Adding to this, in concerns that the Board might be reactive, one trustee alluded to whether we (YRDSB) need IHRA since the population of Jews in YRDSB is so low, and this year’s increase in school-based anti-Jewish hate might just be an anomaly. In a vote of 11-2 in opposition to adopting IHRA, board trustees failed to recognize Thornhill is the largest diaspora of Jews in Canada and, recognize how not having an updated, consistent definition of antisemitism that aligns with other school boards, our Province, and our Country fails to protect Jewish students from bias, questions of their identity, their history and indigeneity in the Middle East, and freedom of expression. While we respect the democratic process, AGPI will continue to advocate for stronger, safer, and more inclusive learning environments, that include Jewish students who, over the last twelve months, have been witness to antisemitic graffiti in bathrooms and hallways, class colleagues performing the Nazi salute or shouting Heil Hitler, goose-stepping into assemblies on antisemitism, and in one school, had classmates download and allegedly recite sections of Mien Kampf to each other.  

As more academic institutions sidestep the inclusion of Jewish students and their unique experiences in their equitable policies, one message rings consistently: Hate has no place in schools. While Dr Orlowsky continues meeting with, and speaking with Directors of Education and the Ministry of Education, the Ontario College of Teachers, and the Ontario Principal Council, AGPI is proud to announce that our Power of One Human Rights Exhibit is now fully booked until the end of this calendar year. While boards reflect on what antisemitism looks like, schools in the TDSB, YRDSB, the HCDSB, as well as the Bialik Hebrew Day School have taken the initiative and partnered with AGPI to provide student-centric and age-appropriate EDI workshops for students at the elementary and secondary levels through our Power of One program. If you would like to book our exhibit, please contact Dr Orlowsky at norlowsky@agpi.ca. In addition to this, AGPI is proud to announce that the York University Faculty of Education has officially recognized AGPI as a community partner and has assigned two outstanding Teacher Candidates to learn from and work with Dr Orlowsky and our education team. We welcome this announcement by the faculty and look forward to mentoring the next generation of teachers in Ontario. 

As the school year comes to an end, our educational team would like to recognize and thank all our educational partners and allies who opened schools and classrooms to AGPI and provided a space for AGPI’s Director of Education, Dr Neil Orlowsky, to share our message that the Power of One begins with upstanders. Education has been a key focus of AGPI and given the rise in antisemitism, anti-Zionism, and anti-Jewish hate, we look forward to expanding our reach and empowering more students, in more countries with the tools to recognize hate and dismantle all forms of inequity, no matter one’s race, religion, creed or colour. 

    AGPI would also like to recognize the many boards of education and school administrators who identified gaps in their learning and invited us in as a trusted partner to provide professional development and student workshops. This year, Dr Orlowsky worked with hundreds of GTHA students, as well as students in the Winnipeg School Division, listening to their stories about how their communities witness and internalize racism, discrimination, and intolerance. From these stories and experiences, Dr Orlowsky has repeatedly met with board trustees, superintendents, and other Directors of Education to advocate for stronger and more inclusive board-wide policies that authentically tackle the growing risk of ethnic, cultural, racial, and/or religious marginalization within curricular content, educational spaces, and more detrimental to student well-being, within their class discussions.

      So too, AGPI has publicly weighed in on the rise in the antisemitic incidents with K-12 schools as well as those on Canadian campuses and will continue to work with media outlets to ensure that focus is not solely placed on the TDSB. From students goosestepping across athletic fields in the north school boards to anti-Israel walkouts in the York, Toronto, and Ottawa-Carlton, the distortion of the Holocaust and demonization of Israel is something we will not stand for. We commend the boards who have taken steps to remove antisemitic texts from their schools but worry about the growing trend of using social justice, EDI,  and liberatory education for (a) shielding genocidal sloganeering, (b) giving rise to revisionist history and acceptance of distorted facts, and (c) veiling the fermenting bias that is perpetuating nuanced racism by questioning or the erasure of Jewish indigeneity from the Middle East and North African region. In so doing, we will continue to share this concern with the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Colleges and Universities, the Ontario College of Teachers, the Ontario Teachers Federation, ETFO, OSSTF, the Ontario Principals Council, and the 70+ school boards in Ontario. 

    While June brings the end of the school year, Dr Orlowsky and his team have already begun working on our 2022-2023 programming, booking our Power of One in schools across North America, and developing more student-centric learning opportunities. If you are interested in getting involved, becoming an educational ambassador, or having our educational team in your school, please contact norlowsky@agpi.ca.        

Over the last two weeks, our education department has been working tirelessly to further our mandate of advancing human rights and fundamental freedoms for all. Director of Education, Dr Neil Orlowsky launched our Power of One Human Rights Exhibit at Bishop Reding Catholic Secondary School in Milton (HCDSB), followed by AGPI and our Power of One exhibit being one of the showcased organizations and display’s at the Ontario Association of Parents in Catholic Education provincial conference. In his keynote address, 

Dr Orlowsky focussed on the message of Abraham’s Tent, and how we in education can build sustainable bridges between faiths, communities, and cultures. AGPI would like to thank the hundreds of Ontario Catholic Teachers, Parents and Political Stakeholders that stopped by our booth and experienced our exhibit.   So too, AGPI would like to thank the outstanding staff and students at both Forest Hill Collegiate Institute in Toronto (TDSB) and Marshal McLuhan Catholic Secondary School (TCDSB) for helping us launch our Power of One in their schools and for making it an experiential learning opportunity for their Grade 10 History and Civics classes, Grade 11 Social Justice classes, and various English and Philosophy classes. We cannot do anything without our amazing school and community partners and would also like to recognize the students who have used our exhibit to engage in, and further advocate for stronger inclusivity, equity, and community building in their schools, and beyond.  

 Sadly, the last few weeks have also brought meetings and concerns around the rise of antisemitism, anti-Jewish hate, and anti-Zionism across GTHA school boards. Dr Orlowsky started June meeting with various school administrators and superintendents from the Peel District School Board to raise further awareness around Joe Sacco’s graphic novel “Palestine” that has remained in their library stacks while being reviewed for conflating the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, for a promoting a misogynistic and rape culture, and for celebrating the death of Jews. We look forward to continued conversations with the school board and providing further guidance and resources on the dangers of misinformation and the distortion of history.   

While the Toronto District School Board is often in the news for the frequency of antisemitic incidents in their buildings, Dr Orlowsky has spoken with representatives from the Ottawa-Carlton School Board following a scathing article about their actions towards antisemitism, and the York Region District School Board following three separate antisemitic incidents in their schools this week. While representatives from the YRDSB deny Dr Orlowsky's claim that “Jews don't feel safe in their schools,” AGPI continues to document and share reports of the dangers Jewish students endear in school. We call on all school boards in Ontario to make all hate-motivated incident data public and to recognize that equity strategies are not necessarily as inclusive as first thought.   

“We recognize that antisemitism is not the only hate that students encounter and we (AGPI) use that position as a springboard to engage in conversations around all ‘isms students witness,” said Dr Orlowsky. “We recognize that for many students across this province, the Holocaust is not their history and sadly for many, it is just a chapter in their textbook. That said, antisemitism is not anti-Black racism and vice versa. So too, neither are founded in anti-Asian or anti-Indigenous hate. Each manifestation of hate is unique and must be understood and tackled as such. Yes, there are overlaps and internalization may be similar but entry points and evolution differ. To develop one overarching policy around inclusivity is a failure in recognizing the uniqueness of our students, their pathways, and their identities. We need to do better and not just say that we are.”   

As this school year ends we look forward to developing additional school-based workshops, in-class programming, and further opportunities to book our Power of One Human Rights Exhibit. For more information on these opportunities, please contact norlowsky@agpi.ca

Our Education Department has been extremely busy this week delivering presentations, launching our Power of One Human Rights Exhibit, and preparing to deliver a keynote speech for next week’s OAPCE “Reclaiming and Re-Engaging Parents as Partners” Conference in Milton.

    Following three successful workshops on “Recognizing and Dismantling Hate through an Antisemitism Lens” to Grade 10 History classes at Stephen Lewis Secondary School in York Region, Dr Neil Orlowsky, AGPI’s Director of Education delivered a second set of workshops to an additional three history classes. AGPI is honoured to have now spoken to all SLSS Grade 10 History students. While students looked at how antisemitism has evolved since the Middle Ages and manifests today, students were led to reflect on why the hate towards some marginalized communities is socially tolerated, while hate against others is not. Considering the implications of this, students applied this same lens to the political spectrum and considered how poles of radicalization and extremism have begun to converge against the Jewish community.

     Yesterday, AGPI was joined by York Region DSB Superintendent of Schools, Mr Steve Gardner, and Westmount Collegiate Institute (WCI)Principal MS Ann Pace, in launching our Power of One program at WCI before fifty plus students and teachers who planned and delivered an extraordinary set of antisemitism workshops. “This is what it looks like to bring students into the conversation. This is what positive student activism looks like. This is what it means when we say that students need to be empowered with the tools to lead” Dr Orlowsky told the students. We look forward to continuing our partnership with WCI and co-creating future student-led workshops with them.

     As the week came to end, Dr Orlowsky was invited to be the Keynote Speaker at the Ontario Association of Parents in Catholic Education (OAPCE) Reclaiming and Re-Engaging Parents as Partners Conference in Milton. Following AGPI’s work with the Halton Catholic District School Board and in continuation of building interfaith bridges and empowering students from all communities, Dr Orlowsky looks forward to bringing attention to how our Power of One program empowers youth to advance human rights and fundamental freedom, highlighting AGPI’s Mission and Mandate to hundreds of conference delegates, and showcasing the positive change have been making in Canada and abroad.  

This week our education department crisscrossed the city, amplifying the Power of One message, and collaborated with schools on how to recognize and combat hate of all forms. 

AGPI wants to thank North Toronto Collegiate Institute in the TDSB for hosting the Power of 

One in their school and displaying it during intermission at the Maytime Melodies Music night. Over two nights, parents and community members walked through our exhibit, commenting on the positive message, the empowerment aspects of this piece, and the need for this exhibit in our schools. Dr Neil Orlowsky, AGPI Director of Education, caught up with Canadian MP Marci Ien, Minister for Women and Gender Equality and Youth at the event and spoke with her about the Power of One, AGPI as an organization, and our push for greater Human Rights education. “So often our teachers and elected officials tell students that they are the future but fail to bring them into the conversation. Politicians and school boards draft equity and anti-racism policies that affect the students’ daily lives, but implementation falls short because those they are meant to serve, are never centred, consulted, or partnered with. We want to change that, and this exhibit is the first step” said Dr Orlowsky. AGPI looks forward to continuing this conversation with MP Ien.     

With a mission to provide meaningful learning opportunities for students that are authentic, student-centric, and contextualized in their lives, this week, students from North Toronto Collegiate Institute worked with our curriculum and thought about the influence one’s community has in shaping global issues. Following consultation with teachers, our education team adapted our Greta Thunberg Climate Action programming for their Spanish classes and worked with the Modern Language Department Head to co-create a lesson that drew on youth activism, the climate movement in Spain and how those intersected events during COP25: The 2019 United Nations Climate Change Conference.     

But our educational focus is more than just the Power of One and this week Dr Orlowsky and Danielle Legerman were invited to Stephen Lewis Secondary School (SLSS) in the York Region DSB to present the first three of six workshops to their Grade 10 Canadian History Classes. Over one day, SLSS students reflected on what tools are needed to recognize hate and used those to identify strategies that could help dismantle it. Using a lens of antisemitism, three classes came to understand that while hate, racism, discrimination, and intolerance all hurt communities and are harmful to the overall school culture, the roots of hate are not equal, nor is how it is equally internalized within already racialized and marginalized communities. “While we need to combat antisemitism, Islamophobia, anti-Black racism, and others, a one-size fits all approach is not what is needed and destined to fail,” said Dr Orlowsky. 

Building on that message, students looked at the history of, and what Dr Orlowsky calls the three incarnations of antisemitism, before working with students on recognizing the two poles (left-wing extremism vs right-wing fundamentalism) of hate and what that looks like today if applied to a horseshoe. Dr Orlowsky and Ms Legerman look forward to returning to Stephen Lewis SS next week and look to continuing this work with other students and staff in other schools, other boards, and across all levels of education.     For more information on our educational programming or to book a workshop, contact Dr Orlowsky at norlowsky@agpi.ca.  

03/11/22: It has been a difficult start to the calendar year for both school boards and the Jewish community as Toronto parents were rattled with seven antisemitic incidents in just over one month. As March brought an additionally three reports of antisemitic graffiti to the exterior of three TDSB schools, AGPI was pleased to speak with Jim Spyropoulos, TDSB Executive Superintendent for Human Rights and Indigenous Education, and looks forward to meeting with him as well as the Superintendent Equity, Anti-Oppression & Early-Year; the Centrally Assigned Principal for Equity, Anti-Racism and Anti-Oppression, and TDSB’s chair of the Jewish heritage committee later this month.

     But this brings to question whether schools are facing an onslaught of copycat incidents or historical ignorance and shortfalls in our education system? In what appears to be more of the same in GTHA schools, this week saw three schools in Newmarket (York Region District School Board) reported disturbing antisemitic and anti-black incidents. Police and YRDSB officials are investigating reports that over two days, images of a swastika and the N-word were etched in washroom stalls at Newmarket High School and Huron Heights Secondary School, while a swastika was drawn on an interior door at Glen Cedar Public School. 

    Following these incidents, Dr Neil Orlowsky, AGPI’s Director of Education has again reached out to YRDSB Senior Staff, offering our help and aid in the board’s development of meaningful and broad-based equity training. In his correspondence with the board, AGPI has been assured that the Inclusive School and Community Services will continue to work closely with local (those in Newmarket) organizations and that during this time the board commits to remaining transparent and providing support for students. But as Miguelo Licinio, YRDSB senior manager of corporate communications stated that “While these incidents are very upsetting, they are occurring in a school board that is explicitly committed to championing equity and inclusivity”. 

    As a twenty-two-year veteran of the YRDSB, Dr Orlowsky has been critical of board policies on equity and inclusivity, given the rise of racism, discrimination, and repeated incidents of antisemitism. “While boards repeatedly talk of equity work being had at the macro, system level, incidents at the school level increase. What does inclusivity look like and what is actually being done? I believe boards are committed to dismantling all the ‘isms that they are faced with, I just don’t think they authentically recognize that a one size fits all approach is not the answer. Antisemitism is not anti-Black racism, nor is it Islamophobia, anti-Asian, or anti-2S-LGBTQ+ hate. Each of these acts are different; manifest differently and have different entry points and intersect our society in their own unique ways.” AGPI looks forward to continuing our discussion with YRDSB and hope that these three incidents are isolated.

     Following the release of our Antisemitism on Campus report, AGPI was pleased to be in contact with the Ministry of Colleges and Universities where we shared our concerns regarding the rise of antisemitism on campus and the past vote by the UTGSU and recent vote by UTSU to adopt a BDS campaign. Dr Orlowsky will be meeting with the Ministry later this month and looks forward to again sharing our concerns but also proposing meaningful solutions which honour Bill 168, Combating Antisemitism Act, 2020, Bill 202, Standing Up Against Anti-Semitism in Ontario Act, 2016, and Bill 67, Racial Equity in the Education System Act, 2021. 

By Neil Orlowsky February 25, 2022

True champions of diversity, equity, and inclusivity are not giving up creating safe, brave, and inclusive spaces for all. This past Wednesday, on Pink Shirt Day, a day to mark a fight to end bullying, AGPI’s Director of Education, Dr Neil Orlowsky was invited to speak with 16 iDARE (Inclusivity, Diversity, Anti-Racism, Equity) student leaders across grades 4 – 8, from the Queen of Heaven Catholic School in Halton. With a message of the Power of One, this student-centric training event discussed how our youth are the upstanders our world needs.

 Empowered with the words that they can make a difference, and by providing the examples and tools on what that looks like in their community, the path to peace is not created in ivory towers, but in lunchrooms, classrooms, and schools around the world. AGPI looks forward to working with the Queen of Heaven school next week as they host our Power of One human rights exhibit.      

But this has been a trying month for true champions of equity and inclusivity in the GTHA. With numerous antisemitic incidents in Toronto elementary schools, ranging from swastika graffiti to students giving the “Hitler salute” and yelling “Heil Hitler” in class while targeting a Jewish teacher in the process, to anti-black racist graffiti appearing during Black History Month events. As Colleen Russel-Rawlins, Director of Education at the TDSB noted in the wake of the third incident, “we must interrupt and confront racism, discrimination and hate, in all of its forms, we see or hear it.” 

Dr Neil Orlowsky, AGPIs Directory of Education has reached out to all three schools, as well as Director Russel-Rawlins to offer our support in PD staff training and in hopes to further amplify how antisemitism is manifesting within their schools. Sadly, we were informed that a fourth incident of antisemitism, occurred in another TDSB school yesterday when two 12-year-old students performed the “Heil Hitler” salute to a supply teacher. This marks the third time students performed the salute this month.      

Academic institutions from elementary to post-secondary have recently, and increasingly been plagued by critical thinking that is anything but. Ideological indoctrination is happening in the classrooms by decentring the Jewish experience to the erasure of Jewish history and attachment to the land. More so, in the wake of the third TDSB attack, some educators, via their personal social media, have alluded to, liked, reshared, and loosely defended the students’ attack, blaming the Jewish teacher, the daughter of Holocaust survivors, for implicitly and unconsciously creating an unsafe and uncomfortable learning environment for these students because of her Jewishness. Dr Orlowsky has again reached out to the Ontario College of Teachers in renewed calls to create a Professional Advisory on Antisemitism, as AGPI had proposed last month.       

This third and now fourth TDSB incident of antisemitism comes on the heels of two notable events at the University of Toronto. In an announcement, the University of Toronto publicly stated that they are “…profoundly opposed to antisemitism. We're determined to ensure our campuses are places where members of the Jewish community feel that they are safe, included & respected as members & friends of the UofT community.” This statement followed UofT’s complete acceptance of all recommendations of the antisemitism working group to tackle antisemitism and religious discrimination on campus. However, later that day, the University of Toronto Undergraduate Student Union voted to endorse a BDS motion so vaguely worded that, depending on how it’s interpreted, could potentially lead to the boycotting of Jewish businesses. A similar vote occurred late last year when the Graduate Students Union attempted to support BDS which in turn led to concerns over the availability of kosher food on campus for Jewish Students. Following the passing of the recent motion, AGPI reached out to MPP Jill Dunlop, Minister of Colleges and Universities, pushing her to revoke allocated funding for all Ontario funded universities for violating Bill 202, Standing Up Against Antisemitism in Ontario Act (2016), by supporting the BDS campaign.       

As noted in the bill, "The international boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement is one of the main vehicles for spreading antisemitism and the delegitimization of Israel globally and is increasingly promoted on university campuses in Ontario. The BDS movement violates the principle of academic freedom and promotes a climate of anti-Jewish and anti-Israel speech leading to intimidation and violence on campuses. The BDS movement's agenda is inherently antithetical to and deeply damaging to peace in the Middle East." We look forward to continuing our dialogue with the MPP and hope to work with the Universities and Colleges to help them create spaces for dialogue and to better understand how antisemitism is garnering support on campus.