The Threatening Malevolence of Antisemitism

"We started as a community of Jewish physicians and allied healthcare professionals to gather together recognizing that we were feeling very isolated and in some ways ostracized, and that we needed a community to support one another."

"We are currently advocating on behalf of Jewish health-care workers around the province."

"We've seen a rise of anti-semitism across the world, across Canada, and within health care, and it has been chilling."

"We witness hateful words and actions that have some people fearing to state that they're Jewish. Some people have been waiting to hide their identity, out of fear."

Dr. Sharon Gershony, pediatric nuclear radiologist, B.C. Children's Hospital 

"Since October 7th, some horrible things have happened in classrooms and in schools -- to teachers and students alike, who have been singled out because they are Jewish and only because they are Jewish."

Ginaya Peters, founder, BC Teachers Against Antisemitism

"We organized initially in October, after the attacks by Hamas, and it was in response to some developments on campus. [There was] deliberately menacing and terrorizing [language used]."

"We're coalescing into a group to  defend those values [of inclusivity] for everyone in British Columbia."

"This is an institution that we grew up in, we believe in and we cherish. And there are other organizations ... both from the Jewish community and allies, who do not understand our institution, do not understand its values, do not understand it, and frankly, the nuts and bolts of how it works."

Professor David Silver, Saunder School of Business, University of British Columbia

Anti-Israel protest encampment in an area that was fenced off at the University of Toronto campus in downtown Toronto on Monday May 13, 2024. Photo /Ernest Doroszuk/Toronto Sun/Post

 

In a viral atmosphere of blatant and threatening antisemitism throughout British Columbia and in fact across Canada, Jewish academics and professionals have recently formed associations to provide support to one another and to fight back against the oldest scourge of racism that propels itself into action on a continual basis, but which has reached new heights of malevolence in the wake of the October 7, 2023 invasion of southern Israel by the Hamas terrorist group to wreak havoc and commit mass murder of Israeli citizens.

Jewish medical professionals initially founded the Jewish Medical Association of B.C. with the intention of offering support to members, while they have added many new members since then and have officially incorporated, with the mission statement listing three basic goals:

1. To unite Jewish health-care workers by building a supportive community;
2. To confront antisemitism; and
3. To foster a greater understanding of Israel as the ancestral homeland of the Jewish people ... [and] as an integral part of the Jewish identity.

Since October 7, the BC Teachers Against Antisemitism has been more involved, in the public scene, pushing against "the hatred and discrimination" that besets those of Jewish origins everywhere. At the present time, the campus of the University of British Columbia has an anti-Israel protest encampment on site, concerning some members of the Jewish faculty, which has led Dr. David Silver to establish the Jewish Academic Alliance of BC; not yet formed while official incorporation under British Columbia's Societies Act is being explored.

The nascent group sent a letter to the university's administration, setting out their position as "pro-Israel pro-peace, committed to academic values including academic freedom while seeking an inclusive environment for Jews, Israelis, Muslims, Palestinians and everybody else on our campus".  A second letter the group was responsible for defended the right of students to protest: "We explicitly recognize the tradition within North American campuses to temporarily occupy spaces"; however the UBC encampment as well as any other such in Canada are not embodying that tradition.

Anti-Israel demonstrators wave flags and chant outside the fenced in area of an encampment on the University of Toronto campus on May 2, 2024, in Toronto, Canada. Photo by COLE BURSTON /AFP via Getty Images

"They are eliminationist regarding the State of Israel. They are not pro-peace. They are calling for the violent destruction of the State of Israel and all the human suffering that would entail. That's very different than the history of protest, which has been, for example, pro-peace, pro-social justice."

"The reality is the vast majority of Jews and Jewish academics have a commitment to the ongoing existence of the State of Israel. Not that those other voices are not legitimate, they can represent themselves, but that we represent the mainstream of Jewish academic views vis-a-vis the legitimacy of Israel."

Professor David Silver, University of British Columbia