Jewish students being forced to fund their own discrimination at Ryerson, McGill
Daniel Koren
Executive Director
Hasbara Fellowships Canada
TORONTO – For years, Jewish students have shared their concerns that the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel has contributed to a hostile and antisemitic climate on college and university campuses across Canada.
This week’s kosher food scandal at the University of Toronto has forced at least a few Canadians to wake up and smell the gefilte fish. But to us, the U of T Graduate Students Union’s (UTGSU) actions in resisting Hillel Ontario’s kosher food drive because the group is “pro-Israel” was hardly surprising.
Jewish students have been forced to confront anti-Israel bias and bigotry at campuses such as Ryerson, McGill and U of T. On some campuses, an even more infuriating trend is developing: they are being forced to fund their own discrimination.
At Ryerson University, Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), which has a history of antagonizing Jewish students on campus, is collaborating with the Racialised Students’ Collective (RSC) to promote a series of events called The Palestine Series, aimed at delegitimizing the Jewish State through its promotion of BDS and farcical accusations like “pinkwashing.”
The difference between this and every other SJP Ryerson hatefest, however, is that the RSC, a representative of the entire Ryerson student body, receives mandatory student fees, even if students opt-out.
This means that any funding directed towards The Palestine Series will in part be funded by Ryerson students – Jewish and pro-Israel students included. The next event in the series takes place next week.
After hearing from several distressed students, Hasbara Canada reached out to Ryerson President Mohamed Lachemi citing Ryerson’s own guidelines on discrimination, urging the university to intervene. Clearly, “if the RSC is going to be receiving mandatory student fees, it should be required to fully abide by Ryerson’s guidelines and cease working with groups that are notorious for fomenting hatred on campus,” we wrote.
“Furthermore, the RSC claims it ‘works with the Ryerson community to eliminate racism and xenophobia both on and off campus.’ But then why are Jewish and pro-Israel students excluded? Why is a group that fights xenophobia collaborating with a group that is known for targeting students from a specific nation – Israel? Why is it hosting an event series that singles out the world’s only Jewish state?”
Lachemi has yet to reply to our concerns.
In Montreal, the McGill Daily has long served as a hotbed of anti-Israel and antisemitic activism. Last week, we commended McGill law students Josh Shapiro and Michael Aarenau for penning a solid rebuke to the Daily’s claim that Zionism is “violent” and “racist.”
The episode was covered by The Post Millenial columnist Barbara Kay, who reminded her readers that the Daily is also funded by mandatory student fees. Kay noted the free speech component of this travesty as well: the Daily “takes pride” in publishing anti-Israel rhetoric and refuses to accept any counter articles (the aforementioned rebuke included. McGill’s Deputy Provost had to step in and threaten to pull funding to get the letter printed).
But it’s not even the Daily’s attack on free speech that is so unjustifiable: it’s that McGill’s Jewish students, the vast majority of whom identify as Zionist, are being forced to fund this despicable partisan rag that is committed to destroying their indigenous homeland.
At the start of the school year, Hasbara Canada, alongside B’nai Brith Canada, StandWithUs Canada, and AEPi, Canada’s largest Jewish fraternity, joined forces to launch a campaign urging Ontario students to opt out of paying fees to the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS) because it supports BDS. Many students responded saying they were happy to oblige, as they too found BDS to be discriminatory and hateful.
One can only imagine the celebration that would erupt on campuses like McGill and Ryerson if Canadian students learned they were no longer expected to fund discriminatory tactics and a biased political agenda.
IF YOU AGREE that students should not be expected to fund antisemitic and anti-Israel discrimination, please write to Ryerson President Mohamed Lachemi at pres@ryerson.ca and McGill President Suzanne Fortier at suzanne.fortier@mcgill.ca demanding that these issues are rectified immediately.
