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Legal help for students

StandWithUs Canada executive director Jesse Primerano and lawyer Anita Bromberg, director of the organization’s new legal department. (photos from SWU)

StandWithUs Canada has just launched a new legal department to help students navigate the climate on Canadian campuses.

StandWithUs Canada is an educational organization that works to inspire and educate people of all ages about Israel, challenge misinformation and fight antisemitism within schools and communities. While the organization has always helped students navigate legal challenges, up to now, according to executive director Jesse Primerano, the organization has had to outsource cases to volunteer lawyers on a case-by-case basis. Cases have included incidents of human rights complaint violations by, for example, a university or a student union. With a staff lawyer leading a new department, StandWithUs aims to have greater reach in the legal realm.

Anita Bromberg is a lawyer with extensive practice experience in human rights and constitutional law, including religious freedom, censorship and freedom of speech cases. She has done research and teaching, worked with B’nai Brith Canada as a human rights officer and legal counsel, and served as executive director of the Canadian Race Relations Foundation. She has argued before the Supreme Court of Canada.

After Oct. 7, 2023, Bromberg rededicated herself to the Jewish community and fighting antisemitism, heading the Canadian Antisemitism Education Foundation.

“I hope that, in my position, I will bring that expertise and connections and networking to StandWithUs,” Bromberg told the Independent. “And, most importantly, to me, is to find a way to bring our community together so that we are a lean, mean fighting machine that parallels the type of support that we’re seeing the anti-Israel crowd getting.”

Anti-Israel organizations have lawyers on call, according to Bromberg and Primerano, and Jewish students and their allies need parallel defences. 

Students are being confronted on campus, including in classrooms, with aggressive harassment not only from student activists but from professors and faculty advisors, said Bromberg. 

In addition to being harassed, students are being doxxed – having their personal information, like home addresses, made public – and access to public spaces like tables and room rentals on campus is being denied to Jewish students based on their political views, said Primerano. Jewish students are being silenced, he said, based on justifications that events, for example, cannot go forward for their own protection, based on security concerns.

“They need legal support to understand what they can do to defend themselves against a machine that’s trying to take them down,” said Primerano.

Launching the legal department has been a longtime goal of StandWithUs Canada, said Primerano. 

“It required not only funding, but it required us to make sure the rest of our infrastructure was immaculate,” he said. 

Legal avenues are often the only option for students who feel harmed by the actions of an institution or its representatives, he said.

“At the end of the day, very little holds universities to account outside of the law itself,” Primerano said. “That is the one thing that they say that they respect.”

The new legal department, with a single employee, is just the beginning, he maintained. The organization envisions a future with multiple lawyers and several staff members, collaborating with lawyers across the country.

“We’re not planning to solve this problem on our own,” said Primerano. “We’re looking to build a network of pro bono lawyers across Canada who are willing to support us here and there.”

The goal, ultimately, is to make sure that students have somebody they can call that is specifically focused on their issues. From there, StandWithUs might engage with community partners as appropriate, such as the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs and others.

“Our goal is to build a real network,” he said. “Our fundamental belief is that the community is stronger when we work together, but we also know that the university students need a point of contact, and all we’re trying to establish here for them is a point of contact with expertise and reliability that can then utilize the rest of the infrastructure that exists, especially with Anita being based in Toronto, to speak to lawyers in Vancouver and say, ‘You’ve already been having these conversations. Let’s work together to make sure that we can effect a change.’” 

Bromberg’s deep roots in the Jewish community and legal experience mean she can hit the ground running on complex issues.

“I think that was one reason why I got the nod for this position,” said Bromberg, “because I’ve been in the community, I’ve networked with pretty much every organization and I’ve always adopted a cooperative measure. I think that the unity in the community is probably the most important thing that we have to develop.”

Students can access a reporting tool through the StandWithUs website (standwithus.com) and social media.

“The goal is not entirely reactive,” Primerano added. “Anita will also be developing resources, workshops, webinars and ways for students and community members at large to be aware of what their rights are and how they can defend them.… We’re also trying proactively to help people get a better understanding of what they’re entitled to as Canadian citizens.” 

Revisiting myth of Lilith

Throughout her long career, award-winning artist Lilian Broca has tried many styles and various media, but, over the years, her main theme crystallized: the power of women. Her current show at the Zack Gallery exemplifies this theme.

photo - Lilian Broca
Lilian Broca (photo from Lilian Broca)

“I studied abstract art at university and worked in it in the beginning,” Broca told the Independent. “In the 1960s and 1970s, abstract art was on the rise; figurative art was considered commercial, and it wasn’t a compliment. I worked in the abstract style, but it didn’t speak to me. There is no humanity, no emotions in the abstract. I wanted human figures, and I started introducing them into my paintings, but disguised with overlayed belts of colours. The figures were invisible, but they were there.”

Broca’s tendency to work against the established mode started that early. Then she got married and had her first son. After being immersed in diapers for months, she had a revelation. “I realized that I would never be on the cover of Time magazine,” she said. “I might as well paint what I wanted. I started working in a realistic style and never looked back. And, of course, after having a baby, I wanted to paint women. I wanted to explore their place in our society.” 

Biblical women – Esther, Judith, Mary Magdalene – became the focal point of her art. She wanted to analyze their stories, to see them through new eyes. “Everyone knows their names, but I’m a storyteller,” Broca said. “My paintings always tell a story, and they always have an unexpected twist, an aspect nobody else ever painted. I do lots of research for my works, as I want to show those women as powerful in their own right.”

Broca’s love of mythology contributed to her selection of topics, but she has always been attracted by feminist ideas, too. It is no surprise that she was drawn to the myth of Lilith, which firmly resides at the intersection of mythology and feminism.  

Before the Lilith works, Broca painted a series of angels. To do so, she studied the anatomy of a wing. “Wings are difficult to draw,” she said. “Once, I was in Seattle, participating in a show, and I saw a real wing from a bird – a raptor maybe – in a hunting shop, alongside guns. I bought that wing and studied it. All the Lilith wings are based on that one wing. I still have it at home. It looks so old and sad now.” 

After learning about the Jewish-American feminist magazine Lilith, Broca recalled, “I was intrigued. I decided to study the story of Lilith. Both Lilith and her counterpart, Eve, are two central female figures in Christian and Judaic origin stories, which are very important in any society – the origin story always sets the place for both men and women in any culture,” she said.  

Broca found that not much was known about Lilith. “She is not in the Bible. I needed to dig deeper, to find other sources. I read Midrash and the medieval text The Alphabet of Ben Sira.” 

She started working on her Lilith series in 1993. “From that time until 2000, when I painted the last one, I made 58 large drawings. About half of them were sold during various exhibitions. The rest, I put in crates, until Sarah Dobbs from the Zack Gallery contacted me. She thought that the theme of Lilith was experiencing a revival nowadays and wanted to show my series at the Zack. The current exhibition includes 16 mixed media paintings of that series.” 

The series traces Lilith’s journey in two senses: historical and symbolic. 

“In early traditions, Lilith is Adam’s first partner. They were created equal at the same time by God,” Broca explained. “But Adam wanted dominance, and Lilith refused to submit. She ran away, choosing self-imposed exile over subordination and obedience.”

photo - “Let Us Proclaim Freedom,” by Lilian Broca, is part of her Lilith series
“Let Us Proclaim Freedom,” by Lilian Broca, is part of her Lilith series. (photo from Lilian Broca)

Broca’s drawings, richly detailed and infused with light and shadows, follow Lilith on her difficult quest toward autonomy and freedom. “In ancient times, leaving your community was often a death sentence,” Broca explained. “Exile was a punishment, as the outside world was usually hostile. But Lilith had to go. She had to brave the unknown dangers, because her independence was paramount to her.”

Patriarchal society couldn’t let it stand. “The authorities didn’t wish Lilith to become a role model for young women, so they turned her into a demon,” said Broca. “They portrayed her as an evil temptress, to be feared and reviled, while she only wanted her emancipation.”        

That’s why the legend of Lilith was so important to Broca. She wanted to re-evaluate the story from a modern perspective, to show Lilith as a composite heroine in the middle of mythology, theology and contemporary feminist discourse.  

The contrast between Lilith and Eve is glaring in Broca’s version of the tale. While Eve is obedient and nurturing, Lilith stands as rebellious and free, bowing to no one. “We, modern women, are a mix of Lilith and Eve. Not one or the other but both at once,” Broca said. 

Broca’s high school friend, cellist Kristine Bogyo, produced a multimedia performance involving classical music, poetry and Broca’s images of Lilith. Bogyo’s A Song of Lilith, which premiered in 2001, fused music by Larysa Kuzmenko, poetry by Joy Kogawa and Broca’s images. “We toured for a few years in several Canadian cities,” said Broca. 

After Lilith, after 2000, Broca started working on large panels, telling new and equally as inspiring stories of biblical women in the ancient medium of glass mosaic. She continues to reach for other creative horizons to explore. Her newest project is going to be a collaboration with a 99-year-old nun from Jerusalem, Sister Maureena Fritz. 

“We met in 2024 in Saskatoon,” said Broca, “during Sister Maureena’s Canadian tour to promote her latest book, Redeeming the Name of Jesus. It was fascinating to me, especially because I did a huge amount of biblical research for my Mary Magdalene mosaic series.” 

They started corresponding, and Sister Maureena expressed her appreciation of Broca’s mosaics. 

“Two months ago, Maureena emailed me,” Broca said. “She plans to write a new book and asked me to illustrate it with my drawings. My initial reaction was, oh, I can’t. I have done enormous research on ancient goddesses and I wanted to pair them with female robots in a new mosaic series – there is a kind of AI worship in our 21st century. But then I thought better about it and agreed to Maureena’s proposal.”

The Lilith exhibit, which opened at the Zack Gallery on May 20, is part of the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver’s Festival of Jewish Culture. Sponsored by the Averbach Family Foundation and Ben Shneiderman, it runs until June 29. For more information about Broca, check out her website, lilianbroca.com, and jewishindependent.ca.

Olga Livshin is a Vancouver freelance writer. She can be reached at [email protected].

Wrong person rebuked

The City of Vancouver’s integrity commissioner this month declared that Mayor Ken Sim breached the city’s code of conduct by criticizing Councilor Sean Orr’s presence and comments at an anti-Israel rally last year.

The report concluded that Sim misused the influence of his office by holding a press conference to criticize Orr over inflammatory social media posts and his attendance at an anti-Israel protest alongside very problematic speakers and organizations. The report said Sim should apologize to Orr or face censure by council.

Ezra Shanken, chief executive officer of the Jewish Federation of British Columbia, said in a statement that the conflict commissioner’s report represented a double standard, and expressed gratitude to the mayor for raising our community’s concerns.

Nico Slobinsky, on behalf of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, criticized Orr for not showing accountability for past social media posts, including claiming that city planners were controlled by a “secret cabal of Jews,” and calling for the “destruction of both Israel and Canada.” While a city councilor, Orr spoke at the “Flood for Palestine” protest organized by Al-Awda, a group with links to the terrorist entity Samidoun.

The brouhaha at city hall is just one in a small avalanche of administrative, legal and political episodes in recent years that have left many Jews feeling abandoned and betrayed by the institutions and legal protections ostensibly in place to protect them and other minority communities.

Many Jews feel under attack and, despite pleasant words from some elected officials, actual tangible responses often seem weak or absent. For example, the flooding of a Vancouver neighbourhood with hate messages against Jews and Israel have been effectively ignored by city officials. Clearing them away has been left to local residents. Nothing, apparently, has been done to reprimand the individual known to be perpetrating the graffiti and vandalism, despite laws and bylaws against precisely this sort of behaviour.

In Ontario, some progress has been seen recently. Toronto authorities responded to demonstrations in Jewish neighbourhoods by tightening enforcement, restricting marches from entering residential streets, and arresting some participants and investigating alleged incidents of hate speech and public incitement. Ontario’s Premier Doug Ford has been vocal in defending Jewish communities and, no doubt, his unequivocal position gave some political cover to police and others to take action. 

No similar political leadership has been seen in British Columbia, where the unresolved case of Charlotte Kates remains a sore point for many in the Jewish community. Vancouver police arrested Kates in April 2024 after remarks at a Vancouver rally in which she praised the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks and venerated their perpetrators as heroic. Police recommended charges for public incitement and wilful promotion of hatred. Nearly two years later, Crown counsel has still not announced a charge decision. Pressed by the Independent, the premier’s office pointed to prosecutorial independence, arguing that charging decisions rest with the BC Prosecution Service, not elected officials.

This may be fair justification, but piled upon so many instances where words and actions that are perceived by Jews as hateful and inciting go officially unchallenged leave many Jewish people with an overall sense that they are being abandoned by those who should be enforcing anti-hate protections.

Parliament is now considering Bill C-9, a proposed online harms law that carries numerous provisions that Jewish leaders support. But many people are leery of more laws that likely will not be enforced, provisions intended to increase safety for minority communities – Jews, in particular – but that will not have their intended impact, whether because police do not enforce them, the Crown does not pursue charges or, if it reaches that level, courts do not convict. The proposed new federal law has much to recommend itself but, if it is just going to be another law on a dusty legal shelf, it will not change the situation we face.

The case of Vancouver’s mayor, who called out egregious incidents only to be called on the carpet himself – and ordered to apologize – portends a chilling on those who would stand up for the Jewish community.

We have laws in this country, but many of them are not being enforced. Very few Jews in this country, we confidently venture, believe the system is working as it should. 

Canada’s mixed messages

In mid-May, a Winnipeg Free Press article by John Longhurst announced a new online database for research. This open access resource lists the names of German Nazi party members. The article’s target audience: the Manitoba Mennonite community. 

As background: Many German Mennonites, previously pacifist, joined the Nazi party starting in the early 1930s. In the article, Arnold Neufeldt-Fast, a Toronto researcher, said the goal of researching and publicizing the records was not to condemn or shame anyone. “The point,” he said, “is to understand what made their choices feel plausible at the time, and what this means for us now in Canada and the US.” Aileen Friesen, who teaches Mennonite History at the University of Winnipeg, said it could serve “as a lesson for our current time.”  

I’m concerned about this “lesson.” Nazi membership before and during the Second World War is nothing to be proud about. Still, this does make it easier to understand the views of some Mennonites in 2026.

Some Winnipeg Mennonites often offer public opinions about Israel, Gaza and the war. They’re staunchly against war, but support Palestinian resistance and are against Israelis or Jews. This stance appears in local Mennonite gallery exhibits, fundraising, petitions and protests. It’s on stickers on lampposts near a neighbourhood Mennonite school. While out walking, I peel off “Free Palestine” stickers with cartoon characters doing a Sieg Heil and QR code stickers with “Boycott Israel.”

This “pacifism” chooses a side just like German Mennonites chose the Nazi party. This stance doesn’t examine what these choices mean to the safety of others, such as Jewish Canadians who live nearby. It doesn’t reflect a morality-based Christian religious tradition or teachings from a Jewish guy named Jesus, let alone Jewish texts or culture.

Actions have consequences. This failure to understand logical outcomes echoes throughout Canadian society. Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Davos speech described Canada’s goals for trade alliances and Canada’s role as a “middle power.”  It’s easy to see that this dream is failing on a practical level.  

Canada, a “human rights champion,” has an uneven track record. According to United Nations Watch, on April 8, Canada, as part of the 54-nation United Nations Economic and Social Council, “participated in the consensus nomination of the Islamic Republic of Iran” to a committee responsible for funding women’s rights, human rights, and terrorism prevention. The United States was the only nation who objected to this nomination.

Previously, Canada objected in similar UN processes, but, this time, Canada supported the Iranian regime. Iran’s government has enforced a nearly complete internet blackout since Feb. 28. It kills protesters. The regime uses morality police to force women to cover their hair. Female “offenders” suffer arrests, assaults, rapes, torture and murder. Iran’s regime funds terror proxies, including in Gaza, Lebanon and Yemen. Yet, Canada didn’t object to the UN nomination.

Canada also has problems fighting terrorism at home. In October 2024, Canada listed Samidoun, an organization supporting Palestinian terrorism, as a terrorist entity under the Criminal Code. Eventually, in March 2026, Canada revoked Samidoun’s nonprofit status. Based on federal anti-hate provisions, Vancouver police arrested Samidoun’s international coordinator, Charlotte Kates, for inciting hate and released her with conditions. Apparently, those conditions allow speaking on Iranian state television, attending the funeral of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Lebanon and continuing permission to live in Canada. (Kates is an American whose status in Canada is not publicly known.)  The same goes for her husband, Khaled Barakat, Samidoun’s founder, who was deported from the United States in 2003.

This spring, Canada welcomed international leaders for the FIFA Congress, including Palestine Football Association head Jibril Rajoub, who was previously convicted of throwing a grenade at an Israeli army bus. Israel later released Rajoub in a prisoner exchange, and he committed further offences. Once in Canada, Rajoub publicly refused to shake hands with the FIFA Arab-Israeli representative, Basim Sheikh Suliman. Meanwhile, Canada refused to let the Iranian FIFA representative into the country. These decisions were inconsistent, not the “pragmatic and principled” actions of a country committed to human rights.

If Canada wishes to be a human rights champion, it must work to stop terrorism at home. The government should protect Canadians from danger. Consistent law and immigration enforcement and UN decisions that support these rights would be a good start.

Education’s another way to be an effective middle power. Increase funding for teaching and researching social sciences, including international relations, political science, religious studies and history. These disciplines offer perspectives to better understand global issues and events. Canada must move beyond popular theories like the oppressor/oppressed model that doesn’t adequately explain conflicts beyond biased white/black racial narratives. This oppressor theory fails in Middle Eastern, African or Asian contexts where Western conceptions of colonization, race and power don’t easily apply.

With a broader social science approach, future Canadian leaders could better understand complicated global situations. Educated Canadians with these skills could better examine global economics, conflicts and the geographic strengths. 

For instance, our media and government often ascribe outsized power to Israel. This is a common antisemitic conspiracy theory. Israel’s a tiny democracy of 10 million people, with sizeable minority populations. Many also demonize Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister. Canada, like many Israelis, may not agree with Netanyahu’s government’s policies, but no other Middle Eastern leaders were elected by functioning democracies. Further, media seldom hold any other Middle Eastern country responsible for its role in the conflict.

Canada’s resources, educated population and multicultural diversity could make it a powerhouse. Yet, its foreign policies don’t use intellectual rigour. Historically, Canada has offered up inconsistent international policies, and bias regarding many of its minorities. Past prime ministers have apologized, promising to forge a better Canada. Instead, Canada’s “oppressor” rhetoric poses as a “peaceful” bystander and blames Israel. 

Canada has a tradition of simplistic politics of blame like “war is bad.” Our geographic isolation protects us. It allows Canada to watch hate happen and reproach others without getting involved. Our country must accept that consistently being a bystander isn’t good enough. Failing to condemn or shame those who committed grievous wrongs isn’t good enough. It wasn’t OK to join the Nazi party 90 years ago. It wasn’t OK to reject Jewish refugees. We know where this kind of hatemongering leads. Canada, and Canadians, can do better than this.

Joanne Seiff has written regularly for the Winnipeg Free Press 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.

Questions for museum

The Canadian Museum for Human Rights’ planned exhibit Palestine Uprooted: Nakba Past and Present, set to open in June, is cause for concern. While what will be in the exhibit remains to be seen and is likely not yet finally determined, the very announcement that the exhibit will happen sends out wrong signals.

What are the boundaries of Palestine? There are a wide variety of proposals, as well as significant differences in the historical territory once called Palestine. Whatever those boundaries are, Palestine is land, not people. Contrary to what the title of the exhibit suggests, the land was not uprooted; it is still there. 

The reference to land instead of people is a commonplace of antizionism. The PLO is called the Palestine Liberation Organization, not the Palestinian Liberation Organization. Pervasive antizionist pamphlets, posters, placards and signs say “Free Palestine,” not “Free Palestinians.”

For antizionists, this reference to land and not people is deliberate. For antizionists, the land that is now Israel is or should be Arab, Muslim land. That a Jewish state exists on that land means to them, bizarre as it may seem, that the land itself is not free. 

Let’s suppose that the museum was not aware of this connotation and what they really meant to write was “Palestinians uprooted.” One question that arises is “Why only Palestinians?” There were more Jewish refugees from Arab countries and Iran created by the refusal of Arab and Muslim states to recognize the existence of Israel and the consequent wars against Israel than Arabs who left Israel during and after the 1948 Arab invasion. An exhibit that addresses the woes of only one side of an armed conflict is patently unbalanced. 

Also what was the catastrophe? The text of the announcement of the exhibit states “Palestinians use the word ‘Nakba’ … to describe their forced displacement in 1948.” Some Palestinians indeed use the word in that way. Others use the word to refer to the creation of the state of Israel. For still others, albeit a minority, the catastrophe was the 1948 Arab invasion of Israel and the rejection of the United Nations peace plan, which would have created an Arab state alongside Israel. 

Some of those who since 1968 have self-identified as Palestinians were forcibly displaced during the 1948 war. Others fled the crossfire, as the text of the museum announcement of the exhibit acknowledges. Others still left voluntarily, with organized Arab assistance, heeding the calls of Arab leadership to get out of the way of the Arab invasion so that the invaders could target Jews living in Israel without risk of harming Arabs, a reality that the announcement of the exhibit does not mention. 

Who are the Palestinians? Does the term include all those present in the territory of former British Mandate Palestine at least two years prior to the time of the 1948 Arab invasion of Israel and who left during that invasion and their descendants, as the United Nations Relief and Works Agency now does? Or, is it limited to “those persons who acquired or had the right to acquire Palestinian nationality as of 6 August 1924” and their descendants, the PLO proposal of 2012 for Palestinian citizenship? 

The text of the museum announcement states that the exhibit would explore “the human rights violations related to the ongoing forced displacement and dispossession of Palestinians.” The immediate violation of those rights after the 1948 Israeli-Arab war was the refusal to allow those who left Israel because of the war to be locally integrated into the neighbouring Arab states to which they had gone, an integration for which UNRWA was created to facilitate. The states of arrival have kept those who left in a permanent pseudo-refugee status, intended as a permanent indictment of the creation of the state of Israel. Will the museum exhibit explore that?

Antizionists, not least Hamas, have engineered a wide variety of human rights violations and atrocities against the Arab population of Israel who left Israel and their descendants in order to shift blame to Israel for the purpose of discrediting its existence. Is the museum exhibit going to explore that? 

The suffering of Palestinians is plain to see. The antizionist attacks on the existence of Israel have caused suffering for both Palestinians and Jews. In its exhibition, the museum must show awareness of the antizionist efforts to engineer and manipulate the victimization of Palestinians to discredit the existence of Israel. If the museum were to say nothing about that engineering and manipulation, it would discredit itself. 

David Matas is a Winnipeg lawyer and senior honorary counsel to B’nai Brith Canada. He was a member of the original content advisory committee for the museum. Noemi Gal-Or is an international lawyer based in Vancouver.

Symposium on antizionism

At the first World Symposium Against Antizionism, left to right: Jacob Smith, Eyal Jacoby, Nick Matau and Anastasia Zorchinsky. (photo by Dave Gordon)

The first World Symposium Against Antizionism took place on May 17 in Toronto, with some 30 speakers, from educators and lawyers to influencers and politicians and other activists in the pro-Israel space.

Ben Shapiro, an American pundit and broadcaster, told the thousand people gathered that “antizionism is evil, it is wrong, it is predicated on lies, and it requires violence to achieve the ends it seeks.”

photo - The first World Symposium Against Antizionism took place on May 17 in Toronto, with some 30 speakers, including Ben Shapiro
The first World Symposium Against Antizionism took place on May 17 in Toronto, with some 30 speakers, including Ben Shapiro. (photo by Dave Gordon)

He said, “Antizionism argues that the Jewish state of Israel, a thing that … exists in the world today and has 10 million citizens, some two million of them Muslim, another 200,000 Christians, should be destroyed; that Israel ought to be treated unlike any other country, because Israel is somehow uniquely evil.

“Now, in order to make that case, antizionists must lie…. The antizionists must claim that Israel is an apartheid state, despite the citizenship of two million Arab Israelis…. The antizionist must lie that Israel discriminates against Christians and Muslims, despite it being the only state in the Middle East that provides the highest level of rights to both.”

He added: “the people who argue that Israel ought to be eliminated are antisemitic, for whatever that’s worth. They believe that Israel ought to be destroyed and, to accomplish that purpose, they lie incessantly, and then they spread the biggest lie of all – that global Jewry has bamboozled the population, taken over the institutions and used its magic mind lasers to control the world.”

The symposium was produced by Tafsik Organization and Stop Antizionism.

Syrian-born Rawan Osman, who has a large following with her online advocacy, shared the stage with fellow Arabs United Arab Emirates-based Loay Alshareef and Damascus-born Abraham Hamra, who lives in New York.

Years ago, before befriending Jews in France, she said she was “one of Hezbollah’s biggest fans,” someone who “hated the Israelis, the Zionists and the Jews, and I repeat the three terms because, in the Arab world, we do not make a distinction between the three.”

Growing up in Lebanon, Osman saw the “bombardment” of indoctrination against Jews. That same hatred has been spread in the West, she told the Independent. Her “red line” for engagement is anyone who “justifies or denies Oct. 7.”

“Because they are so deeply indoctrinated that they cannot summon any sympathy for the Israelis, including children …  I will not go that close, and I’ll let others fight them,” she explained. “I would rather focus on something else. The same way I think many Jews would not have a conversation with someone who denies the Holocaust, especially if they are descendants of Holocaust survivors.”

She drew a sharp contrast with Abraham Accord countries, like UAE, where their culture has “taught children to tolerate others, to be accepting. You, as a Jew, are safer wearing a kippah walking in Dubai and Abu Dhabi than you are in Paris and in London,” she said.

photo - Left to right: Loay Alshareef, Abraham Hamra, Rawan Osman and Ali Siadatan
Left to right: Loay Alshareef, Abraham Hamra, Rawan Osman and Ali Siadatan. (photo by Dave Gordon)

Lebanon-born Gad Saad, a former professor at Concordia University and author of Parasitic Mind and Suicidal Empathy, argued that antisemitism “in a sinister way, is akin to the immune system, and that it so evolves into new variants of Jew-hatred.” In modernity, that means Jews are blamed for open borders that let in rapists, profiting from the COVID vaccine, and even poisoning the minds of sharks, he said.

Toronto lawyer Leora Shemesh shared the stage with American law experts Matthew Schweber, Rona Kaufman and Mark Goldfeder (via Zoom). Shemesh noted that certain small groups in the country have been attempting to mainstream antizionism. “We have an entire political party, the NDP, that ran on a platform of being antizionist,” said Shemesh. “A Jewish guy, Avi Lewis, ran on that platform, and he joined forces with Independent Jewish Voices of Canada, and they have attempted, and have been somewhat successful, to intervene in certain cases.”

Montreal-based Anastasia Zorchinsky, a Concordia Student Union councilor and co-founder of StartUp Nation Montreal, an Israeli organization at Concordia and McGill universities, moderated the panel called NXT GEN: Future Advocates. 

“We really try to do lots of events that collaborate between different cultures, so I think the first step is really to take that step to reach out to those other communities,” she told the JI of her organization’s educational initiatives. “If we just approach people with the thought, with the optimism, that, yes, they will accept us or, maybe, they don’t have to agree, but we can still talk, then maybe that’s something that we should keep in mind.” 

Dave Gordon is a Toronto-based freelance writer whose work has appeared in more than 100 publications around the world. His website is davegordonwrites.com.

Making soccer political

Palestinian Football Association president Jibril Rajoub talks to reporters at the FIFA Congress, held in Vancouver on April 30. (Screenshot youtube.com/@thebreakernews)

While the World Cup doesn’t kick off until June 11 – at Mexico City’s Estadio Azteca when Selección de fútbol de México faces off against the South African squad, nicknamed Bafana Bafana (the Boys, in Zulu) – penalty cards have already been drawn. Palestinian Football Association (PFA) president Jibril Rajoub, general secretary Firas Abu Hilal and vice-president Susan Shalabi Molano were initially denied entry to Canada to attend the FIFA Congress on April 30, and the Asian Football Confederation confab two days earlier – both events were held at Vancouver Convention Centre.

Ultimately, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) allowed the three sports bureaucrats to attend, and Rajoub, 72, has made the Mondial into a political football. Since 2024, he has repeatedly raised the issue of Israeli football clubs allegedly playing illegal matches in what the PFA argues is occupied territory that Israel captured in the 1967 Six Day War.

In March, FIFA (which stands for Fédération Internationale de Football Association) issued a report on the issue, ruling it would “take no action” over the PFA’s claim. The report noted that resolving “the final legal status of the West Bank remains an unresolved and highly complex matter under public international law.”

At the FIFA annual meeting in Vancouver, Rajoub – who also serves as secretary general of Fatah’s Central Committee – snubbed FIFA president Gianni Infantino, who attempted to orchestrate a handshake between the heads of the Palestinian and Israeli delegations. Following individual addresses toward the end of the assembly, both Rajoub and the Israel Football Association’s vice-president, Basim Sheikh Suliman, were summoned to the stage by the FIFA president.

“We will work together … let’s work together to give hope to the children. These are complex matters,” he said. But Rajoub refused to stand alongside Sheikh Suliman. Instead, he pledged to take his complaints to the Court of Arbitration in Sport, based in Lausanne, Switzerland. No date has been set for the hearing.

“I refused to shake hands. Sport is sport … for me that should be respected,” he told Reuters. “But, if the other side is representing a criminal like Bibi [Netanyahu] … how can I shake hands or have a photo with such a man?”

The PFA’s three-member delegation wasn’t the only one held up by the IRCC. Iranian soccer federation president Mehdi Taj said Canadian officials cleared him to enter the country for the FIFA Congress, but Iran’s delegation chose to turn back after being held for three hours and questioned at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport, Iranian media reported on May 1.

Rajoub, also known by the nom de guerre Abu Rami, has long been connected to Palestinian terrorism. In September 1970, he was arrested for throwing a grenade at an Israel Defence Forces bus near Hebron. Tried and convicted of this attack and of membership in an armed group, he was sentenced to life in prison. Fifteen years later, he was one of 1,150 security prisoners Israel released in exchange for three hostages held by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command.

Re-arrested in 1987 for his activities during the First Intifada, Rajoub was deported to Lebanon in 1988. Relocating to Tunisia, he served as an advisor to Fatah deputy leader Khalil al-Wazir. After Wazir’s assassination by Israeli agents, he became a lieutenant of Yasser Arafat, then head of the Palestinian Authority (PA), and was allegedly behind a 1992 plot to assassinate Ariel Sharon.

Rajoub was allowed to return to the West Bank in 1994, following the signing of the Oslo Accords. He served as head of the PA’s Preventive Security Force until 2002. The following year, Arafat appointed him national security advisor.

The FIFA Congress was the 76th since FIFA was founded in 1904. It brought together more than 1,600 international delegates from 211 FIFA member associations.

This summer’s 48-team competition – the most widely watched sporting event in the world – takes place in multiple cities in Canada, the United States and Mexico from June 11 to July 19. Neither the Israeli nor the Palestinian team qualified for the tournament. 

Gil Zohar is a journalist and tour guide who lives in Jerusalem.

City recognizes Vrba’s legacy  

Geoffrey Druker, left, and Glen Steinman hold the City of Vancouver proclamation of April 7, 2026, as Rudolf Vrba Day. (photo from Vrba Projects / VHEC)

The Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre (VHEC) welcomes the City of Vancouver’s Proclamation designating April 7, 2026, as “Rudolf Vrba Day.” 

In the proclamation, Mayor Ken Sim notes that Rudolf Vrba, who was deported to Auschwitz at age 17, escaped from the camp on April 7, 1944, and risked his life to expose the reality of Nazi atrocities. His actions helped bring forward one of the earliest and most authoritative eyewitness accounts of the Holocaust. Vrba later made Vancouver his home, where he lived and worked for nearly four decades as a distinguished professor at the University of British Columbia.

photo - Rudolf Vrba
Rudolf Vrba (photo from Vrba Projects / VHEC)

The proclamation further recognizes that the report produced by Vrba and co-escapee Alfred Wetzler – now known as the Vrba-Wetzler Report – is widely credited with helping halt the deportation of Hungarian Jews and contributing to the saving of more than 100,000 lives. 

The VHEC recognizes this proclamation as honouring the historic legacy of Vrba and his continued relevance today as a man who devoted his life to the power of the individual to seek justice. Remembering Vrba is not only an act of historical necessity – it is a reminder of the moral courage ordinary individuals must summon, and of our shared responsibility to value and present the truth on behalf of humanity. 

The VHEC is grateful to the City of Vancouver and Sim for making this proclamation. The centre also acknowledges the contributions of Vrba’s friends and supporters in Vancouver, including those who established a memorial monument to Vrba in Schara Tzedeck Cemetery. The proclamation was further supported by the efforts of Vrba Projects, a local group of volunteers – led by Geoffrey Druker, John Gruetzner and Glen Steinman – working to promote local, national and global recognition of Vrba. VHEC also thanks Robin Vrba, the widow of Vrba.

Vrba believed that history must be told without euphemism, distortion or sentimentality. He was a moral witness and a warrior for truth, guided by a strong internal code and a profound sense of personal responsibility. His memoir, I Escaped from Auschwitz, was first published in 1964 and remains one of the most important survivor accounts of the Holocaust. 

In recent years, there has been renewed international recognition of Vrba’s legacy, including the publication of two major biographies: The Escape Artist: The Man Who Broke Out of Auschwitz to Warn the World by Jonathan Freedland, and Holocaust Hero: The Life and Times of Rudolf Vrba by Vancouver author and journalist Alan Twigg, who also curates the website rudolfvrba.com. (For more, also see jewishindependent.ca/new-bio-gives-vrba-his-due and jewishindependent.ca/vrba-monument-is-unveiled.)

The first English translations of the Vrba-Wetzler report, received by the US government in October 1944, are now preserved in the Records of the War Refugee Board at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library. 

– Courtesy Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre

Organ donation saves lives

Jordan Zwicker and Debbie Litvack after Zwicker’s kidney transplant last November. Litvack donated the organ. (photo from JMABC)

When Debbie Litvack found out her longtime friend Jordan Zwicker needed a kidney, her decision was instant.

“Jordan needed one. I had two. It felt like the right thing to do and not a big deal. Every single donor I speak to feels the same way,” Litvack said. “I have such good fortune with my health, that I wanted to share it.  In addition, the community has been very kind to my family over the years. It’s a case of what goes around comes around.”

Litvack found out her friend was in need of a transplant shortly after she noticed his medical alert bracelet. He explained he is a Type 1 diabetic and, as a dialysis social worker, knowing the link between Type 1 DM and kidney disease, she asked about his kidney function. He denied any concerns although later learned he was in kidney failure and needed a transplant.

Zwicker is a “good guy” and someone who has had an outsized impact in the Vancouver Jewish community, said Litvack. As a DJ, he has mentored many of the community’s teens by hiring and training them in the event and DJ business.

Litvack said some people, like her, donate to someone they know. Others donate to family members. Others give the gift of life to someone they don’t even know. Either way, she sees it as pikuach nefesh, an active, sacred duty per halachah (Jewish law) to save a life. If you save one life, you save an entire world.

It took a battery of tests over the course of a year, including multiple and repeat blood tests, X-rays, mammogram, CT, renogram and more. There were also meetings with a nephrologist, a urologist and an anesthesiologist, as well as a comprehensive social work assessment. These assessments are vital to ensure both Litvack’s health and that she was a match. In fact, the transplant team had never seen such a strong match between a recipient and an unrelated donor.

“From the moment I decided to donate, I knew we would be a match,” she said. “It wasn’t a question of if I would donate, it was when.”  

A potential donor and recipient go through the process separately. Because Litvack and Zwicker are  friends, they shared a lot of their journey that is not normally shared. They also spoke often and at length about the “what ifs” in case the transplant was unsuccessful and about advanced care planning.

The transplant went ahead on Nov. 24, 2025, at Vancouver General Hospital, where Litvack works. The experience was quite different than being a professional at work and it has helped her connect in different ways with patients. She and Zwicker realized that there was an entire community of support that made the whole donation process possible.

Zwicker summed up his experience as life-changing.

“It’s given me the opportunity to continue my passion of working with people, an opportunity to be there for my son and family and a real opportunity to have the next 30 years of quality of life,” he said.

Litvack’s life-saving donation inspired the Jewish Medical Association of BC to highlight their member’s story by partnering with Temple Sholom, King David High School, BC Transplant, the Kidney Foundation of BC/Yukon and the Jewish Federation of BC to host an event that will look at organ donation from multiple angles – religious, ethical, medical, as well as personal perspectives from Litvack and Zwicker and other donors and recipients. The session will include information on how to become a donor.

The Gift of Life: Organ Donation from a Jewish Perspective takes place June 17, 7:15 p.m., at Temple Sholom. Registration is required for the free event: templesholom.ca.

Litvack encourages everyone from the Jewish, medical and local community with an interest to attend. “I really hope we will inspire someone at our event to donate,” she said. “And give the gift of life.” 

– Courtesy Jewish Medical Association of British Columbia

Donors needed

There was an organ donation awareness and swab drive held at Beth Tikvah Synagogue May 25. It highlighted the work of Renewal Canada, which helps match people in kidney failure with donors to save their lives. An inspiration for the event was Jewish community member Robert Moutal’s need of a living donor kidney transplant. If you or someone you know is interested to learn how to be a living donor, visit transplant.bc.ca/organ-donation/living/kidney-donation, email [email protected] or call 604-806-9944. You can also contact Renewal Canada for more information: renewalcanada.org/moutal.

Other community members are also in need.

Temple Sholom member Libby Goszer has been diagnosed with end-stage renal failure requiring a kidney transplant. Her blood type is A+, which corresponds to an ideal donor of A+ or O blood type. Even if you do not have these blood types, it is still possible to pursue donation through the Living Donor Paired Exchange Program, where you donate to another person in exchange for a matched kidney for the recipient. If you or someone you know is interested in investigating being a living donor, go to renewalcanada.org/libbygoszer.

Additionally, last year, Daphne was diagnosed with myeloproliferative neoplasm (MPN), a rare blood cancer, and her only hope for a cure is a stem cell transplant from a matching donor. All that’s needed is a simple cheek swab to see if you are a match. To order a kit, go to blood.ca/en/stemcells/donating-stemcells/stem-cells-questionnaire (ages 17-35) or giftoflife.org/dc/daphne (ages 36-60).

– from various community organization enewsletters