The 2023-2024 school year was a particularly tumultuous one for Canadian universities. Many campuses were dominated by pro-Palestinian encampments, in some cases for months before court injunctions were heard. Jewish students across the country reported they were intimidated by protesters who threatened them with hate and violence.
Even worse, students say, was the administration’s inability or unwillingness to address their concerns seriously, and the apathy of their non-Jewish peers.
And now, as the summer draws to a close, the coming fall semester is looming large as many doubt that they will be returning to a calmer and more peaceful campus than they left.
“I think it might be worse,” said Nati Pressmann, a student at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ont. “I haven’t really thought about Queen’s because I know that it’ll be tough. It’s my last year at least, and I have a good community and good friends. But I think I’m not the only one who’s a bit scared.”
Pressmann founded the Canadian Union of Jewish Students (CUJS) in direct response to the hate Jewish students have been experiencing on campuses. She had been thinking about starting the organization even before this year, but knew it was necessary after the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7.
“I was seeing people that I knew… post the most horrific things,” Pressmann said, referring to the first online wave of antisemitism following the Hamas attack. For example, some posts denied that Hamas committed acts of sexual violence.
CUJS has been in the news a great deal this year, as several of its members—including Pressman—have voiced their concerns about campus antisemitism in front of a parliamentary committee. As a university student, much of Pressmann’s anxiety stems from personal experience.
“We have professors or TAs (teaching assistants) talking about ‘the conflict’ in classes where it has nothing to do with the subject matter and the professor has no expertise in that area,” she said.
One campus group, Queen’s Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights, “openly posts violent rhetoric and denies the existence of sexual assault [by Hamas] on Oct. 7.”
The club has not been ratified by the university, but the school has not taken any action, she said.
Not only has Queen’s allowed student groups to use their name, but the university has also ignored complaints about antisemitism. Mezuzahs have been torn down from outside student dorm rooms, but students in residence were laughed at for bringing up concerns about antisemitism, Pressman said.
“The university is simply just not enforcing its code of conduct,” she said, adding that Queen’s has also done very little outreach to its Jewish students.
Faculty members are also wary of the upcoming return to campus. Cary Kogan is a professor of psychology at the University of Ottawa. He’s also the co-founder of the Network of Engaged Canadian Academics, an organization founded in 2022 “by faculty members who have been working on issues of antisemitism on Canadian campuses for almost 20 years.”
Kogan is troubled by the inaction of campus administrators across the country—not just because of what it has meant for Jews this past year, but because of what it could mean for Jews in the fall.
“My concern is about further escalation,” Kogan said. “What I’m worried about is that there’ll be further polarization, dragging more people into these kinds of polarized positions.”
In particular, Kogan is worried that people who have been committing antisemitic acts could be emboldened by the passivity of universities this past year.
“There have been zero consequences for the encampment organizers for the student groups, they basically run and do things as they wish despite violating all sorts of policies and rules,” Kogan said.
“I mean, if you look at the encampment, they essentially saw the writing on the wall and packed up. But they committed acts of vandalism. They definitely put up signs that are inciting violence and hate. Nothing was done about it. So why shouldn’t they escalate, right?”
Dana Strauss is a PhD student at the University of Ottawa, where there was a pro-Palestinian encampment for months. A member of UOttawa Students Against Antisemitism, she said the university has not confronted the concerns of Jewish students on campus. A statement from the university said that while they “fully acknowledge the pain caused by the violence unfolding in the Middle East since October of last year,” and refer “all members” of their community to support services, the letter makes no specific reference to the Jewish community or to antisemitism at all.
“It’s just not how they handle racism and other forms of discrimination where they very clearly condemn harm towards those other communities,” Strauss said.
In June, the University of Ottawa appointed Artur Wilczynski, a senior civil servant and former ambassador, to a new post as special advisor on antisemitism.
Another reason students are worried about returning to campuses is because of what this past year has meant for them socially. Many Jewish students—especially those who are politically left-leaning—have seen their social circles redrawn throughout the past year.
“I’ve felt completely abandoned and betrayed by the communities that I have been working so hard to understand and to be allies to,” said Strauss, whose research is centered around anti-racism.
In this, she’s not alone. Ben Bazak, who attends Waterloo and Wilfred Laurier universities, has also lost friends over the past school year. At one point, following a memorial for the hostages, he said his Jewish roommate heard other students say, “I heard there’s a bunch of Jews outside. Let’s fuck them up.”
Some note that on the positive side, there has been an unexpected silver lining to the rising tide of antisemitism: that of finding community. Strauss has found support from places she didn’t expect, including Christian communities from Nigeria, Iranians, the Sikh community, Baha’i community, Hindu community, and from some Jordanian and Syrian refugees, as they have all been impacted by similar ideologies stemming from Islamist intolerance.
And at Waterloo, Bazak—who said that the events on campus this year have made him “more proud to be Jewish”—has seen his Jewish community there unite.
“No matter how much you hate us, we all love ourselves more,” Bazak said. “There’s a lot of pride that’s come out of this.”
But while feelings of Jewish pride might be at an all-time high for some, feelings of Jewish safety are at an all-time low. Based on the track records of universities since October, Jewish students are doubtful that the coming fall will be any different.
Eden Luna Goldet, British Columbia CUJS representative, said that when Emily Carr University increased its tuition a couple of years ago, they hired extra security around the president’s office when students protested. Similarly, the university told its students that there would be extra security following Hamas’ call for a “Day of Rage” on Oct. 13, just days after the attack in Israel.
Goldet tried to avoid going to campus on that day, but needed to print something there early that morning.
“I went to check in the security office, and I asked them, ‘Where is the extra security?’ And they told me they didn’t know what I was talking about,” Goldet said.
Eventually, she was told “that there was a problem and that it was being rectified, and that in the end there was maybe one extra person, I think at the end of the day, like around 4 p.m.,” she continued.
“Why would you say that there will be extra security, and then you don’t check on the day that there is actually extra security?”
Not all students feel comfortable voicing thdeir concerns to their university administrators. A lot of those concerns at Waterloo have been shared with Mitchell Simon, the head of his university’s Chabad chapter. One student, he said, was chased around campus by others shouting “Allahu akbar.” When the student complained to the university, the administration said they would process the report, but only if the student consented to including his name on it.
“He didn’t feel comfortable having his name on it for pretty obvious reasons,” Simon said. “If they were willing to chase after him [while he was anonymous], they’d be willing to do worse.”
Simon could think of five or six students who voiced their safety concerns to the university; and again, the administration said they would follow through with the reports, but only if the students consented to having their names on them.
Simon is not alone in his concerns about the way the administration has handled the problems. Waterloo professor David Simakov emphasized that he doesn’t feel the university administration is antisemitic, but he has felt they did nothing until it was already too late. He and other faculty started sending emails to the administration a few weeks after Oct. 7 expressing their concerns about their safety, but was unable to secure a meeting with a university official until after April.
Ultimately, while many Jewish students and faculty are concerned about their own mental health and safety, some—like Aaron Rosenbaum, the Quebec representative of CUJS and a student at Concordia—have identified a particularly vulnerable demographic.
“I’m not so afraid for myself,” Rosenbaum said. “But I’m afraid for the [first-year] kid who’s going to Vanier, to Dawson, to Concordia, to McGill first semester and has to deal with this, and has never had to deal with this before at this level. They’re already struggling with first semester stuff. They’re juggling, if they’re an international student or from another part of the country, they have to juggle with that and with moving. And then they have to deal with hatred on campus and being hated for being Jewish.”
Pressmann had some advice for new and returning students who are concerned about dealing with antisemitism on campuses in the fall.
“I think the number one thing that a new student can do is prioritize their mental and physical health equally,” she said. “There’s a Jewish value that literally says, ‘Prioritize your health above all.’”
As for students who may feel pressured to do advocacy work in response to campus antisemitism, she has a few rhetorical questions:
“There is some rhetoric within the Jewish community, where community members are calling on Jewish students to do things that may be a risk to their safety, for example, telling them to go outside an encampment with an Israeli flag. What good does that do? Does that lead to progress? Does that lead to proper advocacy that just puts a student in danger?
“I think we need to understand that if a Jewish student does not feel safe enough to wear a kippah or a Star of David, that does not mean they’re any less proud to be Jewish.”
So then how should Jewish students prepare themselves for the new school year? “I think it’s so easy to be afraid of everything that’s going on,” said Max Rosenberg, a student at Carleton University. “But I think as soon as we start hiding from it and being scared of it, I think it’s sort of like letting them win. It’s just important to keep being open about it.”
This report was written by Alex Dolansky, a 2023 journalism school graduate of Carleton University who spent the past year attending New York University’s graduate program for magazine writing.
Look for more detailed daily coverage of post-secondary school and campus life this fall from Local Journalism Initiative reporter Mitchell Consky, who can be reached at [email protected].
