Double Think/Double Speak at the Toronto District School Board
When truth is stated as a lie and a lie as truth, when up is down and down is up, when denouncing Israel and praising terrorists is normal, we have a serious societal problem. We are experiencing just this now. The TDSB received an anonymous complaint against Trustee Alexandra Lulka and proceeded with a supposedly impartial, independent investigation. The complaint arose in regards to a public Tweet in which Lulka stated that she would like to see a full investigation into how antisemitic materials, circulated by a Diversity and Equity Officer were sent to an e-mail list of educators. The material was not all antisemitic but a goodly part of it included links to designated terrorist organizations and deemed Israel as an aggressor and colonial occupier.
CAEF has joined with other small Jewish organizations called the Working Group to End Jew Hatred, to address some of the most egregious antisemitic acts very recently, such as the CUPE resolution to boycott Israel, a BDS resolution at the U of T Scarborough Student Union and now the TDSB’s internal investigative report that comcluded the board should censure Trustee Lulka.
Please read the attached public statement issued December 6th in regards to the TDSB situation which will be discussed at their meeting on December 8th.
Read the letter that CAEF sent to all Trustees and feel free to share, post or write your own letter.
harpreet.gill@tdsb.on.ca | dan.maclean@tdsb.on.ca |
patrick.nunziata@tdsb.on.ca | christopher.mammoliti@tdsb.on.ca |
alexandra.lulka@tdsb.on.ca | chris.tonks@tdsb.on.ca |
robin.pilkey@tdsb.on.ca | Shelley.Laskin@tdsb.on.ca |
stephanie.donaldson@tdsb.on.ca | chris.moise@tdsb.on.ca |
rachel.chernoslin@tdsb.on.ca | alexander.brown@tdsb.on.ca |
james.li@tdsb.on.ca | trixie.doyle@tdsb.on.ca |
jennifer.story@tdsb.on.ca | michelle.aarts@tdsb.on.ca |
david.smith4@tdsb.on.ca | parthi.kandavel@tdsb.on.ca |
zakir.patel@tdsb.on.ca | manna.wong@tdsb.on.ca |
yalini.rajakulasingam@tdsb.on.ca | anu.sriskandarajah@tdsb.on.ca |
A Meaningful Victory
The Working Group Against Jew Hatred was among the many organizations that published statements, lobbied behind the scenes and advocated to members of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) to vote against a strong BDS resolution at its recent convention. Success is sweet but the war is never over. We must all remain vigilant as the Anti-Zionists always plan to re-emerge and fight another day. We cannot abandon the field to the Jew haters.
Read article from the Jerusalem Post on the Union Vote against BDS.
This Headline Makes One Think—“Do Jews have a future in England”
The Jewish National Fund, UK Chairman, Samuel Hayek, explains why antisemitism and lack of leadership could drive Britain’s Jewish community to Israel. This article by Maayan Jaffe-Hoffman appeared in The Jerusalem Post, December2, 2021
Here is an excerpt:
“No doubt, antisemitism would have accelerated dramatically in England if Corbyn would have been prime minister. But antisemitism has been constantly rising anyway and is only expected to grow. One of the reasons is shifting demographics. The population of individuals who are anti-Jewish and anti-Israel, most significantly Muslim immigrants to the UK, is increasing and their influence on the government is too.
The Muslim population in England has been growing consistently. An article published in the Telegraph in 2017 stated that the Muslim population could triple in the two decades and is likely to number around 13 million by 2050. There are only an estimated 290,000 to 370,000 Jews in England, according to the Institute for Jewish Policy Research.
“I am not against any minority or against the Muslims in the UK or Europe, but against anyone who spreads hatred that harms Jews,” Hayek said. “That is how I see the near future evolving.
“Anyone who tells us that Corbyn is not the prime minister and therefore antisemitism is gone, they don’t know what they are talking about,” he said. “It did not go away, it is growing. And it will not stop growing.”
THE STATISTICS backup Hayek. A report published last month by the Community Security Trust (CST) found an increase in antisemitism in nearly all areas – including in political discourse and on college campuses.
Beyond the Labour Party, the report highlighted examples of antisemitism in the Conservative, Liberal Democrat and Scottish National parties. In 2019-2020, CST recorded the highest number of antisemitic incidents on campus in a single academic year – despite so much less time spent on campus due to COVID-19.
New Israeli Study Exposes Coded Language Used by Anti-Semites On Social Media
An article from Jewish World, circulated by Tazpit News Service, in March 2021 notes that antisemites are using coded language to evade detection by algothritms on social media tracking antisemitism. This challenges law enforcement.
An Oxymoron: UN Palestinian Human Rights Committee
Need we say more?
Read Letters from CAEF Addressing Issues of Antisemitism
Strong and Proud
Read this article from Tablet Magazine by Liel Leibovitz, published November 28, 2021
Excerpts from Daily Alert, a project of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.
Israel: The Most Legitimate State on Earth - Liel Leibovitz (Tablet)
Any way you look at it, Israel is the most legitimate state on Earth. A nation is a product of the collective culture of a group with its own unique language, history, traditions, and beliefs.
The Jews had the world's first nation-state, setting "a precedent for all the states that followed," as David Goldman has written. "It united a group of tribes around a common religion and priesthood with a universal God, eschewing the worship of family or clan gods that otherwise was universal in the ancient world. Tribes, clans, and even city-states may unite for self-defense, as did the Greek city-states, but no other nation like the biblical Israel arose in the ancient world with a unified monarchy, a unified legal system and unified religion."
Give or take a few differences - instead of a monarchy, for example, a raucous democracy - modern Israel remains a legible embodiment of this ancient idea. Israel's citizens, the first indigenous people in recent memory to return to their ancestral homeland, cultivate a stretch of the Earth over which they can claim ownership by summoning everything from the Bible to reams of archaeological discoveries empirically confirming it had once belonged to their forefathers.
Jews with roots in Vienna and Jews whose grandmothers were born in the Atlas Mountains and in the deserts of Yemen all see themselves as belonging to the same extended family. The family speaks the same language and, with varying degrees of observance, practices the same faith. Everything in Israel springs naturally from a national culture shaped by a collective narrative and shared traditions.
Israel's existence, and its continuing success, are an intimation that the light unto the nations may shine not from the embrace of universalist dogma, but rather from a small nation that insists on living by its own traditions and happy to simply lead by example.
To those who despise the idea of national sovereignty and national character, to those who want us all to obey the same regulations and standards of virtue promulgated by a single authority, there can be no greater threat than the continuing existence of a strong, prosperous, and free Jewish state with its capital in Jerusalem.