Jewish Children in Canada Outcasts of the Public School System That Will Not Protect Them

"He literally doesn't go to school anymore. He has absolutely no desire to be in school."

"I've pulled him out completely. He's got no desire to learn."

"He has no faith in any of the school[s], the systems or anything of that sort." 

"I was at my wits' end. I was like, 'If they're [police] not going to do anything, then goddammit, I'm doing something. [However], the only thing that I could do was put the kids through restorative justice."

"The fact that my son does not go to school anymore just tells you he's petrified. He doesn't want to go to school; he doesn't want to be around these kids. He knows he's just going to be bullied again."

"We could move, but why am I forced to move out of an area that I lived in for over 23 years? You want me to pick up and move because of what's going on with the demographics in my area?"

"Guess what. I'm staying here. It is my house." 

Aviva Rubin-Schneider, Halifax 

 

"Three youths were referred to the Restorative Justice process, which is led by Coverdale Justice Society."

"Restorative justice is tailored to each individual situation, but in some cases it could involve police and/or the victim attending meetings with the participant so that all involved can speak to how the incident affected each person and the community."

Halifax police spokesman Martin Cromwell 

 

"All schools in the Halifax Regional Centre for Education are committed to providing safe, welcoming and inclusive learning environments for students and staff."

"Antisemitism -- including the use of slurs or symbols of hate -- is unacceptable and addressed as discriminatory or racist behaviour under Nova Scotia's Provincial Code of Conduct."

"Behaviour of this nature is taken seriously and addressed consistently in accordance with policy."

Kelly Connors, spokesperson, Halifax Regional Centre for Education 

 

 

At age 14, a Halifax school student after undergoing years of harassment and antisemitic slurs, now pursues his school studies online, no longer willing to submit himself to more of the same and worse, by physically attending Park West School in Halifax. Where classmates called  him 'Jewseph' and 'Jewboy' and when passing him in the school hallways, executed the Nazi salute in his direction. Brought to the attention time and again of the school authorities, nothing was ever done to put a stop to the bullying antisemitism.

 

And then, things became even more dire for the boy following October 7, 2023, when Palestinian terrorists flooded into southern Israel, headed by thousands of Hamas operatives as well as Palestinian Islamic Jihad, to execute a barbaric sweep of Israeli farming communities, raping girls and women, shooting and stabbing people to death, immolating families sheltering in their safe rooms by setting fire to their homes, savagely torturing women, then abducting children, the elderly, men, women, and foreign farm workers.

 

This event spurred an immediate reaction among Palestinian-Canadians and other Muslim groups, when they assembled in large numbers at demonstrations in the streets of Canadian cities against Israel, defending Hamas's atrocities as a response to Israeli 'occupation', which constrains Palestinians from carrying out their incessant 'martyrdom' attacks on Jews in Israel, incited by their leadership as a 'struggle' against the 'occupiers', who convince Palestinian youth that there is no greater glory than to become a martyr.

 

From Palestinians encouraged to use any means at their disposal to kill Jews, to Muslim and leftist sympathizers in Canada taking up the challenge to harass, intimidate, and threaten Canadian Jews, moving on to firebomb and shoot up synagogues and Jewish schools while propagandizing Israel as 'genocidal' and 'apartheid', the world changed for Jews in Canada. And 14-year-old Joseph Rubin-Schneider was one of many victims. 

 

Wall/Instagram

Matters changed for the worse for the boy when in January of 2024 several of his fellow students assaulted him on school grounds, punching, kicking, throwing him to the ground while he was being name-called by watching students. "My son didn't throw a punch", his mother said later. The school authority continued to fail to provide the boy with a safe learning environment. He is now in therapy while conducting studies online through the public school system. 

 

When Aviva Rubin-Schneider contacted the Halifax Regional Police and their hate crime unit in 2023, a plainclothes police officer met with the principal and vice-principal of the Park West  elementary and middle school following which a police officer delivered a few lectures on racism, intolerance and hate crimes to students between grades 6 and 9. This intervention failed to produce a safe learning environment for her son; the harassment simply continued.  

"More antisemitic incidents were documented last year in physical spaces than the year before. These included street assaults, attacks on synagogues, targeted harassment of Jewish communities, and repeated harm to Jewish institutions."

"Antisemitism in Nova Scotia Schools is a concerning issue, and we get many complaints from students and parents every year."

Atlantic Jewish Council 

 Many Jewish-Canadians now wonder, as the country they were born in, where their parents were born and raised them has become unfamiliar, whether this is no longer their country in equal measure with all other Canadians. The house that Aviva Rubin-Schneider claims as her own, her neighbourhood, her city, her province and her country has been invaded by a culture, a social system, a religion and an ideology completely adverse to the values and social mores she grew up with and valued, trusted and loved. Leaving behind, beside, and before Canadian Jews the confrontational question: Is Canada still their 'house'? 

Disciplining Harvard University

"The consequences of the government's overreach will be severe and long-lasting."

"In recent weeks, the federal Government has launched a broad attack on the critical funding partnerships that make this invaluable research [studies on pediatric cancer, Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease] possible."

"This case involves the Government's efforts to use the withholding of federal funding as leverage to gain control of academic decision making at Harvard."

"Today, we stand for the values that have made American higher education a beacon for the world."

"We stand for the truth that colleges and universities across the country can embrace and honour their legal obligations and best fulfill their essential role in society without improper government intrusion."

President Alan M. Garber, Harvard University 

"The gravy train of federal assistance to institutions like Harvard, which enrich their grossly overpaid bureaucrats with tax dollars from struggling American families is coming to an end."

"Taxpayer funds are a privilege, and Harvard fails to meet the basic conditions required to access that privilege."

White House spokesman Harrison Fields

Harvard University, Reuters

"[Many international students at Harvard are] scared of speaking up [because they feel merely attending the school has put a target on their back]."

"It's incredibly scary for people. All student visas right now at Harvard are at risk, and what the Trump administration is trying to do is divide us."

Leo Gerden, senior Harvard student from Sweden 

"The Government has not — and cannot — identify any rational connection between antisemitism concerns and the medical, scientific, technological, and other research it has frozen that aims to save American lives, foster American success, preserve American security, and maintain America's position as a global leader in innovation."

"Nor has the Government acknowledged the significant consequences that the indefinite freeze of billions of dollars in federal research funding will have on Harvard's research programs, the beneficiaries of that research, and the national interest in furthering American innovation and progress."

"[The freeze was also] arbitrary and capricious and in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act."

Harvard lawsuit 

Students, faculty and members of the Harvard University community rally on campus in Cambridge, Mass., on April 17. (Charles Krupa/The Associated Press)

Ivy league universities across the United States have hosted scores of vehement, organized 'protests' against Israel as an 'occupying power', claiming it is committing 'genocide' against Palestinians in the months following the terrorist attacks by Palestinian groups Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, followed by ordinary Palestinian citizens who breached the separation wall between Gaza and Israel to flood southern Israel with thousands of operatives intent on creating a savage barbarity of mass rape, torture, and slaughter of entire families whose homes were burned around them. 

 

The protests on U.S. university campuses began almost immediately after the October 7, 2023 attack. Palestinian student groups organized, advertised and instructed their followers to get out and demand of university administrations full and complete academic and investment divestiture in anything pertaining to Israel, while shouting their slogans of Israel disappearing into the sea so Palestinians could be free. Jewish university students were hounded, threatened, their security and sense of place fully disrupted. University staff members became involved in support of the Palestinian protests.

 

A graduate displays a Palestinian flag during the 373rd Commencement at Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, May 23, 2024.

(photo credit: Craig F. Walker/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)

Harvard, the premier institute of higher learning in the U.S., was among others of its kind to host these disruptive, violent campaigns in a spirit of toleration and free speech rights taking precedence over the rights of Jewish students to be able to access classes, to be free of intimidation and threats. With the  ascent of U.S. President Donald Trump to his second term in the White House, his administration, as promised during the election campaign, has sought to close down the protests, and it has resorted to the threat of withholding federal funding for the oldest and most prestigious university in the States.

 

Harvard has responded by defying the orders, insisting it has itself launched a number of investigations into the protests that had turned virulently antisemitic. Harvard's defiance against orders to defuse the situation by refusing to host any further campus activism, and crack down on antisemitism and 'diversity' programs, has signalled its defiance by launching a lawsuit against the Trump Administration. 

 

Harvard refused the demand by the Department of Homeland Security to turn over 'detailed records' of its foreign student visa holders' "illegal and violent activities" by April 30. Two grants to the school totalling US$27 million were cancelled. At Harvard, international students comprise 27 percent of the campus with the majority of its student body in graduate school, engaged most often in conducting nationally prominent research. The university's distinction as a premier study destination is linked to its ability to attract top global intellectual talent. It also distinguishes itself as attracting large tax-deductible donations from wealthy American philanthropists, most of whom were former alumni.

 

Harvard faculty and staff hold signs inside Harvard Yard during a press conference by faculty supporters of the Harvard Out of Palestine coalition.  (John Tlumacki/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)

All of which makes it that much more disturbing that riotous protests damning Israel and discomfiting Jewish students with anger directed at their presence, to the extent that many students felt compelled to miss their classes as a result of having been corralled and trapped by enraged Palestinian/Hamas-supporting groups committing criminal acts of occupation of university grounds and buildings, while demanding that faculty have no academic intercourse with their Israeli counterparts and the university commit to complete divestment.

 

Over US$2 billion in federal grants and contracts has been frozen to the Ivy League institution. Harvard is reeling from the threat to its hosting of international students even as the Trump administration has gone about deleting records to terminate the legal status of international students at schools country-wide. There is no recourse for the students on  how they may regain legal status in the United States. It seems a just enough solution to the problem of international students feeling free to abuse the hospitality of a country they find fault with, even as they advantage themselves of the superior education opportunities it offers.

 

Some 1,024 students to date attending 160 colleges, universities and university systems have seen their visas revoked or had their legal status removed since late March. An administration insider with familiarity in the contentious matter revealed that the Treasury Department had directed the IRS acting chief counsel to begin the process of revoking Harvard's tax-exempt status, while speaking on the condition of anonymity.

 

Anti-Israel students at Harvard's law school reportedly conspired to smear law firms that bucked campus antisemitism after Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023, attacks against Israeli civilians. (Getty Images; Fox News )

Canada: Full-blown Antisemitism

"As everybody was traumatized, we waited, in shock, for people to condemn. And I was waiting for the Society of Obstetricians and Gynecologists [SOGC] as soon as the stories of rape and sexual violence came out. I was waiting for the women's organizations, and it became very clear the duplicity of women's organizations across the world."

"This silence has shaken me to the core because it reveals something much more sinister than just the age-old fear of a Jew experiencing antisemitism."

"Weeks after October 7 passed, I wrote to the leadership asking why they had been silent and was met with excuses. Eventually, in December, the SOGC released a statement, but this made no mention of Hamas or even the date of October 7. It simply stated, 'In the light of recent and ongoing global events' and mentioned the Red Line initiative. What recent events Committed by who against whom? I asked, but received no response."

Dr. Jon Barrett, obstetrics professor, McMaster University

 

"It was not surprising that he [Professor Barrett] reacted against the SOGC's double standard in its statement on the brutal attacks on women in Ukraine and Israel."

"When he failed to modify the Society's position, he resigned his membership -- an ethical response."

Dr. Arthur Leader, professor emeritus of obstetrics, University of Ottawa 

Demonstrators gather during a protest outside of United Nations headquarters in New York City on Dec. 4, 2023. Photo by CHARLY TRIBALLEAU /AFP via Getty Images

Dr. Barrett is an obstetrics professor at McMaster University, rebuked by having been removed from the editorial board of an academic journal in a reaction to his having publicly criticized his professional association for their failure to condemn the mass rapes perpetrated on Israeli girls and women on October 7 by Hamas terrorist operatives who had flooded across the border from Gaza through a separation fence they had destroyed to gain access by the thousands into Israel where as deadly marauders they slaughtered 1,200 Israelis on that fateful day.

Perplexed, alarmed and angry, Dr. Barrett wrote to the leadership of his professional group looking for answers as to why it was the association failed to make a public statement, to comment on the atrocities from their perspective as a special group for whom this should have been a matter of interest and abhorrence. Months transpired and there was no response as though the organization avoided a public statement in their name addressing the sexual violence. Which prompted Dr. Barrett to make a public critique in writing condemning the position his professional association had taken.

He felt personally affected that the leading body for Canadian OBGYNs with its four thousand-plus members to which he had devoted his professional trust sat silent in the face of this event that was well beyond repugnant in its lethal violence against women and girls, and the impact it should have had on a professional body for which such actions should have been horrifying had no obvious wish to condemn it. That his organization had no condemnatory comment in light of the violence Hamas perpetrated on women felt devastatingly both professionally and personally disappointing.

When the association's president Amanda Black applauded through a public letter the reporting of sexual violence that Russian soldiers perpetrated in Ukraine, highlighting the organization's advocating work for women, its silence in the face of the Hamas atrocities committed against women in Israel appalled Dr. Barrett. "The penny dropped, my denial evaporated and it all changed. It was then that I resigned. I fear that, once again, just like in my grandmother's generation, the Jew is being dehumanized to the point where the most heinous of acts are accepted by society. If you cannot name the perpetrators and victims, you are complicit", he wrote in a National Post op-ed.

When that piece saw publication a call came in from the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology Canada, the academic publication associated with SOGC. The editor, Togas Tulandi, informed Dr. Barrett that his op-ed resulted in the association leadership's anger who demanded his removal as an associate editor of the journal. Once Dr. Barrett challenged the editor over his potential removal's basis, he received an apology from the editor-in-chief who went on to send a message to the journal's editorial board to the effect that "I regret my error"; Dr. Barrett would not be dismissed.

That series of events led to the Journal board's confusion and  ultimate disagreements from within and eventually editor-in-chief Tulandi felt constrained to announce his resignation from the journal's leadership, with two other editorial members of the board joining him. Others expressed empathy, contemplating leaving themselves, but thought deeper of such a move that would impact on their ability to challenge the journal's direction. Dr. Barrett regretted himself resigning, in retrospect.

"I don't think it was the right thing to do, but it was that frustration that I didn't feel I had a voice anyway", he said ruefully. SOGC president Amanda Black followed  up with an elucidating statement of a December 2023 piece she had written: "Specifically condemning the use of women as weapons of war -- a tragic and enduring reality for women globally. This was a general statement applicable to all countries where such atrocities were, and continue, to be committed." Again, the specific identifiers of Hamas violations/Israeli women stepped around.

Dr. Barrett remains dissatisfied by the Society of Obstetricians and Gynecologists' approach to the issue. He points out the differences in the SOGC public statement of condemnation and that of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists condemning violence against women in the Middle East: "It is horrifyingly clear that they are being specifically targeted for sexual violence, abuse, and kidnapping". A statement by the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine also committed to a more direct approach: "Our Israeli colleagues and your patients."