Members of a Toronto District School Board trustees’ committee voted on Thursday night to accept a controversial report on combatting antisemitism in schools.
The vote came during the second part of a meeting of the board’s planning and priorities committee, after the committee’s Wednesday meeting saw more than 80 speakers — including parents, rabbis, and community group representatives — give deputations that were nearly evenly split in favour, or against the report.
The report provided a summary and recommendations based on the perspectives offered by Jewish community organizations, students and some staff during consultations held by the TDSB over the past two years on addressing antisemitism.
The report is a key building block toward the development of the board’s strategy to address antisemitism.
A major flashpoint was a recommendation in the report for teachers and trustees to receive training about how antisemitism is enacted, which included “modern manifestations such as anti-Zionism, intersectionality, and Jewish identity diversity.”
Delegates on Wednesday night were nearly evenly divided over whether anti-Zionism constitutes antisemitism.
Several parents and community members told trustees they believed Zionism is a racist political ideology rooted in the colonization of Palestine and the Palestinian people.
But other speakers pushed back forcefully against this, claiming such speech was antisemetic, racist and failed to recognize Israel as the ancestral home of the Jewish people.
Reactions to the news of the report’s acceptance were similarly split.
Spokespeople for the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) and B'nai Brith Canada told TorontoToday they welcomed the board’s decision to receive the report.
Nicole Amiel, director of media relations for CIJA, said the organization was relieved trustees voted to accept the report without amendment.
“This meaningful report reflected diverse stakeholders and voices from the community sharing their encounters with antisemitism,” she said in an emailed statement.
In a joint statement, however, Jews Say No to Genocide Coalition and Toronto Jewish Families expressed significant disappoint with the trustees’ decision.
“Criticizing a state, especially one engaged in ongoing atrocities, is not antisemetic,” the joint statement said.
The vote to receive the consultation summary report carried 13-5.
Trustees say they want focus to be on kids
Several trustees who supported the motion’s passing spoke on Thursday night about the need to focus on the concerns that Jewish TDSB students shared during the consultations.
Toronto-Danforth trustee Sara Ehrhardt read a section of the report where students said they felt their Jewish identities had been conflated with the current geopolitical context, rather than their personal worth as individuals.
She said it’s important not to allow discussions about antisemitism to become “zero sum” — where one side loses when the other wins.
Beaches-East York trustee Michelle Aarts expressed a similar sentiment.
She said it’s clear there’s division among Jewish adults on what constitutes antisemitism, but stressed what’s most important is that students are feeling scared and unsupported.
“We can’t fix the adults out there,” she said. “[But] what’s important is our students.”
Trustees criticize process
Several trustees on Thursday night urged staff to be more careful in how such reports are presented in the future, suggesting the document had become overly contentious because of a misunderstanding.
Trustee Alexis Dawson (Davenport and Spadina-Fort York) said she and many members of the public had been under the false impression that the report represented a proposal for the board’s new strategy to combat antisemitism, rather than a summary of consultations.
The report had detailed recommendations and included the word “strategy” in its title, which some speakers on Wednesday night said had led them to believe it was the board’s draft plan.
TDSB staff on Thursday evening acknowledged the concerns and stressed that consultations will continue in the coming months with students, parents and community members toward the preparation of a future strategy.
Groups trade allegations of harm caused by process
On Thursday morning, Jewish groups on both sides traded allegations of having been harmed and slandered by each other in the process of bringing the report to trustees.
Richard Robertson, B’Nai Brith Canada’s director of advocacy, said much of the benefit of trustees having voted to receive the report was mitigated by Wednesday night’s deputations becoming a “hatefest.”
Asked for examples, Robertson cited at least one speaker having used the phrase “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” which he alleged is a genocidal slogan calling for the erasure of the Jewish state.
But Gur Tsabar, a Jewish TDSB parent and spokesperson for the Jews Say No to Genocide Coalition, countered that the slogan, which he said in a deputation on Wednesday night, refers to “Palestinians living free from their colonizers and occupiers in their land between the Jordan River and Mediterranean Sea.”
The Jews Say No to Genocide Coalition and Toronto Jewish Families claimed in a joint statement that the “pro-Israel lobby” had deliberately distorted “defenses for Palestinians human rights as antisemetic attacks.”
Robertson countered that such language feeds into an antisemetic trope about Jews controlling the world.
“If anyone manipulated … or corrupted … the events of Wednesday night it was the anti-Israel lobby,” he said.
