Around 200 people gathered for a pro-Israel demonstration at University of Toronto’s downtown campus at King’s College Circle—which was the site of one of Canada’s largest pro-Palestinian encampments during May and June.
As the flags of Israel, Canada and Iran rippled in the breeze, activists spoke about the need for Jewish solidarity to combat hatred and ideological indoctrination, which, they say, is rampantly spreading throughout the country.
One of the speakers was Shai Davidai, an assistant professor at Columbia University in New York, who became a public figure when he was denied access to areas of Columbia’s campus because of his Zionist views in the wake of the events of Oct. 7, 2023.
The school says the latest restriction, which extends to all campus property, is due to the fact that Davidai allegedly “harassed and intimidated” others on campus in violation of its policies—and he will be allowed to return if he “undertakes appropriate training on our policies governing the behaviour of our employees.” (Davidai is not teaching classes this semester.)
“I am tired. I am super tired,” Davidai told the crowd during the rally, which took place around noon. “But it’s not about being tired or not. You’re not judged by whether you are exhausted. We’re all exhausted. It’s about whether you show up or not. And you (all) showed up.”
Davidai proceeded to list three reasons why he personally showed up at UofT.
The first reason, he said, comes down to history. “Everybody remembers that, (during) the Nazi regime, there were book burnings. But people forget the context. The book burnings happened outside of the University of Berlin by student organizations who checked out the books from the university libraries. It started in the universities.”
Davidai said that students in the late 1930s are proof that “when students hate, they hate until they get what they want. We are here to say that you are not going to get what you want.”
At the outskirts of the crowd, about thirty demonstrators, each wearing keffiyehs, made their presence known, shouting slogans such as, “Free Palestine,” and “End the Occupation!”
Several officers with the Toronto Police stood guard, separating both groups.
Davidai went on to explain the other reasons for his appearance downtown, amidst other speaking appearances scheduled in Toronto. “For the past year, these Hamas-supporting students and their professors made (UofT), McGill University, Concordia, all these (other) universities uninhabitable for Jews,” he said, referring to anti-Israel and antisemitic hostility at Canadian universities.
The final reason Davidai chose to speak at UofT was a syllabus that was publicized in recent weeks, which called “Zionism” a form of social violence and equated it to racism, sexism, and homophobia.
“Let’s put aside the fact that a professor at UofT is so immensely stupid to think that Zionism is a bad thing,” Davidai said. “We are here to show what Zionism really means…We are not going to let them steal our words and our identity. Zionism is the right for self-determination for Jews in their ancestral homeland. Zionism is about standing up against antisemitism, standing up against hate, and standing up against bullies.”
Davidai said this rally is about protesting “the machine” that is UofT’s administration, which he says has allowed hatred to fester in and out of classrooms.
Salman Sima, a former political prisoner of the Islamic Republic, who fled Iran in 2011, also spoke during the rally, saying that keffiyehs are “nothing but symbols of torture, rape and pain.”
Turning to the pro-Palestine demonstrators whose faces were covered by keffiyehs, he said, “I am Salman Sima, born in Iran. I came here in 2011, and this is my face.
“I was a student activist (in Iran), fighting against the regime, for women’s rights, for human rights,” he told The Canadian Jewish News. “The IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps) arrested me several times. They put me in jail.”
Sima said he was tortured by the IRGC. They broke his ribs and shattered some of his teeth. After he was released, he escaped Iran and came to Canada as a refugee in 2011. “I’m happy that I’m living in a so-called free country,” he said.
Sima witnessed much of the hostility at UofT’s pro-Palestine encampment, which was dismantled in July after a Superior Court Ruling. He says he saw encampment participants harassing Jewish students and targeting anyone who disagreed with their anti-Israel stance.
Towards the end of the rally, participants began dancing while singing the Israel national anthem, Hatikvah.
Amir Epstein, the executive director of Tafsik, an organization that aims to combat global antisemitism, which helped organize the rally, told participants the reason they’re really there, as he stood before a banner that read, “A safe campus for all students.”
“We are not here because we are anti-Palestinian,” he said. “That’s completely absurd. We’re here because we’re proud Jews, Canadians, allies, friends for peace and freedom, and this is what we do.”
