Antisemitism at University of Toronto Medical School

"Personal experiences as a faculty member and as a clinician [including antisemitism that I personally witnessed or experienced] led to the writing of this report]."

"There are those who do not only cross over the line to anti-Jewish hatred but who do so proudly and perhaps sometimes as the primary goal, hiding behind the Palestinian cause all the while."

"I personally experienced many instances of antisemitism, including being told that all Jews are liars, that Jews lie to control the university or the faculty or the world, to oppress or hurt others, and/or for other forms of gain; and that antisemitism can't exist because everything Jews say are lies, including any claims to have experienced discrimination."

Dr. Ayelet Kuper, associate professor, department of medicine, University of oronto

 Thee was a time in Canada -- and Toronto -- in the 1930s when signs were erected reading: "No Jews, Blacks of Dogs Allowed". It was a time when entry to universities was difficult for Jews with strictly limited enforced quotas. When universities adopted a rigid system of exclusion, just as private clubs did. Public parks and beaches were also off limits to Jews. Antisemitism ran rampant, so deeply entrenched that when Jews were desperate to escape Germany and certain death few countries saw their way clear to accepting these refugees, certainly not Canada. 

 

Canadian Museum for Human Rights

Incidents of antisemitism have once again crept out of the dank, dark sewers that once quietly hosted them, to again find free expression in places where Jews once felt comfortably that they were finally accepted and the miserable days of active Jew-hate was firmly and permanently relegated to the past. A contrite world post-Holocaust made it socially unacceptable for people to utter racist comments in public. People who harboured rank beliefs in Jewish plots to control the world kept their own counsel.

And then, over a gradual period, with the rebirth of the Jewish state of Israel, conflict between Arabs living in the area that was historically Judean, named as a province of 'Palestine' -- where indigenous Jews traditionally lived -- by the Roman occupation a the time of the Roman empire, was contested by Arabs throughout the Middle East as Arab/Muslim land, not Judean. The first reaction to the establishment of Israel reborn, was military violence which failed to reach its goal.

 

Until the Arab population of 'Palestine' took for themselves the identification of Palestinians as well as the historical presence that was Judaean in character, claiming themselves to be the legitimate authentic indigenous population, Jews mere colonialists. Palestinians draped themselves in victimhood and the world responded with concern. Not concern over Palestinian Arab violence extinguishing the lives of Jews, but the public relations campaign launched to slander the very existence of Israel as illegitimate.

It was a campaign that couldn't fail to resonate with closet antisemites until they become sufficiently emboldened to air their anti-Jewish slurs in the light of day, portraying themselves as sympathetic to the Palestinian 'cause' against invading, oppressive Jews. Hiding behind the noxious vision of a Jewish state bent on wresting control of territory from its original inhabitants as Palestinian Arabs claimed themselves to be, the campaign of disentitlement and delegitimization spread in lock step with visible antisemitism.

Now, on university campuses all over North America, and Canada in particular, Jewish students are harassed and subjected to the racist label of oppressors of victimized Palestinians. A front, in actual fact for the oldest hate in the world. It has become 'legitimate' to criticize Israel and arguing that to do so has nothing to do with antisemitism. In the process victimizing Canadian Jews as accessories to the Jewish state's unwillingness to allow itself to be destroyed. The upshot is that verbal, violent antisemitism has become a dominant creed once again.

Toronto's premier institute of higher education has tarnished itself by becoming an accessory to blatant lies about Israel and harming the lives of Jewish Canadians through the semi-institutionalization of antisemitism. A new academic paper published in the Canadian Medical Education Journal by a credible witness within the Temerty Faculty of Medicine at University of Toronto describes the situation, within a greater aura of disinterest in and unwillingness to do anything about the viral presence of antisemitism.

And while the Faculty of Medicine at the university issued a rote condemnation of antisemitism to the effect of stating that "it takes courage to step forward and shine a light on hate. We hear you. We see you and we are with you", nothing has followed that kindly sentiment.

• Being told that because she was born in Israel and refuses to denounce the Jewish state, she is “inherently racist, and therefore any discrimination I encounter as a Jew in Canada is therefore deserved.” 
• A faculty member [told her] that Jews mustn’t be allowed to speak on their own behalf about antisemitism and shouldn’t even be subject to the protection from discrimination as outlined in the Ontario Human Rights Code, on the grounds that what Jews call antisemitism isn’t real.
• “In the years before the war in Gaza, I overheard faculty colleagues complaining about ‘those Jews who think their Holocaust means they know something about oppression.’” 
• [I] heard about non-Jewish students who thought a Jewish classmate had the power to block their residency matches. 
• Non-Jewish students asked her why educational content about Jews was “being forced on the students by the Jew who bought the faculty.” 

Dr. Ayelet Kuper’s article in the Canadian Medical Education Journal.