Skip to content

Where different views on Israel and Judaism are welcome.

  • Home
  • Subscribe / donate
  • Events calendar
  • News
    • Local
    • National
    • Israel
    • World
    • עניין בחדשות
      A roundup of news in Canada and further afield, in Hebrew.
  • Opinion
    • From the JI
    • Op-Ed
  • Arts & Culture
    • Performing Arts
    • Music
    • Books
    • Visual Arts
    • TV & Film
  • Life
    • Celebrating the Holidays
    • Travel
    • The Daily Snooze
      Cartoons by Jacob Samuel
    • Mystery Photo
      Help the JI and JMABC fill in the gaps in our archives.
  • Community Links
    • Organizations, Etc.
    • Other News Sources & Blogs
    • Business Directory
  • FAQ
  • JI Chai Celebration
  • [email protected]! video
Weinberg Residence Spring 2023 box ad

Search

Archives

"The Basketball Game" is a graphic novel adaptation of the award-winning National Film Board of Canada animated short of the same name – intended for audiences aged 12 years and up. It's a poignant tale of the power of community as a means to rise above hatred and bigotry. In the end, as is recognized by the kids playing the basketball game, we're all in this together.

Recent Posts

  • Settling Ukrainian newcomers
  • A double anniversary
  • Deep, dangerous bias
  • Honouring others in death
  • Living under fire of missiles
  • Laugh for good causes
  • Sizzlin’ Summer in June
  • Parker Art Salon on display
  • Helping animals and people
  • New LGBTQ+ resource guide
  • Innovators in serving the community
  • First Jewish Prom a success
  • Prince George proclaims Jewish Heritage Month
  • Community milestones … Wasserman & Feldman
  • Düsseldorf returns painting
  • קנדה גדלה במיליון איש
  • Garden welcomes visitors
  • Spotting disinformation
  • A family metaphor
  • Hate crimes down a bit
  • First mikvah in B.C. Interior
  • Check out JQT Artisan Market
  • Yiddish alive and well
  • Celebrating 30th year
  • Get ready to laugh it up
  • Supporting Beth Israel’s light
  • Na’amat to gather in Calgary
  • Community artists highlighted
  • KDHS hits all the right notes
  • Giving back to their community
  • The experience of a lifetime
  • Boundaries are a good thing
  • Mental health concerns
  • Food insecurity at UBC affects Jewish students, too
  • Healthy food Harvey won’t eat
  • חודש שלישי ברציפות של הפגנות

Recent Tweets

Tweets by @JewishIndie

Tag: Javier Davila

Antisemitism allowed?

An ongoing controversy in Canada’s largest school district took a more bizarre turn this week.

Last spring, the student equity advisor of the Toronto District School Board compiled and released a compendious assemblage he called “resources to educators.” The materials, issued via email by Javier Davila, were a hodgepodge of anti-Israel propaganda, and included outright antisemitic content and the glorification of suicide bombings.

The “resources,” for example, claim that Palestinians “have been legitimately resisting racism, colonization, and genocide since the 1920s to the present day by any means necessary: general strikes, demonstrations, armed struggle, and martyrdom operations (called ‘suicide bombing’ by Zionists).” Davila’s materials also included a link to the website of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a group that is banned in Canada. Bibliographical recommendations include children’s books that characterize Israelis as thieves and murderers.

The materials Davila distributed are intended to guide teachers in educating students about the Arab-Israeli conflict. They were not vetted by senior officials in the school board and, when controversy ensued, Davila was put on leave but then reinstated. Despite the absence of even a slap on the wrist, he moderated a panel in June with the tagline “How can we educate about Palestine if we can’t even say it?”

Not only is Davila free to “say” Palestine, he is also, evidently, free to distribute whatever material he chooses to Toronto teachers. Which brings us to this week.

Alexandra Lulka is a Toronto school trustee who is Jewish and represents a heavily Jewish district of the city.

“I was outraged to discover that some of this material justifies suicide bombings and other forms of terrorism,” she wrote on social media during the conflict in the spring between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. “This is reprehensible. These materials were provided by an employee from the TDSB equity department, the very department that should be countering antisemitism and violence, not fanning the flames.”

The school board’s integrity commissioner investigated Davila’s materials and found they did indeed contain antisemitic content and promote terrorism – and then called for Lulka to be censured because, the commissioner’s investigation declares, it was the purview of the school board, not Lulka, to determine whether the content was unacceptable. The commissioner went further, condemning Lulka for not pointing out positive aspects of Davila’s “resources.”

The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs criticized this part of the situation in particular.

“It is astonishingly unreasonable to compel a Jewish trustee calling out Jew-hatred to also highlight positive elements in the resources. The recommendation to censure her for not doing so is misguided and must be rejected,” said CIJA’s vice-president Noah Shack in a statement. “Punishing Trustee Lulka is contrary to the values of an educational institution purporting to engender learning and mutual respect.”

Friends of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre also drew a contrast between what should have happened and what did happen.

“This outrageous process against TDSB Trustee Alexandra Lulka is just the latest manifestation of the institutional antisemitism afflicting the TDSB,” said Jaime Kirzner-Roberts, the centre’s director of policy. “Not only is the investigation and its findings unjust, but it’s ridiculous that the person who calls out a transgression is being punished but the person responsible for the transgression was not.”

We are familiar, by now, with antisemitism being downgraded by the very people who are appointed (or self-appointed) to monitor and combat racism and bigotry. The Toronto case, which presumably will have been decided Wednesday (after the Independent goes to press), is a step beyond. It threatens to condemn the very people who stand up against antisemitism, even as a perpetrator of what the integrity commissioner acknowledges was anti-Jewish racism gets off scot-free.

This outcome is problematic, not only for the potential danger it presents to Jewish students in Canada’s largest school district. It encourages teachers to miseducate students on a sensitive and complex international issue with very real consequences for intercultural harmony here at home.

Editorial Note: After the Jewish Independent went to press, the TDSB voted to not censure Lulka. For the full story, see thecjn.ca/news/alexandra-lulka-tdsb.

Posted on December 10, 2021December 10, 2021Author The Editorial BoardCategories From the JITags Alexandra Lulka, antisemitism, Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, CIJA, Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Centre, FSW, Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Javier Davila, Jew-hatred, politics, TDSB, Toronto, Toronto District School Board
Proudly powered by WordPress