Jewish students say they don’t feel safe from antisemitism on campus – National | 24CA News
Jewish college students from main Canadian universities appeared on Parliament Hill Wednesday to lift the alarm a few rise in antisemitism on their campuses amid the Israel-Hamas battle.
They spoke with a number of Liberal MPs together with Anthony Housefather, who helped provoke a parliamentary committee examine about antisemitism on campuses scheduled to start Thursday.
Housefather cited issues from Jewish college students and college who say they’re experiencing extra antisemitic behaviour since Oct. 7.
Hamas launched an assault on Israel that day, killing 1,200 individuals in Israel. The retaliatory siege, bombardments and floor assaults within the Gaza Strip have left greater than 30,000 Palestinians lifeless, well being officers within the area mentioned.
Students and pro-Palestinian activists have just lately arrange encampments at some Canadian universities — together with McGill University, the University of Toronto, University of Ottawa and University of British Columbia — to protest Israel’s marketing campaign in opposition to Hamas.
Administrators and Jewish leaders have raised issues about antisemitic chants and slogans being featured on the protests and mentioned hate is not going to be tolerated.
Claire Frankel, a pupil at McGill, says she has heard slogans that “dehumanize Jews,” however believes many college students are demonstrating “for the right reasons” and need to see an enduring peace.
“Chants heard throughout this past school year and at the encampment at McGill include, ‘All Zionists are racist,’ ‘All Zionists are terrorists,’ ‘There’s only one solution, intifada revolution’ and ‘Leave Palestine alone and go back to Europe,’” she mentioned.
On a latest stroll to class Frankel mentioned she noticed an indication that learn, “No Zionists are welcome.”
In Arabic, intifada is a phrase with meanings that embody shaking off oppression. In English, it’s mostly related to two durations of specific depth within the battle between Israelis and Palestinians, which included a collection of assaults by Palestinian terrorist teams on public venues inside Israel.
Other college students who spoke on Wednesday, together with some Jewish campus leaders, mentioned they know of scholars who’ve stopped attending courses or sporting symbols that signify their Jewish identification.
Yos Tarshish directs the Queen’s University chapter of a nationwide Jewish group, and says whereas a lot of the dialog across the rise in antisemitism is concentrated on how universities ought to reply, he questions the function of bystanders.
“Where are average, individual, daily, regular, run-of-the mill Canadians in this?” he mentioned.
“Where are you when you hear somebody calling all Jewish students terrorists, or (saying) any Jewish student who believes that their ancestral right to self-determine in their homeland is racist — where is the Canadian turning around and saying, ‘How dare you … how dare you say that to anybody?’”
© 2024 The Canadian Press
