Content warning: This article discusses antisemitism.

On May 27, the House of Commons held a parliamentary meeting between the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights — which reviews the Department of Justice’s bills, policies, spending, and its six related federal agencies — and four presidents of Canada’s preeminent universities. The presidents included U of T’s Meric Gertler, Concordia University’s Graham Carr, University of British Columbia’s Benoit-Antoine Bacon, and McGill University’s Deep Saini. 

The meeting, “Antisemitism and Additional Measures that Could be Taken to Address the Valid Fears that are Being Expressed by Canada’s Jewish Community,” concerned rising antisemitism on campuses: a much-discussed topic in light of increased pro-Palestinian protests on university campuses.

My Jewishness is an important part of my personal identity. Both my mother and father have recounted their familial experiences with antisemitism and how it affects them. These personal experiences have, in turn, shaped my commitment to tolerance and open-mindedness toward differing perspectives.

As such, I found Anthony Housefather, a Jewish Liberal MP, and his rhetoric particularly appalling. His attempts at strong-arming conversation and his poor questioning procedures reveal a concerning disinterest in addressing antisemitism in a meaningful way, as he simply conflates it with anti-Zionism.

Gertler casts a surprising figure

In my opinion, President Gertler demonstrated a surprising resilience to the MP’s confrontational rhetoric during the question period. Out of all the presidents at the meeting, only President Gertler held and defended positions that meaningfully differed from Housefather’s.

This article is not meant to be an appraisal of President Gertler, but rather a reflection on the sheer absurdity of the questions and procedures of the meeting. I don’t think President Gertler is by any means pro-Palestinian. This is evident to me from the fact that his administration sought a court order to remove the student encampment at King’s College Circle and requested “24/7” police presence at the encampment. Additionally, President Gertler personally visited and delivered a lecture at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem in 2011. This university has recently described itself as a “proud Israeli, public, and Zionist institution” after suspending a faculty member for speaking out against Zionism. 

However, I think it is interesting that when questioned by Housefather, President Gertler — the son of a Holocaust survivor — stated that he believed the chants at the student encampments such as “we don’t want no Zionists here” could simply be “experienced as antisemitic” in the “current context.” He did not explicitly condemn the chants as antisemitic like all other presidents in parliament did. Additionally, he was unwilling to say that he personally condemns the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement.

Importantly, when Housefather asked if their respective universities would be willing to implement the “working definition for antisemitism” by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), all other presidents except President Gertler affirmed it. Importantly, President Gertler brought up what I see as a pretty damning reason not to implement this working definition in the university.

The complexities of definitions

Even the creator of the IHRA working definition opposed such an application. In a 2019 article in The Guardian, Kenneth Stern, who drafted the IHRA antisemitism definition, described then-US President Donald Trump’s order to impose the definition as a campus hate speech code to be an “attack on academic freedom and free speech.” Stern also warned that using the definition as a hate speech code would “harm not only pro-Palestinian advocates, but also Jewish students and faculty, and the academy itself.” 

In my view, the issue with this definition is that it conflates anti-Zionism and antisemitism with each other. According to the IHRA definition, “claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor” is an example of denying Jewish people their right to self-determination. However, I wholly disagree with this. 

To me, labelling Israel’s statehood as a racist endeavour in no way denies Jewish people the right to self-determination, given that Israel is a state that denies Palestinian sovereignty to justify its occupation of Palestinian territories. Similarly, I believe that criticizing the Russian invasion of Ukraine — which is partly motivated by a similar denial of Ukrainian sovereignty — doesn’t deny the Russian people’s self-determination. 

Because of the conflation between Zionism and Jewishness, if the working definition was implemented on campus, the university could easily condemn a Jewish person such as myself as an anti-Semite for rejecting and critiquing the ideology of Zionism. 

Of course, critiques against Israel can and are used to conceal antisemitic attitudes. The Nexus Task Force’s project, dedicated to combating and study antisemitism, notes in their “Guide to Identifying Antisemitism in Debates about Israel” that “[using] Israel… as a surrogate for Jews” and “criticizing Israel for its Jewish character” when critiquing Israel is antisemitic. However, this guide simultaneously points out, even when it may appear harsh or unfair, that criticisms of Israel and Zionism on their own are not — and I believe should not be categorically considered — antisemitic. 

Vigilance about the conflation between Zionism and Jewishness is crucial in current times.

In fact, I argue that subscribing to Zionist beliefs like Housefather’s can lead to perspectives on Israel that I believe the Nexus Task Force would find antisemitic because of the conflation of Israel and Jewish identity. 

Finally, I believe the IHRA’s working definition limits Jewish self-determination. To me, subscribing to the working definition necessitates equating Jewish identity with Zionism: limiting the freedom a Jewish person has in defining their own identity in relation to Zionism. 

This limitation is particularly malicious given how varied the Jewish identity can be. Consider the cultural differences between Sephardic and Ashkenazi Jews, where the former trace their roots back to the Iberian peninsula and lived under comparative stability under Islamic rule, while the latter experienced the brunt of pogroms — organized massacres of Jewish people in Europe. 

I’d argue that the difference between those whose families have and have not been immediately affected by the Holocaust can be significant and can affect their political stances. As an ethno-religion, I believe that the Jewish identity is necessarily varied, and placing it in constraints such as the IHRA definition is antithetical to Jewishness itself. 

Maintaining vigilance 

At parliament, President Gertler barely managed to respond to the IHRA question before Housefather interrupted him since President Gertler technically violated Housefather’s questioning premise in which he’d only consider “Yes,” “No,” or “I cannot answer” as viable responses. But this is the clearest example of the questioning procedures’ absurdity. 

If President Gertler answered in the way that Housefather asked the presidents to, I’m sure it would be very easy for Housefather — a self-described proud Zionist — to label President Gertler as an anti-Semite. Predictably, Housefather did not even acknowledge President Gertler’s response to the IHRA question, saying that “a no would have sufficed.” 

It’s evident to me that Housefather’s priority wasn’t “addressing the valid fears of the Jewish community,” as the meeting set out to do, but taking any opportunity to demonize university presidents to further a Zionist agenda. I don’t think Housefather actually cares all that much about Jews or antisemitism, but I’m sure he cares quite a bit about Zionists and anti-Zionism. 

Vigilance about the conflation between Zionism and Jewishness is crucial in current times. Zionists will insist that the two are inextricably linked, but as a Jew myself, I can confirm that they aren’t. It is a necessary part of the Zionist project to present Jewishness as a monolith, and we should all remain on high alert against such rhetoric — wherever it is and whichever form it takes. 

Oleksii Varlamov is a third-year student at St. Michael’s College studying philosophy. He is the secretary of the Philosophy Course Union.