Almost every week, I scroll through Jewish websites be they from synagogues, schools or university Hillel groups in Canada. I look at the well-known pro-Israel lobby outfits, who are unapologetically waving the Star-of-David flag, namely the Centre for Israel Jewish Affairs  (CIJA), B’nai Brith, and the Friends of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre.  Barely one mentions the word Palestinians– which in itself is racist.

Not one of these Jewish sites mentions the genocide Israel is perpetrating on millions of Palestinians.

Instead, the published calendar at my old alma mater, Toronto’s Holy Blossom Temple,  advertises sessions in Torah study, Shabbat Morning services, Israeli dancing, contemporary Jewish fiction, and a talk about caregiving for empty nesters. 

Beth Tzedec, a premier Conservative synagogue in Toronto, is calling for donations to the Beth Tzedec Victims of Terror Fund. Their website says one hundred percent of all donations will be forwarded to the Jewish Agency for Israel’s Victims of Terror. The synagogue also asks Jews to call their elected officials to let them know that the whole community stands with Israel – and it is expected the MPs and city councillors do the same. 

The Canadian Jewish News has an article about the tragedy of medical schools not doing enough to teach medical students about the Holocaust, and condemn the doctors who three generations ago did the Nazis’ bidding during the Holocaust.  Now I ask you—is this a bad joke?  Today, many doctors and nurses– including Canadians — are volunteering to go to Gaza to try to save the lives of hundreds of thousands of Gazans bombed, dismembered and starved to death by Israel– yet the most recent education trend in Canadian medical schools is to build some of the curricula around the Holocaust.  The campaign to use the Holocaust to discuss antisemitism and the rights of Jews began more than six years ago by Dr. Frank Sommers, a Toronto psychiatrist and professor at the University of Toronto’s Temerty Faculty of Medicine.  Sommers was a child survivor of the Holocaust. He wrote to all the Canadian medical schools to urge them to incorporate the Holocaust in their ethics and education programs.  

Some med schools are trying to match the Holocaust curriculum to their school’s equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) plans.  But now we see that pro-Israel Jews and their  supporters are demanding that EDI efforts include combatting antisemitism.   From The Canadian Jewish News:

• Call on university leadership and EDI offices to systematically address antisemitism in EDI policies and action plans.
• Consult with Jewish students, faculty and staff. The principle of “nothing about us without us” shouldn’t be overlooked when it comes to antisemitism.
• Invite complexity rather than fuel divisiveness. Ask universities to provide spaces for learning and dialogue.

Israel and its Jewish and non-Jewish supporters, notably those in political power, those with authority, and those with money, never recognize the Palestinians or Gaza.  In the last year, Israel supporters have silenced and threatened doctors and health care workers in our and other countries  – who dare to support Palestinians.  Dr Yipeng Ge is a prime example of a Canadian doctor who not only lost  his medical school residency program but also felt obliged to relinquish being a student representative on the board of the Canadian Medical Association.  The doctor was pilloried and slandered for his support of Palestinians and his repudiation of Israel’s genocide. As you can see from these articles here, and here. He is one of many medical personnel who refuses to be silenced.

The Dehumanization of Palestinians…

In an online article from late 2020, Dr Ariel Lefkowitz a member of DARA at the Temerty Faculty of Medicine wrote about the lessons from the Holocaust that should be applied to modern healthcare.  As Lefkowitz wrote, 

“It’s more than simply promising not to commit genocidal acts. Dehumanizing discourse is a significant problem in Canadian hospitals, as certain groups of people are cast as less valuable than others or at fault for their misfortune, including the homeless, Black and Indigenous individuals, those with addictions, and those who don’t speak English.”

Lefkovitz talks about “dehumanizing attitudes, especially towards marginalized patients,” yet never refers to the Palestinians or Arabs—who have been systematically dehumanized for generations by Israel.  The Palestinians are 20% of Israel’s population, and number in the millions on the West Bank, East Jerusalem and in Gaza.  They have been subject to murder, police terror, destroyed homes, starvation, torture, and incarceration without charge.   The Palestinians face discrimination, especially in these times when criticism of Israel, or even drawing attention to Palestine and Gaza is considered by many in the “official” Jewish community to be antisemitic.  And of course the examples of doctors and nurses who are disciplined and even fired for their open support of Palestine, Lefkowitz never acknowledges. 

Medical school education about the Holocaust

The following rundown of university programs in medical schools about the Holocaust is from The Canadian Jewish News:

UBC’s Faculty of Medicine is working with the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre (VHEC) to provide med school “meta-curriculum” on “dehumanizing discourse” that will begin with lessons from the Holocaust.  Again not a word about any racialized group that continues to suffer from discrimination in Canada or abroad. The urgent concern is to prove medical students get lessons on the Holocaust. 

At the University of Alberta, The College of Health Sciences, promises to incorporate Holocaust education into its lecture on Research Ethics.

The University of Calgary’s Cumming School of Medicine last year “expanded teaching in the area of health equity, anti-oppression, anti-racism, Indigenous health, and EDI (equity, diversity and inclusion), as well as specific “small group” sessions on genocide that include the lessons of the Holocaust.” (CITE)

 At the University of Saskatchewan in fourth year, medical students participate in a  “critical ethics forum” that includes “discussion around the role of physicians and scientists in the Holocaust.”

At the University of Manitoba’s Max Rady College of Medicine, the college dean Dr. Peter Nickerson told the Canadian Jewish News, “We are engaging multiple stakeholders and anticipate rollout of several hours of curriculum” about the Holocaust for this academic year.”  As some may recall, in May, Dean Nickerson was furious after this year’s medical school graduation. The valedictorian, Dr Gem Newman, exhorted fellow medical graduates to demand a ceasefire in Gaza; Newman called out medical associations for their “deafening silence” on the humanitarian crisis there. 

Dr Newman also noted, 

“some of you here today are worried that you might face censure for speaking about the genocidal war that Israel is waging on the people of Palestine.” 

He was right about that.  When Ernest Rady, a former Winnipeg businessman who donated $30 million to the medical school named for his late father, heard Newman’s remarks, he called the speech “hateful” and disparaging of Jews.  Rady demanded the video of convocation be taken down from the university’s site.  Dean Nickerson took down the video and accused the valedictorian of making a speech that was “divisive and inflammatory”.

Why is EDI suddenly of interest to Jews? EDI originally was to create policies and procedures to help equity-seeking groups, such as racialized people, Black people, South Asians, Indigenous people and the disabled, into leadership roles, or good professional jobs in the workplace.  The level of discrimination many face is shocking.

As one article notes

“Meanwhile, when lawyers recruit articling students, they still favour students who are white. Throughout Ontario’s articling program, about 18 percent of students are racialized. Now pan to the Law Practice Program, an alternative to articling offered at Ryerson University, which will accept any law student who wants to enrol. In this program, racialized students make up 32 percent of the total enrolment. These statistics make it clear that the articling system’s hiring process has retained its historical prejudice.”

It is patently absurd to believe that Jews, who mostly present as white Canadians, have been passed over for promotion and better jobs based on their being Jewish.  Indeed the opposite is true:  the 1991 Canadian census revealed that Canada’s Jews who were 1.3% of the total population, were overrepresented as medical doctors (9.3%), accountants and lawyers (4.1%), and managerial and administrative employees 2.3%.  I’m confident  the percentage of Jews in these professions has continued to increase.

But today the “historical prejudice” referred to above rarely affects Canada’s Jews.  Their newfound interest in EDI aims to promote the use of the Holocaust and the IHRA as a way to draw attention to alleged antisemitism and pressure for EDI to include Jews.  But, as we know, the “official” Jews refuse to oppose Israel’s genocide in Gaza.  EDI tries to undo colonialism and racism, and promote the oppressor/oppressed dichotomy by protecting the disadvantaged.  Since EDI is not helpful to the  “official” Jews, many Jews are calling for its abolition.  As Jillian Lederman, of Boston’s Jewish Journal wrote in this article  “Why Jews must dismantle Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI)”: 

 “We must take advantage of this moment to dismantle DEI, and with it the oppressor/oppressed dichotomy. Success should be celebrated rather than maligned. Group identity should be a source of pride and comfort, not a crude determinant of whether one should receive hostility or pity. Individuals deserve equality not because of the color of their skin, but because they were “created equal.”

That is what the “official” Jews do not want—they want no exposure and no discussion about Israel’s war on Gaza.   And many of us are fighting so they can’t succeed in silencing us.

Featured image at the top: Amsterdam District Court upheld a decision by the mayor to ban protests in the city. [credit: Mouneb Taim/Anadolu]. 3,000 Israeli soccer fans/hooligans of Maccabi Tel Aviv provoked pro-Palestinian sympathizers in Amsterdam before and after the game on 7 Nov.