Fresh red lines have been crossed by anti-Israel agitators in Canada. These developments should alarm everyone who cares about civil society, diversity and safe spaces for children.
A coalition of antizionist groups is pressuring provincial camping associations to strip accreditation from Jewish summer camps on the basis that the camps integrate Zionism into their programming.
These opponents accuse the camps of politicizing Jewish summer camps, but the irony here is that it is the activists who are doing the politicizing. The land and the state of Israel are integral to Jewish identity. They deserve to be part of a holistic Jewish experience – camping, or any other cultural undertaking – for Jews of any age.
A primary complaint, it seems, is that Jewish camps often employ young Israelis, including (as almost all Israelis are) veterans of the Israel Defence Forces. They take it a step further, though – and this is a lesson about the insidious strategy behind the “genocide” libel.
The term genocide, we should not need to note, carries a strict definition under international law and no competent international court has made such a finding against Israel. While the term is thrown about with abandon, including by erstwhile legitimate nongovernmental organizations, this is, at best, a contested area of discourse.
It might have seemed that the widespread use of the term “genocide” was a means to undermine the legitimacy of the Jewish state. It is much more than that.
Having planted the flag of “genocide,” antizionist groups are now moving from this presumed “fact” to employing it as a weapon on new fronts to attack Jewish identity, culture and security worldwide – the first, apparently, being Jewish kids’ summer camp experiences.
The activists targeting Jewish camps are accusing them of endorsing “genocide.” The campaign is part of a broader effort to cast Jewish institutions as unacceptable in public life if they are connected, even tangentially, to anything associated with Israel.
Jewish summer camps have nothing to do with military strategy in Gaza or legislative decisions in Jerusalem. They have everything to do with building community, preserving language and tradition, fostering positive identity and belongingness, and providing childhood experiences that many Canadian Jews cherish and remember fondly for decades. They are also sources of relationships – dating and marriages included – for many in the Jewish world.
And that, of course, may be the point.
The anti-Israel activists know the centrality of Israel to Jewish identity. To undermine Israel, they seem to have concluded, it is necessary to attack the foundations of Jewish identity in Canada and around the world. Starting with kids.
The attempt to weaponize accreditation – a marker of safety, quality and regulatory compliance – threatens to blur the boundary between political disputes and Canada’s multicultural harmony. Provincial camping associations are rightly focused on ensuring that camps meet health, safety and staffing standards. They are not forums for arbitrating geopolitical grievances.
What is most disturbing about this campaign is not merely its target, but its implications. If any cultural institution can be penalized because it maintains a connection to a nation or narrative that some (rightly or wrongly) find objectionable, then no group is safe from the imposition of political litmus tests in civic life. Imagine if every cultural organization that used Russian, Hausa, Arabic, Urdu or Mandarin were accused of endorsing every foreign government’s actions. The corrosive effect on Canadian pluralism would be profound.
To their credit, camping associations in Ontario and Manitoba have responded appropriately. We await similar expressions from the BC Camps Association.
Jewish camp leaders, Jewish federations and others have rightly pushed back, calling the campaign discriminatory and cautioning that it risks undermining the welfare and safety of Jewish children. Their voices deserve amplification. Protecting our children’s right to participate in enriching experiences free from political and antisemitic harassment is not a partisan concern. It is a foundational element of a just, inclusive society.
In defending Jewish summer camps, we are defending more than campfires and games. We are defending a principle: that identity – religious, cultural or ethnic – must not be a basis for discrimination in Canada.
To suggest that Jewish camps should lose their accreditation because they use Hebrew words around a campfire, celebrate Jewish holidays or employ staff who have served in the Israeli military is to redefine discrimination as activism.
Targeting Jewish summer camps for their cultural identity is an assault on the very foundations of multicultural community life.