racism

The fight for democracy

The following remarks were delivered at the Israel hostages rally at Vancouver Art Gallery on Sept. 15, which is also the International Day of Democracy.

In recognition of the International Day of Democracy, I will talk about how antisemitism is harming and potentially destroying democracy. This talk will be based mainly on a report by Amy Spitalnick, just published in the United States. Fair warning, this talk will be heavy, but, in my view, important to understand.

Antisemitism is a form of religious, racial and ethnic prejudice against Jews. But, unlike other such prejudices, antisemitism also operates as a conspiracy theory that lies about Jewish power and influence. And, because it functions as a conspiracy theory, antisemitism poses a threat far beyond the Jewish community. It fuels other forms of hate and extremism, including against other communities and against democratic institutions that are depicted as pawns of Jewish control.

Antisemitism – like other conspiracy theories – increases at times of social or political anxiety, as people look for a source to blame for what’s wrong with society and with their lives.

Enemies of democracy, such as Iran and Russia, use antisemitism to undermine trust in democracies and make them seem like failed states. The “conspiracy myth” that Jews control certain sectors of society, such as banks, media or elections, is the cornerstone of antisemitism, and anyone who accepts this myth loses faith in democracy. If Jews control elections, judges and finance, people say to themselves, how can I, as a non-Jew, live up to my potential? My failings are caused by evil forces beyond my control.

Casting Jews as all-powerful naturally fuels hatred of Jews. But it also explains what extremists believe – that other communities, like People of Colour, non-Christians, LGBTQ+, are incapable of success except through unfair or illegal ways. And so, belief in this powerful Jewish control group causes distrust in democratic institutions and values.

When neo-Nazis came to Charlottesville, Va., in 2017, they chanted “Jews will not replace us,” showing that they believed in the “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory. Once hidden in the dark corners of the internet, this conspiracy theory says that there is a deliberate Jewish effort to replace the white population with immigrants and People of Colour. This conspiracy theory has directly inspired many mass killings targeting not only Jewish people (Pittsburgh and Poway), but also Hispanic people (El Paso), Black people (Buffalo), Muslims (New Zealand and London, Ont.) and other communities.

Versions of this conspiracy theory have become increasingly mainstreamed, courtesy of influencers, elected officials, candidates and foreign powers in our social media. They use it to advance their own political goals – and, at the same time, they embolden violent extremists. In the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the US Congress, when many insurrectionists carried white supremacist symbols in their efforts to overturn the 2020 US election results, they included false claims of undocumented immigrants stealing the election. Only recently, we heard in the presidential debate about immigrants eating their neighbours’ pets from a man who wants to be president.

Recent polling shows that belief in conspiracy theories is among the best predictors of antisemitism. And a recent US survey found that highly antisemitic Americans are significantly more likely to support political violence and other forms of anti-democratic extremism. So, what to do?

First of all, we need to fight like hell! We need to call out conspiracy theories against Jews and any other identifiable group every time we encounter them. We need to educate ourselves about what antisemitism means by knowing the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition and its examples, and we must call out antisemitism and other forms or racism when we see it.

We should fight against antisemitism but also against all other forms of racism, including Islamophobia, misogyny, sexual-preference bigotry and other forms of hate and violence; and we should work to advance inclusive, multi-ethnic democracy. The safety and fates of all minority communities and, eventually, all supporters of democracy, are bound together. Jews historically thrive in free, democratic states, and don’t do so well in autocracies, even if autocratic rule might at first seem attractive.

I know this won’t be easy. Many Jews, including me, have felt abandoned and isolated by those who have remained conspicuously silent, or worse, fallen for anti-Israel and antisemitic lies. This crisis since Oct. 7 exposed the lack of understanding of antisemitism in so many parts of society, including how antisemitism is present in conversations related to Israel. Fundamentally, there is a lack of recognition that Jewish safety, including in Israel, is deeply linked to the safety of all communities in all democracies. We need to change that.

But, while we need to work tirelessly to save ourselves and combat antisemitism, we alone, without allies, cannot stop antisemitism. We need to recognize that antisemitism is one part, granted a big part, of the assault on democracy that affects everyone.

If we accept what we need to do as I’ve outlined today, it means having open and difficult conversations with others who think they can save democracy without fighting antisemitism. We need to show them that they are wrong. Let’s start today.

Bernard Pinsky, KC, is chair of the Ronald S. Roadburg Foundation.

Education a key issue

Students across British Columbia have returned to the classroom. On university campuses, the activism that had roiled those spaces during the last academic year has returned to a boil. Jewish students are facing more of the horrible same.

Even public high schools are not immune, with reports of harassment of Jewish students and inappropriate comments by teachers and other students.

About a year ago, the government of British Columbia announced that Holocaust education would become a mandatory part of the Grade 10 curriculum. This came as a surprise to many people, who were shocked that it is still possible for a student to graduate from the public education system in this province without encountering anything about the Holocaust. To be clear, this is probably not usually the case, but what a student learns about that dark history has been left to the discretion of teachers.

Starting next year, that will no longer be the case. Students will have to study the Shoah. This is a positive development in many ways. Holocaust education is an entry-point to critical discussions about human rights, dignity, oppression, genocide, totalitarianism and a vast range of crucial topics.

From a Jewish perspective, at a time of increasing antisemitism, this is especially welcome. The dangerous potential of unchecked antisemitism is, of course, the ultimate and unique lesson of the Holocaust. Sensitizing young citizens to this message is an important part of addressing anti-Jewish racism.

The curriculum is still in development and we trust that educating about the Holocaust will be done in the context of a larger history of antisemitism. It would be a mistake to let students conclude that antisemitism is a product exclusively of a different place (Germany) and time (1933 to 1945). The Holocaust, students must understand, was part of a much longer trajectory of anti-Jewish racism and it must not be seen as anomalous in this larger context.

While there was much satisfaction at the announcement that this history would become mandatory in the curriculum, there is cause for concern.

When dealing with issues of extraordinary sensitivity – gender, race, sexuality, religion, treatment of historical events – parents, elected officials and the broader society depend on the ability and integrity of teachers to deliver this content in appropriate ways. This is where we have reasonable apprehensions.

While it is the government that mandates curriculum content, it is obviously teachers who deliver it. The teachers’ union, the British Columbia Teachers’ Federation, has a long history of disseminating anti-Israel materials and adopting biased approaches to the issues of Israel, Palestine and the conflict there.

This year, a group of (mostly Jewish) educators applied to the BC Teachers’ Federation to create a specialist group to help equip teachers to educate on the Holocaust. Astonishingly, the BCTF rejected the application for recognition – a recognition that is, apparently, almost rubberstamped for most other topic areas – without any suitable explanation. Given the history of the BCTF on this subject, many people have understandably come to their own conclusions about what was behind this rejection.

By the nature of their roles, teachers have a vast amount of leeway in transmitting information. The government will set out learning outcomes and expectations for this component, but the potential for inappropriate messaging in individual circumstances is great. Off the top of our heads, for example, we can imagine teachers equating the Holocaust to contemporary events and universalizing beyond the edges of what is reasonable given the uniqueness of the Holocaust in the context of antisemitism throughout the ages.

Not only does the government need to create a curriculum for the subject matter, it might do well to consider a curriculum for teachers to address appropriate and inappropriate ways of addressing the topics raised, including comments from students who have seen the inescapable propaganda accusing Israel of “genocide” and equating Israelis with Nazis.

In just over a month, British Columbians will elect a new government. Whichever party forms government will necessarily have to find a way to work with British Columbia’s teachers to ensure the useful delivery of this curriculum material.

When candidates call or knock on your door, it would be good to remind them that Holocaust education is an important issue for you (as are many other issues, addressed in the story here). Let them know that ensuring this new component of the curriculum is handled appropriately is something you will be watching for as a new government – NDP, Conservative or, given the bizarre upheavals in politics recently, some other group – sets course on this important initiative.

Poll addresses bigotry

For Jews around the world, 2023 was among the most traumatizing years in recent memory. The advent of a new secular year, the turning of the calendar page to 2024, presents a figurative new beginning, some optimism and hope for a potentially better time. These emotions do not come easily right now, which is why the results of a recently released opinion poll seem right for the times, reflecting a little darkness and a little light.

An Angus Reid poll asked Canadians their opinions on the prevalence of antisemitism and anti-Muslim hatred and prejudice in Canada.

Addressing both types of prejudice – toward Jews and Muslims – 11% of respondents say there is “not really a problem at all in Canada.” However, about one in 10 respondents viewed antisemitism as a “minor problem” (11%), while 14% said the same about anti-Muslim hatred. More than half of respondents described antisemitism (52%) and anti-Muslim hatred (53%) as “a problem, but one among many others.” And just over one-quarter of respondents, 26%, said antisemitism is “a major problem requiring serious attention,” while 22% said the same about anti-Muslim hatred.

The overall impression left by the poll is that, among Canadians, there is genuine concern and recognition of these bigotries as an issue. Where more worrying numbers arise is when results are teased out based on Jewish and Muslim survey respondents. In both instances, perhaps unsurprisingly, members of the affected groups express the belief that the problems are of much greater severity than the general population seems to think. On the issue of anti-Muslim hatred and prejudice, 48% of Muslim respondents say it is a major problem, while 38% of overall respondents say it’s a problem, but one among many. The first number – with almost half of Muslims saying it is a major problem – is double that of overall respondents.

Meanwhile, 75% of Jewish respondents said antisemitism is a major problem – almost triple the number of overall respondents who thought so. While a vast majority of respondents see antisemitism as a problem, to varying degrees, Jewish respondents are far more likely to view the severity of antisemitism as greater. Conversely, Muslim respondents were almost three times as likely as overall respondents (32% versus 11%) to say antisemitism is “not really a problem at all in Canada.” Fully 49% of Muslim survey respondents said antisemitism is a minor problem or not really a problem, indicating a schism in appreciation of the problem between these communities. Jewish respondents were slightly more acknowledging than overall respondents toward anti-Muslim bias, with 26% calling it a serious problem (compared with 22% overall), 55% as a problem but one among many (versus 53%) and only 4% saying it is not really a problem at all (versus 11%).

Polling is an imperfect science and recent electoral surprises have indicated its shortcomings in dramatic ways. Nevertheless, a poll of this sort probably captures fairly effectively the zeitgeist of Canadian opinion.

One indication seems to be that members of groups affected by prejudice and discrimination view them as much more serious problems than people who are not directly affected. It is human nature to be more concerned about things that affect us directly. However, when there are significant divergences of opinion around the seriousness of a social problem between people who are directly affected and those who are not, it is, at a minimum, a sign of a communication issue and potentially signals a threat to multicultural cohesion.

One might wonder whether those who experience antisemitism and anti-Muslim bigotry are not doing an effective job of explaining their experiences to the larger community, or whether the larger community is not listening – or, perhaps, a combination of both circumstances is at play.

It is often said that the first step in confronting a problem is the simple acknowledgment of its existence. What is absolutely encouraging is the apparently overwhelming recognition that these are problems that need addressing. There has been, in human nature and across history, a tendency among many people who are not affected by racism to be oblivious to it or to actively deny that it exists. We are fortunate that, if this poll is to be believed, we do not need to convince our neighbours that bias and discrimination are issues.

As we look ahead to the rest of 2024, as Jews and Canadians, let’s dedicate ourselves to tangible solutions to these problems and to really listening to other communities when they tell us they are facing prejudice and discrimination. These are two of the challenges we need to rise to meet.

The omission of antisemitism

Many Jewish students are worried to go to campus in view of threatening and hateful messages and even open hostilities at some Canadian campuses. These are taking place within a wider context of antisemitic incidents in the wake of the eruption of the Hamas-Israel war.

The silence of some Canadian universities in addressing antisemitism, in particular when considered alongside otherwise active approaches toward equity, diversity, inclusion, decolonization (EDID) and racial justice needs to be explicitly addressed.

Legal action has recently been filed against some Canadian universities for failing to address antisemitism.

Anti-Palestinian racism, antisemitism

I’m an education scholar whose work centres on equity, diversity, inclusion, decolonization and anti-racism.

My engagement in this work has been shaped by my own background migrating to Canada from Israel 12 years ago. My graduate studies in Jewish history, with focus on Holocaust memory, made me attuned to injustice.

My migration was informed by concern my children wouldn’t be able to grow up without absorbing the racism against Palestinians that is pervasive in Israeli society. I now fear that my children, and students, will be absorbing antisemitism.

Antisemitism in society at large, on campus

Antisemitism — the prejudice, hatred, and oppression of Jews and one of the oldest forms of racism — is an ongoing concern in Canada.

There has been work at some post-secondary institutions to consider how EDID frameworks need to address antisemitism and also Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian racism both in the context of Israel and Palestinian issues and in the everyday.

But many EDID frameworks — both of specific institutions, and larger guiding frameworks — do not explicitly address these problems. For example, the Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences’ 2021 “Charter on EDID,” which states the need for “a more resolute effort to achieve [EDID] in our disciplines [and] fields of inquiry,” mentions categories of race, ethnicity and does not name antisemitism.

Addressing covert and explicit discrimination

Because racism and discrimination are often covert in higher education institutions, EDID initiatives focus on creating systemic and institutional changes in all levels and aspects of institutions, including through policies, leadership, hiring, curriculum and student experiences. But this frame is also applied to specific discrimination cases and complaints in higher education.

Universities’ equity, diversity, inclusion and decolonization initiatives are emerging and should rightfully comprehensively respond to specific forms of racism and discrimination. For example, in 2020, work on the Scarborough Charter on Anti-Black Racism and Black Inclusion in Canadian Higher Education was launched and multiple universities have since signed it, pledging “shared recognition of the realities of anti-Black racism.”

Focus on decolonization

Inspired by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and its 94 Calls to Action, decolonization and Indigenization of Canadian higher education plans have become central for conceiving EDID work.

For example, the second part of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council’s Igniting Change 2021 report, from the Advisory Committee on Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Decolonization, focuses on “Principles, Guidelines, and Promising Practices of Decolonization.”

In Canadian universities, an EDID focus on issues of decolonization and racism is important, given histories and legacies of colonial oppression, racism, exclusion and marginalization affecting Black, Indigenous and people of colour in Canada.

Yet this focus, in specific institutional approaches to EDID, fails to address and at times downplays the history of antisemitism and its ongoing reality in Canada.

Whiteness and Jews’ ambivalent racialized status

Several factors have contributed to this. The majority of North American Jews self-identify as white. “Whitening” allowed white-passing Jews to become part of a white Christian mainstream in ambivalent ways.

This process has reduced Jewish heritage to simply a religious/faith affiliation, even while Jews remain vulnerable to pernicious white supremacist and antisemitic beliefs about Jewishness being “in the blood.”

No doubt, it is complex to identify Jews as a category under “race,” since such a categorization is reminiscent of Nazi ideology. On the other hand, if we understand race as a social construct, the absence of naming antisemitism in EDID frameworks is deeply problematic.

Tools to acknowledge antisemitism

This prevents scholars and educators from acknowledging the historical, institutional, ideological and cultural underpinnings of antisemitism.

Academics working on anti-racism issues trying to bring up antisemitism are often told this is not part of the EDID agenda.

A report by a senior adviser on antisemitism at the University of Toronto’s medical school described how instances of antisemitism were dismissed as political activism against Israel, protected under academic freedom even while this activism was rife with antisemitic dog whistles (such as seeing Jews as “controlling the media” or “owning the university.”)

This conflation points to EDID settler-colonial discourses that position Jews as white colonial forces.

This framing fails to acknowledge the historical, cultural, and spiritual ties of Jews to the land of Israel and also erases the reality that Jews both in Israel and in diasporic communities globally are not a uniform ethnic group. For example, about half of the Jewish population of Israel are “Mizrachi”, descendants of Jews from the Middle East and North Africa.

Not about shielding Israel from critique

Addressing the complexity of Jewish identities doesn’t mean justifying Israeli state politics or shielding Israel from critique.

Critiquing Israel is not antisemitism. Many Jewish and Israeli scholars have strong criticisms toward Israeli politics, just as many Jews object to the killing of civilians in Gaza, and support “free Palestine.”

CBC news video announcing the death of Canadian Israeli peace activist Vivian Silver who was killed in the Hamas attacks.

Unpacking history and current events is important for EDID work.

But portraying Jewish peoples as the embodiment of colonial oppression is an antisemitic trope that legitimizes hate and violence.

Antisemitic tones, slogans in political calls

Antisemitism was seen after Oct. 7 when some academics publicly celebrated the Hamas massacre as a form of decolonizing and liberation, while victim-blaming those murdered and kidnapped.

Colleagues shared video with me of people at University of British Columbia marching and chanting “there is only one solution: Intifada revolution.” For many Jews, this chillingly evokes the “final solution.”

In other protests, demonstrators have carried signs saying: “Keep the world clean,” portraying a trash can with a Star of David in it.

Including all experiences

The failure of EDID to address antisemitism makes Jewish students targets of microaggression and hate on campuses.

Universities must aim to create educational institutions in which all lived experiences are included.

A good way to address antisemitism would be for specific universities and the higher education sector to launch a task force. In so doing universities would also need to address hard political conversations surrounding Israel and settler colonialism. Universities have tended not to address this because of complexity, but this can no longer be avoided.

Jewish students should not be made to feel less than or illegitimate as they attend university. We have a responsibility to condemn and actively address antisemitism as part of our commitment to EDID.

Lilach Marom, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Education, Simon Fraser University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Universities have obligations

My mom left Brooklyn, NY, to attend Cornell University in the early 1960s at age 16. Among other things, women students had nighttime curfews. This type of legal responsibility or intervention, called in loco parentis (in place of a parent), was common, but, by the time my mother graduated, in the mid-1960s, times had changed. Curfews became a thing of the past.

When I got to Cornell in the 1990s, some things were the same. Cornell impressed upon its new students that “actions have consequences” and that “with rights and privileges come responsibilities.” That is, you were privileged to be there. If you did something stupid, you were held responsible. All this hit me while watching North American college campuses’ turmoil since the Oct. 7 Hamas massacre of Israelis.

I have a front row seat to the drama. My husband is a professor in Manitoba. Between the two of us, we have six degrees from five different universities. We’ve got insider knowledge. I watched some of the behaviour on campuses with horror during the first days after the attack, including seeing Dr. Russell Rickford, a Cornell professor, speak of his “exhilaration” in response to Hamas’s actions. I’m not listing all of the concerning antisemitic events that continue to occur at North American universities. We’re all seeing it on social media and the news.

The first good news I read was from an article written by Rob Eshman in the Forward, which covered Dartmouth University’s response. Dartmouth is a small school. Its academic experts on the Middle East collaborated quickly. On Oct. 9, they announced two public teach-ins, with expectations of a small crowd. Hundreds attended, and there were thousands of YouTube views. What’s the primary responsibility of a university? To educate and encourage students to be critical thinkers. Dartmouth rose to the challenge.

There are other universities following this educational approach, with mixed results. Some universities don’t have the academic firepower or the will to provide an appropriately diverse panel of experts. Some attempts have been derailed by harassment or protest. Other institutions have made poor educational efforts by platforming only one side (usually the pro-Hamas/genocide/apartheid side) of the conversation.

Most professors are evaluated for their performance and tenure on several measures: teaching, research and service. To do these aspects of their job, many feel that free speech is essential and that, while the university employs them, the administration may not hamper their speech as it pertains to teaching or research. Since early October, many professors have felt stifled when expressing their political views, particularly when it comes to anti-Israel political rhetoric about the war.

I recently read a Canadian university faculty union’s stance. The document stated all members had a right to academic freedom and free expression and the union would defend that. However, that right comes with “the responsibility to respect the rights and freedoms of others” and “does not confer legal immunity from hate speech and other violations of the law.” It also doesn’t protect a professor from criticism or condemnation from others.

This document reminds academic professionals what I was taught as an undergraduate: actions have consequences, and they must take responsibility for any consequences that may occur.

Many Jewish students are being physically harassed, verbally assaulted and intimidated on college campuses. Some universities are trying to take action. Cornell had a situation where a student made death threats towards Jewish students at the kosher dining hall. The FBI was quickly involved, the student was arrested. Soon after, the president of the university and the New York State governor sat down to eat in that dining hall with students. Rickford, the professor who spoke out about the Hamas attack as an exhilarating sign of liberation, is now on leave.

Other US universities have responded with less force. Some, like George Washington University, suspended student groups who used pro-Hamas rhetoric. Others, for example, MIT, have suspended students who participate in violent or disruptive protest from all non-academic activities. There are efforts to offer antisemitism education and awareness at some universities. Hillel, the Jewish student organization on many American and Canadian campuses, offers support and advocacy for struggling Jewish students.

Universities now also face legal action when they fail to protect Jewish students. The US Department of Education is opening investigations of antisemitism (and Islamophobia) at US schools such as Cornell, Columbia, Cooper Union, University of Pennsylvania and Wellesley College. There’s a lawsuit being brought against McGill in Montreal, with support from B’nai Brith Canada, and the University of British Columbia, York University, Toronto Metropolitan University and Queen’s University have had class action lawsuits filed against them for alleged antisemitic incidents.

Where does this lead? Consider again the notion that actions have consequences. In some widely circulated video clips, university students or professors scream obscenities and tear down posters of kidnapped victims of the Hamas attack. Some cover their faces; others sneer at the camera. Sometimes, a student is seized by regret later and begs others not to post the images. These choices, caught on video and distributed online, may affect students’ careers forever – and I think that’s OK.

Yes, university students are often (but not always) still adolescents. Perhaps, according to the research, their brains are still developing and they have poor impulse control. But they are also adults in our society. These are people who legally drink, drive, vote and fight in wars. These students are old enough to work, marry and have kids. With all these rights and also the privilege of attending university, they have the responsibility to behave appropriately. Think you might be embarrassed to be caught vandalizing posters of missing persons? Don’t do it.

University leadership and professors have an important role to play “in loco parentis.” It appears many have forgotten this. Students attend universities to get an education, to become critical thinkers and to contribute to leading and shaping our future society. They deserve more than “free speech” from their teachers. They need to learn multiple perspectives, history and policy, and that includes understanding nuance.

While most universities no longer impose curfews or other restrictions, professors owe it to their students to be mentors and role models. Professors should be upstanding community members beyond academic research and teaching. They should behave with integrity. The obligation to do service means different things in various academic disciplines, but, in every case, professors shape the next generation’s professionals beyond giving exams and classroom lectures. Teaching students how they should behave, with compassion and respect for others, matters.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s OK to speak out. Academic freedom is important, but universities have an obligation, too. They should expect students to behave with dignity and respect for the law, even when speaking out. Alumni can pressure universities to do better, as can lawsuits.

There’s no “one size fits all” answer. However, we should expect that every student should have access to education without discrimination. All students – Jewish and non-Jewish – deserve nothing less.

Joanne Seiff has written regularly for CBC Manitoba and various Jewish publications. She is the author of three books, including From the Outside In: Jewish Post Columns 2015-2016, a collection of essays available for digital download or as a paperback from Amazon. Check her out on Instagram @yrnspinner or at joanneseiff.blogspot.com.

Going beyond numbers

Jews of Colour Initiative chief executive officer Ilana Kaufman speaks at Or Shalom on June 6. (photo by Cynthia Ramsay)

On June 6 at Or Shalom, Jews of Colour Initiative chief executive officer Ilana Kaufman spoke about Beyond the Count: Perspectives and Lived Experiences of Jews of Colour. She said JoCI commissioned the survey to find out how many Jews of Colour there are in the United States, “what are our experiences, what are our perspectives, what are our beliefs, and then, how do you parlay that information into making the Jewish community, quite frankly, less racist, more inclusive.”

Kaufman was in Vancouver from Berkeley, Calif., where she is based, to share the survey results with “congregational rabbis, agency professionals, educators, board members, Jewish Federation staff, community members of colour and allies,” said Shelley Rivkin, vice-president of local and global engagement at the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver, which organized and funded the series of meetings. “Jewish Federation had been in conversation with Ilana about the work of the JoCI for over a year,” she said.

Or Shalom’s Rabbi Hannah Dresner introduced Kaufman at the shul talk, and Kaufman dove into the data.

“Depending on the age range you’re thinking about … between eight to 20% of the U.S. Jewish community are community of colour,” with the higher numbers being in the younger age groups, she said. “Every day in the U.S., the number of Jews of Colour is increasing, not decreasing. In terms of the data for multiracial families … 20% of U.S. Jewish families identify as multiracial. You may not see the family members of colour, but we’re there. And, if you’re on the coast, that number goes up to 25%, or one in four families. And that number, of course, is getting bigger every day, too.”

Kaufman is working with colleagues to figure out how many Jews of Colour there will be about 20 years from now. By 2042 or 2043, she said, “depending on immigration patterns, the U.S. will become half People of Colour. The majority of those folks will be multiracial and, in the U.S. Jewish community, we don’t know the date [that will happen], but those patterns map onto the U.S. Jewish community as well.”

While Beyond the Count is not a truly representative survey, as that would have cost about a million dollars, which was beyond JoCI’s capacity, the organization “cast the net as far as we could from the Jews of Colour Initiative perch,” said Kaufman. “We were able to have 1,118 qualified survey respondents in our study. It’s the largest dataset of Jews of Colour in the U.S., maybe anywhere in the world, and it’s not representative at all.” The interviewees over-represented in many areas, such as level of education attained and engagement in Jewish activities.

Regarding the methodology, Kaufman said the survey “is unapologetically framed with Critical Race Theory.”

“From our perspective,” she said, “we can’t do this work without framing it in a context where racism is real, and the effects of racism are real. And it doesn’t implicate white people, it doesn’t marginalize People of Colour, it just reveals the infrastructural truth that allows us then to leverage that truth to make change.”

Feminist pedagogy also informed the work, said Kaufman, and “we used a counter-storytelling approach, which means, instead of white folks saying, People of Colour, tell me your story … we had Jews of Colour, our community, centre the conversation and the work to create shape around that.”

JoCI doesn’t define the term “Jews of Colour,” both because race is a social construct and because identity “has to be owned and carried by the self and so we don’t want to be in the business of telling people how to self-identify,” said Kaufman. The organization uses “Jews of Colour” as an admittedly imperfect conceptual framework, she said, pointing out that, while race may be a fiction, racialization is real, and JoCI operates from that space. For those who self-identify as Jews of Colour, JoCI wants to be a space for resources and support.

Kaufman spoke about “whiteness,” also a social construct. Citing historian Karen Brodkin, Kaufman said the G.I. Bill – which offered home loans, college loans and other benefits to veterans after the Second World War – was one of the moments “when European Jews became white.” Instead of rejecting the benefits until their “black and brown family members in uniform” were offered the same opportunities, “there were moments of passive acceptance of the tools of upward mobility that were offered to Jews of European background that were not offered to People of Colour in the United States at that time,” said Kaufman. “And that’s one of the ways that Jews moved into whiteness, from being a highly ethnicized people in the United States.”

But it is a conditional whiteness, she said, and Jews who had lived with a passive acceptance of privilege had that comfort destroyed in 2016 with Charlottesville, “when white supremacists and neo-Nazis reminded Jews who had enjoyed the benefits of whiteness that they’re not safe…. And, in fact, that white identity is not seen as white in the eyes of white supremacists and neo-Nazis.”

Kaufman said one of the ways we can have a more dynamic and thoughtful conversation is to recognize the extent to which racism harms white people. “Even the concept of whiteness is such a flattened idea of who we’re talking about,” she said. “And so, when you think about Jewish ethnicity and you think just about Jewish European ethnicity, it is vast and it is diverse and, at least in the United States, it’s been boiled down to bagels … this caricature of who the Jewish people are.” When we celebrate diversity and grapple with intercultural dynamics, she said, “white folks have a stake in the conversation that’s not about being the target of opposition, but a collaborative part of the conversation” and, to do that, “we certainly have to recognize the privilege that comes with whiteness or being perceived as white…. When we get past our understanding of privilege, we need to get into who we are as ethnic, racial beings, and everybody has an equal stake in that conversation,” she said.

Almost half of survey respondents (45%) selected two or more racial categories. “And that’s the fastest growing population of People of Colour in the U.S., multiracial people, and that also maps onto the Jewish community,” said Kaufman.

One finding of the survey was that most JoCs feel more comfortable in an environment that’s multiracial. “Jews of Colour feel a tremendous amount of stress when [they’re] the only one in a situation…. We have to help people feel welcome without [them] feeling like we’re singling them out,” she said.

Respondents participated in a wide variety of Jewish activities and organizations, including formal Jewish education, attending synagogue, being part of a Jewish youth group and traveling to Israel: 63% of respondents participated in two or more Jewish activities. Yet most JoCs report having had a range of negative experiences in Jewish communal settings. At the top, 75% of respondents agreed or strongly agreed with the statement, “Others have made assumptions about me based on my skin tone,” and 74% with the statement, “I have felt burdened with explaining myself/my identity.” At the lower end, 60% agreed or strongly agreed that “I have felt tokenized” and 58% that “I have been treated as if I don’t belong.”

“A tip on that,” said Kaufman. “Of course, we want to welcome Jews of Colour into our committees to do things that matter…. If we’re reaching for someone because of what we think they look like, we have to stop ourselves. We just have say, we’d love to have you on our committee, but we want to know what you want to be on our committee for, instead of telling them … what we want them on our committee for.”

As an example, when she was asked to be on board, she made it a condition that she not have to talk about diversity. “And so,” she said, “how do you bring people in for why they want to be there, what they’re good at, how they want to grow? You just ask, how do you want to grow professionally, personally? Maybe I can give you that community opportunity if you join us, which is way better than saying, I don’t know you, I don’t know what you like, but I want you on my committee because of how I think you look.”

Overwhelmingly, survey respondents did not feel that American Jewish leaders are adequately addressing “the specific needs of members/participants who are Jews of Colour,” “the need for greater racial/ethnic diversity in Jewish organizational leadership” or “racism/white supremacy within the American Jewish community.” The numbers improve with regards to how these leaders are addressing “racism/white supremacy outside of the American Jewish community.”

“There’s deep comfort in helping those people outside,” said Kaufman. “What happens when those people are in all of us? And how do we collectively adopt a ‘those people’ identity so that we can actually dissolve this barrier between us and them?”

The study focused on racism, not antisemitism, said Kaufman. “Historically, when the U.S. has talked about antisemitism, they haven’t been including Jews of Colour in that conversation. And so, generally, when you hear about who’s being supported by the organizations fighting antisemitism in the U.S., you never see Jews of Colour included in that conversation.”

JoCI has had to be very careful, she said, so that the survey doesn’t become a tool to fight antisemitism among People of Colour. “The Jewish community and our colleague organizations who deal with antisemitism in the U.S. often use a dynamic of anti-Black racism to create support to fight antisemitism, and this has split People of Colour from Jewish people who [are] white.” She talked about the importance of taking on white supremacy. “Inside of white supremacy is both racism and antisemitism,” she said. “And I think it’s incumbent upon the U.S. Jewish community to look at racism and antisemitism side by side and, in our context, the container that holds that is white supremacy. So, I’m very interested in fighting antisemitism, I’m very interested in fighting racism and, I have to say that, in my family’s life and the lives of a million Jews of Colour in the United States, is for us to talk about white supremacy and to target racism and antisemitism in the same breath, at the same time. Because the piece is, we need to be in a relationship with our Muslim brothers and sisters, our Christian brothers and sisters, our family members all in between, because we’re all under threat from the white supremacists…. I’m very interested in fighting antisemitism but I’m not interested in fighting antisemitism if it only means we’re fighting for white, Jewish people.”

Beyond the Count makes four recommendations: support organizations and initiatives led by and serving Jews of Colour; shift organizational leadership to more accurately reflect the diversity of American Jews; prioritize creating spaces and places for discourse and dialogue with and among Jews of Colour; and promote further research by and about Jews of Colour.

Kaufman “helped us better understand the nuances and diversity of the JoC community and how systems of inequality are perpetuated in our own community,” said Rivkin in an email to the Independent. “The issues identified in Beyond the Count must be taken seriously, we can’t offer token solutions. We have to be intentional and first engage Jews of Colour to find out what they see as the key priorities and what path should be taken going forward.”

To do that, Rivkin said, “A key role of Jewish Federation is to bring stakeholders from across the community together to address critical issues and facilitate discussions…. One of our next steps is to explore the feasibility of conducting either a B.C. or Canada wide survey to gain a better understanding of the local JoC perspective.”

To read the full text of Beyond the Count, visit jewsofcolorinitiative.org.

Honouring others in death

There’s nothing like a tree stump to put things in context. I walk the dog in an area full of mature trees and wildlife. Tucked in a bend of a river, we’ve got a lot of trees here. However, this enormous tree had died. I contemplated its huge stump and growth bands. My impatient dog pulled me towards her usual routine, so I didn’t manage to count the rings to learn just how long it lived, but likely it has existed since long before settlers claimed this land.

One gift I’ve gained from living in Winnipeg, where more than 15% of our population is Indigenous, is a better connection to and respect for the earth and living things. In my urban daily walks with the dog, I’ve seen woodpeckers, ducks, geese, hawks, deer, fox, and more. I’m filled with awe by the wild natural world around us and the contexts offered by Canada’s First Peoples.

However, I’ve also seen the traumas played out through what Canada has done to its Indigenous population. There are unhoused people nearby, living in camps along the riverbank in all kinds of weather. On a warm day, I saw a woman on the ground. I thought she was sleeping and went on my way. Then I struggled, wondering if I should have called for help. Perhaps it was an overdose or something worse. At the time, I promised myself that if she were still there when I returned, I would call for help. The whole walk, I debated whether it was better to involve police or not. Indigenous Canadians aren’t always treated fairly by law enforcement. She was gone by the time I returned. I felt relief because I hadn’t been forced to make a decision. Would sleeping on the ground in an area that was her people’s ancestral land result in an arrest or accusation of criminal behaviour?

This situation, of not being sure if a call to the police was safe, came to mind when hearing the latest news reports regarding the deaths of four women in Winnipeg. These women’s remains were left in multiple garbage bins in May 2022, according to police reports. Some of these dumpsters were sent to Prairie Green landfill on May 16. Jeremy Skibicki is accused of killing these Indigenous women: Rebecca Contois, Morgan Harris, Marcedes Myran and a fourth woman, unidentified, who Indigenous leaders have named Mashkode Bizhiki’ikwe, or Buffalo Woman.

Some of Contois’s remains were found at Winnipeg’s Brady Road landfill in June 2022; her remains were in at least two dumpsters, one of which was spotted before being picked up by the dump truck. The police didn’t find the other women’s remains and declined to do a search for them, saying it would be dangerous and expensive. They have arrested the man they think committed the crimes and said they didn’t need to find the bodies to press charges. Public outcry, along with the families’ voices, forced the government to do a feasibility study regarding a search of the Prairie Green landfill, which has now been released. It says it could take up to three years and $184 million to search for their remains.

Like many Manitobans, I was horrified by how this has unfolded. The idea that these women’s bodies should remain in the trash rather than have a proper, culturally sensitive burial, is abhorrent. I couldn’t imagine why anyone needed a feasibility study to determine that their remains should be found as soon as possible. I, like many others, couldn’t understand why a search didn’t commence immediately in June 2022. I wouldn’t be alone in saying that it seems as though the decision to not recover the bodies promptly seemed inherently flawed and racist.

Unfortunately, this isn’t a new situation. Jewish tradition is rich with historic detail. The Babylonian Talmud, codified by about 500 CE, has already described what to do about it. Even a kohain (priest), who normally must avoid the dead to avoid becoming “defiled” (unable to do Temple sacrifice, during the days when there was a Temple in Jerusalem) is commanded in the Talmud to bury any dead person he finds abandoned on a road. This is called a meit mitzvah. Today, it’s considered a special and important mitzvah (commandment) for all Jews to uphold: if we discover a dead person with no next of kin, we must do the right thing. We must tend to that dead person with respect and bury them properly.

In the Babylonian Talmud Tractate Sotah, on page 45b, we learn that we’re responsible for burying bodies that we find. We must find body parts and bury them together. There’s a rabbinic discussion about what the proper rituals and procedures are “if he was strangled and left in a garbage heap.”

Walking by that enormous tree stump with its yearly growth rings reminds me that we have only a set time here on earth to do the right thing. Jewish tradition teaches us to be upstanding while we’re here. The families who lost their loved ones in these awful crimes deserve to have their rituals around death observed. These include a proper burial and send off of their loved ones’ spirits. Deuteronomy 16:20 reminds us “Justice, justice shall you pursue.” That sometimes requires us to dig at a landfill, i.e. a modern-day garbage heap, to pursue it.

It’s sometimes expensive and hard to do the right thing. It’s even more expensive and harder to correct an error like this one, when someone believes certain bodies on a trash heap are somehow less valuable or important. The police force took an unacceptable approach – to stall, and then find excuses for why we shouldn’t treat every person equally, and value every life taken.

Calling out antisemitism

When news broke that a Jewish person had been shot near a Los Angeles synagogue on Wednesday a week ago, the police statement said there was “no evidence” that the shooter had been targeting Jewish people. When another Jewish person was shot the next day, near the same synagogue, police repeated that these appeared to be separate incidents and that there was again no evidence that Jews were being targeted. Both victims were injured but survived.

When a single suspect in both shootings was arrested Friday, it turned out he has a long history of bombarding Jewish acquaintances and others with violent antisemitic threats.

There is nothing to be gained by having police or anyone else speculate on motives during or in the immediate aftermath of a crime. But if police are going to venture in that direction anyway, why err on the side of randomness? Denying the possibility of antisemitic intent until evidence makes it impossible to do so is a too-common response. It has happened around the world.

In 2015, two days after terrorists murdered 12 people at the offices of the French magazine Charlie Hebdo, ISIS-affiliated extremists took hostages and murdered four people at a kosher supermarket in Paris. Then-U.S. president Barack Obama referred to the attack on an explicitly Jewish store as “a bunch of violent, vicious zealots who … randomly shoot a bunch of folks in a deli in Paris.” There was, of course, nothing random about the “deli” that was chosen.

It happened again during an antisemitic attack in Jersey City, N.J., in December 2019, when six people were murdered. Police initially said they believed the kosher market was randomly chosen and there was no evidence of terrorism. Within hours, they acknowledged that the perpetrators had “targeted the location they attacked.”

In 2022, there was an 11-hour hostage-taking at a synagogue in Colleyville, Tex., in which there were thankfully no casualties but the perpetrator. A police spokesperson said immediately after the incident that the hostage-taker’s demands were “specifically focused on issues not connected to the Jewish community” and, two days later, officials amended this to “a terrorism-related matter, in which the Jewish community was targeted.”

The reality was less oblique. The perpetrator chose that synagogue because it was closest to the federal penitentiary holding a terrorist he sought to free. He chose a synagogue because that would be the surest way to get his demands met since, as he told the hostages, the U.S. “only cares about Jewish lives” and because “Jews control the world.”

What is this instinct to deny that antisemitism is a cause of antisemitic violence until the evidence makes denial untenable?

In her book People Love Dead Jews, Dara Horn posits that efforts at Holocaust education in recent years may be having the opposite of the intended effect. Rather than making people sensitive to anti-Jewish ideas or crimes, it may set the bar too high. When a few people are murdered in Paris or shot in Los Angeles, after all, it’s not the Holocaust. If the only thing a person (or a society) knows about antisemitism is the Holocaust, then cases of hate crimes involving a couple of people are, well, nothing to get too concerned about.

There may be a denial not only of the magnitude, but of the very existence of the phenomenon itself. We are in a time of reckoning about race and racism. These issues are a central fact in our collective discourse. But antisemitism does not fit neatly into this narrative. When skin colour is the defining factor, white-passing Jews are excluded from the discourse and non-white Jews are made even more invisible than they too often already are. Moreover, the outcomes by which racism is measured are, to some extent, economic inequities. Proof of racism is seen in reduced economic outcomes: higher unemployment, lower household wealth, fewer opportunities. These are not, collectively, how antisemitism manifests. Ergo, in some eyes, this means antisemitism does not exist – or does not have the serious, quantifiable impacts other forms of racism have.

Antisemitic incidents, including violent crime, are at alarming levels, according to every survey and measure available. The least that law enforcement, media and ordinary people can do under the circumstances, when a Jewish individual or community is attacked, is avoid retrenching into a defensive position that defaults to the assumption that anything but antisemitism is at work.

Racism talk versus action

When George Floyd was murdered by a Minneapolis police officer in 2020, it reawakened awareness about police violence and institutional racism in the United States and beyond. Nearly three years later, many of the anti-racist pledges made during that time remain unfulfilled.

“Do you know that most of those commitments have not been met and there is no accountability for not doing this?” said June Francis, special advisor to the president of Simon Fraser University on anti-racism, director of the Institute for Diaspora Research and Engagement, co-founder of the Black Caucus at SFU and an associate professor in the Beedie School of Business. “Companies said they were going to do X,Y and Z, research shows they’re not doing it. Accountability is everything. If we don’t see change and there are no repercussions … then we get tired, society goes back.”

Francis was speaking Nov. 3 at an event titled From Talk to Action: Challenging Racism in Canada Today. The panel discussion, at Robson Square, was presented by the Simces & Rabkin Family Dialogue on Human Rights in partnership with the Canadian Museum for Human Rights and Equitas, an international human rights education organization.

Francis aimed a particularly sharp critique at academic institutions.

“When students arrive at a university, they are being groomed to become racist people,” she said. “I say this honestly because what they are taught is any ideas worth knowing emanate out of white supremacists. White ideas are the enlightened [ones], the primitive becomes us, our art is considered primitive, our work is always denigrated. It’s only recently that Indigenous knowledge has become a thing, only because we’ve totally destroyed the planet and now we’ve suddenly awakened and, even then, we have a certain category of it as being nonscientific. Universities are founded on these ideas that are meant to create this idea that some people are superior to others and we perpetuate this every day. Then we go on to only fund research that does that. We go on to promote people who do that research. We go on to insist that our students who dare to challenge the system don’t graduate unless they do what we tell them to do.”

Annecia Thomas, who joined Francis on the panel, was mobilized to action in the aftermath of Floyd’s murder, as well as when students at her Kamloops high school made light of the murder in an online post. She was afraid to speak up, she said.

“But, I think, through this fear I gained another fear – that was not speaking up,” she said. “Without speaking up, it would just continue.”

Also on the panel was Daniel Panneton, director of allyship and community engagement at the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Centre for Holocaust Studies. He addressed online hate and how it can transmute into real-world violence, citing the case of Dylan Roof, the South Carolina man who was radicalized online and, in 2015, murdered nine people in an African-American church.

Concerns about free speech rights, which are sometimes invoked to defend racist, misogynistic or otherwise bullying behaviours online are specious, he argued. These actions effectively deter members of historically marginalized communities from running for public office and participating in the public sphere, he said.

“The tolerance of hate and threatening speech in our society threatens the free-speech rights of vulnerable communities,” said Panneton.

The panel was moderated by Niigaan Sinclair, an Anishinaabe man who is head of the department of Indigenous studies at the University of Manitoba and is a frequent commentator in national media.

“I grew up as a refugee, but I didn’t know it,” he said, referring to Canadian governments who forced his ancestors off their lands. “In every other country of the world, that would be called ethnic cleansing, but in Canada they call it progress.”

He said the ultimate goal of racism is to erase its own history.

“The outcome of violence is always silence, not to talk about it, to make sure that it happens in perpetuity and that it’s somehow legal and justified,” said Sinclair.

Zena Simces and Dr. Simon Rabkin, who launched the annual series four years ago, spoke of their motivations.

“We established the dialogue on human rights because we saw a void in Vancouver with respect to a dedicated program on human rights for everyone in the community, for all groups,” said Simces, a consultant in health, social policy and education and a former leader in the now-defunct Canadian Jewish Congress.

“To combat racism, we first need to understand it, think about the background and understand the history,” said Rabkin, a professor at the University of British Columbia medical school who has provided health care to underserviced areas in northern Canada and in Kenya. “Talk and reflection is not enough, it won’t move us forward. We need a vision of the future in order to provide a guidepost and a goal to aim towards.”

Yom Yerushalayim tainted

Yom Yerushalayim took place Sunday, commemorating the reunification of the city during the 1967 Six Day War. The liberation of the Western Wall, a moment captured so powerfully through an iconic photo of three awe-struck young soldiers, is an unforgettable part of Jewish history.

The reunification of the city was by no means merely a symbolic or administrative event. Neither was it solely a national victory. In the millennia-long history of the Jewish people’s connection to the Second Temple, there have been just two decades when Jewish prayer at the Western Wall has been interrupted – the years between 1948 and 1967, when Jordan occupied East Jerusalem and refused freedom of religious observance at Judaism’s holiest site.

Put mildly, the reunification of the city and its spiritual implications, as well as its political ones, represent a massive historical event. So, it is hardly surprising that emotions run high on the subject. Now, at a time when political extremism is sadly on the rise in so many places in the world, including in Israel, it is likewise hardly surprising that Yom Yerushalayim would be a lightning rod for the worst elements in Israeli society.

On Monday, top Israeli leaders condemned some of the words and deeds of a minority of participants in Sunday’s Yom Yerushalayim parade. Some of the men who marched through the Old City’s Muslim Quarter wore T-shirts with phrases like “Rabbi Kahane was right” and images of a machine gun emerging from a Star of David. Some marchers chanted calls for death to Arabs and slapped racist stickers on the shutters of Muslim storefronts that had wisely closed for the afternoon. Young men shouted “Whores” at a group of Arab women watching the passing spectacle.

Yom Yerushalayim is a day for celebration. While imperfect, Israel ensures freedom of worship at holy sites under its jurisdiction, something occupying Arab forces (that is, Jordan) refused to do. Most of the celebrants Sunday did not exhibit xenophobia and hatred.

Still, the best are tainted by the worst. In this space several weeks ago, in relation to the appearance of Nazi flags and other atrocities at the “truckers” protest in Ottawa, we said: “It is no less abhorrent to march alongside people carrying a swastika flag than it is to carry a swastika flag.”

To march alongside evil is to condone it.

To their credit, top Israeli leaders responded strongly, albeit a day after the abhorrent actions took place. Benny Gantz, the defence minister, said it is time to declare several of the groups involved in the mayhem as terrorist groups. Among them are extremist groups like La Familia and Lehava.

Israelis – and Jews – are very often held to a higher standard than other nations. This is a phenomenon with deep, discriminatory roots. Put simply, it may be a natural, though cynical, human reaction to adherents of the original form of ethical monotheism, i.e. if Jews cannot exemplify superhuman virtue, the justification presumably goes, why should the rest of humanity feel compelled to behave any better?

Conversely, though, the fact that critics (or enemies) of the Jewish people are hypocrites should not affect Jews’ own striving for ethical conduct. The bad behaviour of others is not an excuse for bad behaviour by anyone. Israel as a state – and Jews as a people – must roundly condemn the perpetrators of xenophobia and violence last Sunday.

And Gantz is right. It’s time to call out these perpetrators for what they are.