If there’s so much antisemitism in Canada, as this year’s Antisemitic incidents report compiled by B’nai Brith announces, why haven’t we read about even one Jew in Canada who has been refused a job or demoted or fired from their job since October 2023? 

Isn’t that a true measure of antisemitism? If, because they are Jewish, they are fired or not allowed into a profession, or unable to pursue their career – that would scream antisemitism.   I’m not wishing unemployment on anyone but in this newsletter, here, here and here, I’ve detailed the plethora of non-Jews who have lost their livelihoods—or come dangerously close —  because they either criticized Israel, attended a Palestine support rally or talked openly about their opposition to Israel’s genocide.  Yet not one Jewish doctor, or medical school professor (or any Jewish university professor) or nurse has lost their job or been suspended – unlike Dr Yipeng Ge or nursing student Arij Al Khafagi.   

When my parents were young, from the 1940s to the ‘60s, Jews were often not hired or excluded from jobs. Jewish doctors, refused admission privileges at Toronto hospitals, had to establish their own institution. Sports clubs denied them entry.

Historian Ruth Frager writes about the 1912 strike* at the T. Eaton Co. clothing factory in Toronto.  To save money, Eaton’s had laid off the women finishers who sewed the garment linings.  Then the 68 male sewers were told to sew and finish for no more pay.  Almost all the men who walked out were  Jewish.  The women and the other thousand Jewish workers at Eaton’s clothing factory.  Still, after four months on the picket lines, the strikers could not force Eaton’s to settle. 

The company and corporate Canada pushed that it was “only a strike of Jews.” The workers’ union (ILGWU), noted in its newspaper, “The appeal to race and creed prejudice has succeeded, too, in so far as it has prevented the Gentile Cloak Makers from joining in the sympathetic strike.”

There was a lot of ethnic tension in the labour movement, one aspect was “trying to pit non-Jewish workers against Jewish workers, particularly in strike situations.” 

The Lawyers’ Club of Toronto only accepted members “under
age 40, male, white and of the Christian religion.” 

JTA.org

A union official said that Eaton’s refused to hire any Jews for decades to come.  

In 1947, Jewish lawyers in Toronto established the Reading Law Club, as they were barred  from membership in the Lawyers Club of Toronto.  The Lawyers’ Club only accepted members who were “under age 40, male, white and of the Christian religion.” 

In professional faculties such as medicine, dentistry, engineering and graduate schools in the sciences, there was a quota on the number of Jewish students accepted.  The University of Toronto catalogues these restrictions happening as late as 1957-59.  My mother, for example, graduated from the University of Toronto’s dental school in 1943.  She was a top student who was admitted under the quota for Jews and for women.  Indeed, she was the first Jewish woman to graduate as a dentist at the University of Toronto. At the same university, my uncle, who had earned an MA in physics, was not allowed to enter the PhD program in physics because, as a Jew, the government considered him a potential  “enemy alien” or threat to national security during World War II. 

Jewish doctors were not able to get admitting privileges at the major Toronto hospitals, including the Toronto General Hospital.  Frustrated for their patients, and the fact Jews could not get internships or residencies in most hospitals, some Jews decided to establish their own, such as Mt Sinai Hospital founded in 1923.  

There were areas in Toronto that, through legal arrangements, prevented Jews, Black people or Asians from buying property.  Until 1945, there were legal covenants in place to restrict who could buy land or homes.  After the law was struck down, it was known informally that some streets in areas such as Rosedale, lower Forest Hill village and the Kingsway, no one would sell property to Jews.  

Systemic antisemitism

This is systemic antisemitism.  However today, the only group of people facing active discrimination and threats are people – especially racialized people – who publicly and actively oppose Israel’s genocide.  Their punishment is often demotion, suspension or  firing. Or not being hired in the first place. 

The case of Amjad Ramadan of Mississauga, Ont is shocking.  After 15 years of excellent work, 10 as a professional engineer, Ramadan was fired from NTN Bearing Corporation of Canada for persisting in raising the issue of the genocide against Palestinians at work.  Read on here.

By now many have heard of Dr Yipeng Ge. Not only was he not allowed to finish his residency in public health and preventative medicine at the University of Ottawa, but his supervisor, Dr Yoni Freedhoff,  led the campaign to have him removed because Ge supported Palestine, and opposed Israel’s war on Gaza.  Freedhoff, who is Jewish,  opposed Ge’s  “explicitly equating zionism with the genocide of Palestinians.” 

“Al Khafagi’s suspension reflects the exclusion and marginalization that Palestinians and their allies often face when publicly criticizing the Israeli government and military.” 

CJPME Foundation

Arij Al Khafagi was a nursing student in her final year at the University of Manitoba. She was a good student, and president of the Nursing Students Association. In the fall of 2023, there were “anonymous complaints” made to the University of Manitoba that labelled Al Khafagi’s posts antisemitic and discriminatory towards Jewish students.   In November 2023, she was suspended from her program and issued a five-year reprimand on her academic transcript for opposing Israel’s violence against Palestinians in Gaza. As CJPME (Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East) noted, 

“By labelling Al Khafagi’s criticism of the Israeli government or military as ‘antisemitic,’ her legitimate political concerns are discredited and her support for Palestinian life is vilified. More importantly, Al Khafagi’s suspension reflects the exclusion and marginalization that Palestinians and their allies often face when publicly criticizing the Israeli government and military.” 

After the university’s three month investigation and hearing, plus pressure from at least one outraged faculty member and many of Al Khafagi’s supporters, she was reinstated to the nursing program and the career-killing reprimand was withdrawn.  But no one can deny the toll it took on her and her family. We have yet to see what it will do to her career.

About half of Canada’s Jews believe that it is right and fair to silence any criticism of Israel.  As we’ve seen, that often means firing or destroying people’s livelihoods if they speak out against the genocide in Gaza.   The other half agree that “accusations of antisemitism are often used to silence legitimate criticism of Israeli government policies” according to a  2018 survey conducted by Independent Jewish Voices Canada (IJV) and UJPO the United Jewish People’s Order. 

In labour relations – which I used to teach at Saint Mary’s University – our students learned that firing amounts to “industrial capital punishment.”  Why are Jewish groups such as B’nai Brith allowed to have such undue influence over what companies, what universities and what schools do?  I guarantee, if in any of these cases, the victims who were mislabelled antisemitic had talked instead about supporting Ukrainians that oppose and resist Russian aggression.  None of them would be suspended or fired. They might be given a medal.

*“The Eaton Strike of 1912”, by Ruth A Frager in Canadian Woman Studies, Vol 7, #3. pp 96-98.

Image at the top and bottom: The Boy Who Cried Wolf, 2004 cartoon by Carolos Latuff @LatuffCartoons