On Oct. 27, the deadliest attack on Jewish Americans in history occurred. Eleven Jews were murdered in cold blood by a gunman who reportedly screamed “all Jews must die,” moments after he shot them in a Pittsburgh synagogue on the Jewish Sabbath.
As a Jew myself, the incident left me devastated and fearful. What if that had been my synagogue? What if the victims had been my family or friends?
Understandably, the shooting generated a host of angry posts on social media. What caught my attention is that many of these posts attributed the mass shooting to a plethora of causes, including lack of gun control, white supremacy and anti-religiosity. But, shockingly, there was very little mention of the root cause of this tragedy—one that my community has battled with for thousands of years: anti-Semitism.
Surely, the impulse to universalize such a tragedy may be well-intentioned. However, we cannot ignore the fact that this attack was entirely rooted in anti-Semitism.
North America has seen an aggressive rise in anti-Semitism in recent years. According to Statistics Canada, Ottawa has the second highest prevalence of hate crimes in Canada. The latest data shows that Jewish people were targeted through hate crimes more than any other religious group, making up 47 per cent of reported hate crimes in Ottawa alone, and 13 per cent of all hate crimes in 2016.
University campuses, including Carleton, are no exception. McGill University, York University, and Ryerson University are among the universities that have faced major anti-Semitic incidents.
In May 2017, the Ryerson Students’ Union (RSU) instituted the federal definition of anti-Semitism, setting the precedent that anti-Semitism will not be tolerated at Ryerson. One of the reasons it passed was due to an incident where students walked out of a general assembly meeting to defeat a motion supporting Holocaust Awareness Week on campus.
Shortly after the definition was put in place, it was discovered that a Jewish social work student at Ryerson had been denied placement at two Jewish organizations of her choice, due to an administrator’s anti-Semitic bias.
The Carleton University Students Association (CUSA) does not have a current definition of anti-Semitism. Given the rise of anti-Semitic acts on university campuses, the absence of a definition is concerning. A working definition is essential to protecting students from hateful, anti-Semitic acts.
CUSA must publicly condemn anti-Semitism and show its support for Jewish students by adopting the federal definition of anti-Semitism, which includes the Ottawa Protocol, a comprehensive and specific definition that protects Jewish students.
The Ottawa Protocol is an action plan developed during the Inter-Parliamentary Coalition for Combating Anti-Semitism (ICCA) conference in 2010. The protocol outlines anti-Semitism in detail, including, “accusing Jewish people collectively of a wrong committed by a single Jewish person or group and denying the genocide of six million Jewish people during the Holocaust,” and “denying the Jewish people the right to self-determination” as examples of anti-Semitism.
By matching their definition of anti-Semitism to that of the Canadian government, CUSA will ensure Jewish students are as protected as possible, and display solidarity with them. I urge CUSA to be proactive about preventing anti-Semitism on campus before it is too late.
