{"id":15141,"date":"2015-10-16T00:06:43","date_gmt":"2015-10-16T07:06:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=15141"},"modified":"2015-10-14T20:23:28","modified_gmt":"2015-10-15T03:23:28","slug":"focusing-on-students","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2015\/10\/16\/focusing-on-students\/","title":{"rendered":"Focusing on students"},"content":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s a new Jewish kid on campus \u2013 one who is confident about her rights, able to educate others who might try to intimidate and bully her, and willing to express her Judaism proudly, while helping to combat the rising antisemitism and anti-Israelism around her.<\/p>\n

\"photo<\/a>
Vera Held, president of the Centre for Jewish Culture and Education. (photo from Vera Held)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This kid is no kid though, she\u2019s a new community startup called the Centre for Jewish Culture and Education (CJCE). Founded by president Vera Held and executive director Lisa Cohen, the Toronto-based organization, which has applied for charitable status, is focused on helping Jewish young people become more confident emotionally, intellectually, spiritually and physically, about expressing their Judaism and their human rights in school settings. \u201cWith the overt resurgence of worldwide antisemitism, helping youth in this way is a must more than ever,\u201d said Held.<\/p>\n

This summer, the Simon Wiesenthal Centre released the report Antisemitism on Campus: A Clear and Present Danger<\/em>. It explains that Israel is the subject of multi-pronged campaigns of delegitimization on campuses across North America, and that virulent anti-Zionism is often a thinly veiled disguise for virulent antisemitism. Testimonials from students indicate that young people are afraid to express themselves as Jews or to be pro-Israel, for fear of being bullied, threatened or discriminated against \u2013 both by their peers and by educators.<\/p>\n

\"photo<\/a>
Lisa Cohen, CJCE executive director. (photo from Lisa Cohen)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In response to these reports, CJCE plans to provide workshops, literature, webinars and other tools to help students challenge antisemitic issues on campus, and to advocate for their rights. According to Cohen, who studied at York University in 2002, \u201cIn 13 short years, the tide has totally changed at York. I can\u2019t even process how unwelcoming to Jews it\u2019s become. We are supposed to move forward \u2013 it\u2019s 2015. But, on campuses, it seems like we\u2019re moving backwards in terms of antisemitism.\u201d<\/p>\n

CJCE is beginning its outreach with speaking engagements to community groups, Jewish societies and schools, and through continuing education at synagogues. \u201cWe want to appeal to and engage all generations,\u201d said Held.<\/p>\n

Held and Cohen are both full-time working professionals who came together for this cause due to their matched values. They met through the group Canadians for Israel and realized they had complementary skills. Held, with more than 30 years in communications, education and fundraising, and Cohen, with extensive experience on campuses via counseling and psychology, are working with a group of volunteers, mainly parents with high school- and university-aged children. Through information sessions and focus groups with their target audience, they are seeing an incredible amount of ignorance from students about their basic human rights, but they have also learned how frightened kids are and how upsetting their experiences with antisemitism have been.<\/p>\n

CJCE\u2019s volunteers each bring a different expertise to the organization, where they are researching university policies on human rights, making connections with professors and developing partnerships with like-minded advocates around the world to assist with communication, education and fundraising.<\/p>\n

Held and Cohen are also trying to build alliances with groups across Ontario, and they hope to extend their work across Canada. They are currently in the midst of developing an education protocol and, soon, the curriculum will be available on the CJCE website (cjce.ca<\/a>).<\/p>\n

High school students \u2013 including those who feel the animosity and tension all around them \u2013 are being trained to be on-site liaisons at 20 Ontario universities. \u201cWe are developing professionals for the future,\u201d said Cohen. \u201cAt university, you start defining your role as an adult. We want to make sure that Jewish students feel safe to be who they are, and are able to educate others. We want to give them the tools to make the best decisions, whether it\u2019s dealing with the BDS [boycott, divestment and sanctions] movement or with antisemitic professors. If we don\u2019t start with these kids now, they are going to think it\u2019s normal to be afraid of being Jewish and expressing themselves as Jews. We have to work on preventing a time where there are signs reading \u2018No Jews allowed.\u2019 The \u2018other\u2019 side has resources and people working on making that happen. If we don\u2019t do something now, I predict, in 15 years, we are going to be seeing those signs again. That\u2019s why empowering the next generation is so important. Our work is critical.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shayla Gunter-Goldstein <\/strong>is a freelance writer and editor, living in Thornhill, Ont. Her articles have appeared in the <\/em>Canadian Jewish News, <\/em>Lilith and <\/em>Parents Canada. This article originally was published in the <\/em>CJN.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s a new Jewish kid on campus \u2013 one who is confident about her rights, able to educate others who might try to intimidate and bully her, and willing to express her Judaism proudly, while helping to combat the rising antisemitism and anti-Israelism around her. This kid is no kid though, she\u2019s a new community […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[801,4670,4672,4669,4671],"class_list":["post-15141","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-national","tag-antisemitism","tag-cjce","tag-lisa-cohen","tag-the-centre-for-jewish-culture-and-education","tag-vera-held"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15141","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15141"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15141\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}