This year’s edition of a popular student publication contains a controversial dedication that has angered Jewish groups on campus.

The Anti-Calendar is a summary of course evaluations—the feedback professors receive from their students every year via a paper questionnaire handed out in the last weeks of class. Published by the Arts and Science Student Union (ASSU), it has long served as a source of advice to students wondering if Discrete-Event Simulation and Modelling is worth taking, or how many students were bored by Medieval Monasticism.

But a passage on the inside front cover proclaims the Anti-Calendar is “Dedicated to the memory of the Innocents, Afghanistan and Palestine, murdered.”

According to Terry Buckland, the editor of the Anti-Calendar, the dedication came about almost at random: “I just picked two areas of the world,” he said.

“It’s not just nations that fight against each other, it’s not just armies that fight against each other…it’s often innocent people,” Buckland added.

But ASSU has received calls from students asking if the dedication expresses sympathy only for Palestinian victims of violence.

“I think it’s a horrible, horrible attempt to marginalize the Jewish community at the U of T,” said Frank Dimant, executive vice- president of B’nai Brith Canada, a Jewish advocacy organization.

“This is meant to be harmful and spiteful to Jewish students,” he added.

Buckland denied that the word “Palestine” was intended to exclude Jewish victims of terrorist attacks. “When I wrote it, I didn’t think of it that way, I must admit. I still don’t,” he said. “That’s not what I meant, that’s not what I implied.

“It’s a very simple statement to me, those innocent people have nothing to do with politics or anything.”

The director of another Jewish student organization said she had received several comments about the Anti-Calendar’s dedication.

“If they’re going to highlight the Middle East, it should have been dedicated to all victims of terror in the Middle East,” said Lisa Isen Baumal, director of Jewish campus life for Jewish Campus Services.

“How could they be selective about certain victims of terror and not others?” she asked. “I think it’s going to raise a lot of eyebrows. It’s not a positive thing.”

Dimant agreed, adding, “It’s very sad that the U of T is following Concordia University in isolating Jewish students.”

Concordia University’s 2001-2002 student handbook featured articles praising the Palestinian uprising. Two Concordia Student Union councillors were banned from the campus after spraying what they called “Anti-Arabophobic” graffiti on a building and allegedly brawling with campus security.

Buckland said he had received several calls complaining about the dedications. Several students told him that the Anti-Calendar should have mentioned the World Trade Center attacks.