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.”