Premier David Eby announces on Nov. 15, 2023, that the province is taking action against hate-motivated violence in British Columbia by supporting community organizations throughout the province and by providing resources to individuals. (photo from Province of BC / flickr)
Jewish community leaders met with BC Premier David Eby March 8 in what participants describe as an emotional, intense and frank dialogue around antisemitism in British Columbia and the added impact of the loss of the community’s most prominent voice in government, Selina Robinson.
The meeting was convened by the Rabbinical Association of Vancouver and seven speakers from the Jewish community shared their experiences around antisemitism with the premier and three of his staff. Rabbi Jonathan Infeld, head of the rabbinical association, spoke, as did Ezra Shanken, chief executive officer of the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver, and others about incidents in the public school system, the post-secondary sector, healthcare, the legal profession, unions and the public sector.
“The general vibe was one of significant sadness, particularly around Selina’s departure from the NDP caucus and from cabinet, but also around just an array of examples of antisemitic activities in British Columbia that have been experienced by community members,” Eby told the Independent.
Even Jewish participants said that hearing the numerous personal encounters with antisemitism shared by various participants was emotionally taxing. Speakers conveyed not only their firsthand experiences but advised the premier and his staff on a range of incidents reported by civil servants and by students and families in public schools.
Among many examples drawn from the Vancouver school district alone, there was a teacher on call who asked if there were any Jews in the class. When two students self-identified, the teacher asked them to explain to the class, on the spot, what Israel was doing. In a Grade 9 science class, a teacher called Jews genocidal murderers. There have been multiple incidences of antisemitic graffiti, including swastikas and SS symbols, as well as students yelling “Heil Hitler” in hallways. Some teachers are wearing or displaying symbols indicating allegiance with a side in the conflict, such as wearing keffiyehs or displaying Palestinian flags in their classrooms. An elementary teacher made derogatory comments about Israel and Jews and, when a student complained, the student was made to sit in the hallway. A student overheard another student say “Allahu akbar, Hamas for life!” – when she told the principal, she was accused of calling the other student a terrorist. A librarian asked students: “What do you think about what is happening in Gaza?” One student said, “They’re doing what they did here to the Indigenous people” and another said, “They’re killing a lot of babies” and the instructor said “That’s right! It’s genocide!”
According to incident reports from civil service employees, a hostile atmosphere for Jews exists in many segments of the public service, with one-sided expressions of support for Palestinians being demonstrated in online meetings, on government bulletin boards and in staff meetings. One public employee was asked not to wear their Star of David necklace in meetings “as it may make my colleagues of colour uncomfortable because it is a symbol of genocide.”
Participants in the Jewish community meeting took particular exception to Eby’s statement in the Legislature denying systemic antisemitism and contended that a litany of examples from the public service refutes his assessment.
“It was extremely important that the premier heard what various leaders of the Jewish community had to say,” Infeld told the Independent after the meeting. “We are at a precarious moment in Jewish history in the province and in the country and the premier has let us down in a significant way.
“He seemed somewhat shocked by the degree of antisemitism that people are facing in the province,” the rabbi said. “He knew that there was antisemitism but, as people ran through case-by-case of experiences they know of, or that they experienced, he seemed surprised.”
Eby acknowledged that, after Jewish community members spoke, it did not seem appropriate to say, “Let me present to you this list of things [that we’re prepared to do],” noting that such a response would have “almost trivialized the emotion in the room and where everybody was at.”
“The next steps are about us working together,” the premier told the Independent. At the same time, he said, “I made a couple of commitments in the room.”
These included, said Eby, working together to weed out antisemitism anywhere it is identified in the province, including in government, and assisting with the “overwhelming security costs that have been incurred by the community.”
The premier admitted a reflexive response to Robinson’s allegations that the government has not adequately responded to antisemitism.
“I have to admit, my first instinct is to say, we have,” said Eby. “We’ve done these pieces around mandatory Holocaust education, around the Crown counsel definition of hate crimes, being present with the community in key moments.
“But, on reflection, here is someone who has the lived experience of being a person who has relatives in Israel that were called up to military service, that she knows through family and friends who died in the Oct. 7 attacks, and she hears every day from people in the Jewish community about the anxiety and the fear of the rise of antisemitism that we’ve seen following those attacks, across Canada and certainly in British Columbia, and so is it really up to me to tell her that we have done everything we can? So, instead, my response was, this is a time for me to reflect.”
Shanken said the meeting highlighted the seriousness of the issue.
“I’ve heard stories about people’s interaction with antisemitism and Jew-hatred within our province, but to hear it all together in one room, one speaker after another, it was really stomach-churning,” Shanken said. “I think the premier listened, I think his staff listened, so I do believe that people realize how serious this problem really is.”
On the issue of Robinson’s removal from cabinet, Shanken said, the premier has work to do.
“We need to be addressing the double standard that existed with Selina Robinson, there’s no doubt about that,” he said. “But we also need to be addressing the issues that people are facing.… We rely upon him to really set that tone for our community and for all the communities of British Columbia.”