Jewish students recently applying to undergraduate and graduate programs across Canada have been facing an unsettling dilemma.
It involves wondering whether or not to disclose a specific aspect of their identities.
Joanne Gould, a Toronto-based university application consultant, has seen a sharp rise in students questioning whether to downplay their involvement in Jewish and pro-Israel organizations, fearing potential antisemitism or anti-Israel bias from admission committees.
“More and more students and their parents are asking me about this,” she told The Canadian Jewish News. “I can’t really say that anybody has ever asked me these questions before Oct. 7. The fact that they are so concerned is shocking, but I get it.”
Despite these concerns, Gould—who advises high school and undergraduate students on all elements of applications—encourages applicants to remain authentic.
“I advise kids to be who they are. I don’t tell them to hide,” she said, adding that universities, particularly in Canada, evaluate extracurriculars based on leadership and impact rather than religious or cultural affiliation.
“Schools like Ivey Business School, Queen’s Commerce, Rotman (School of Management), and UofT are generally not looking at where you get your extracurriculars from,” she noted. “About 98 percent of these schools mostly look at marks.”
Noting that undergraduate programs prioritize academic performance, Gould does not discourage students from highlighting Jewish-based extracurriculars: “It’s about leadership and commitment, not the name of the organization.:
Students graduating from day schools also don’t have the option of omitting their background. “The transcript shows they are coming from a Jewish education anyway,” she pointed out.
The Canadian Jewish News contacted Toronto’s TanenbaumCHAT for comment on how students are approaching applications amid concerns about antisemitic bias, but the school declined to respond.
Gray Academy of Jewish Education in Winnipeg, however, says Grade 12 students applying to universities have not voiced concern.
“Our faculty really hasn’t seen this type of hesitancy or fear regarding Jewish identity when applying to schools,” replied Andrea Ritter, the school’s director of marketing and communications.
Admission process and safeguards
Adrienne Shnier, CEO of Apply Yourself Global, an international application consultation organization, has also observed wide hesitation among Jewish students when it comes to highlighting their religious and cultural affiliations. A Jewish faculty member at York University’s School of Health Policy and Management, as well as at the university’s School of Global Health and Faculty of Graduate Studies, Shnier has served on multiple graduate admissions committees for Canadian universities since 2011. She acknowledges that students are afraid of bias influencing admissions decisions.
“The concerns are that they’re not going to get in basically if there’s a sniff of them being Jewish,” she said. “I see a lot of really amazing involvement and really impactful involvement that students just don’t want to talk about. But this is years of their lives and hard work that they’re forfeiting the ability to showcase.”
Shnier stresses, however, that while bias may exist among individual faculty members, there are institutional safeguards to prevent it from affecting admissions decisions.
“Admissions committees are made up of faculty at the program, maybe a chair or a dean, and one or two student representatives. Every application is reviewed by more than one person, sometimes three or more,” she explained. “In order for an application to be decided on, the majority of those people need to agree. Even if there is a faculty member who may have supported antisemitic viewpoints, there are other representatives who can balance that out.”
Additionally, members must justify any rejection in writing.
“You can’t just say reject, reject, reject with no justification,” Shnier noted. “Every review is based on merit. You have to demonstrate why an application is not competitive.”
Scrubbing affiliation with Israeli institutions
Despite these institutional safeguards, concerns about anti-Israel bias in admission committees are especially pronounced for Jewish students graduating from Israeli universities. One Jewish medical student applying to Canadian and U.S. residency programs, who asked to remain anonymous, described his “active process” of removing Jewish affiliations from his application.
“There’s been a lot of wariness and a lot of concern,” he said. “When you apply, especially coming from an Israeli medical school, there’s this fear of bias—whether implicit or explicit—coming from acceptance committees. I was afraid of being overlooked. I was on edge throughout the whole application process.”
Despite his extensive experience with Israeli medical institutions, the student—who has a recognizably Jewish last name—deliberately omitted those details.
“I cleaned my application of any mention of Jewish or pro-Israel organizations,” he said. “I didn’t use any of the doctors I engaged with in Israel, even though a lot of my work heavily came from Israel and Jewish doctors.”
He also mentioned hesitancy with citing some of his research projects due to their connection to Israeli hospitals, and chose to emphasize his clinical work tied to North American institutions.
This student was recently admitted into a Canadian residency program.
Application strategy: Focus on leadership, not labels or politics
For students worried about bias, Shnier advises focusing on leadership and impact.
“You leave politics and positions out of it,” she said. “Frame your experience solely around the impact your role has had. Maybe you helped students find their voices and feel empowered. Maybe you provided a safe space for students on campus. Maybe you organized panels or events. These are all things that have nothing to do with the positions of Hillel or any other organization.”
As the war in Gaza exacerbates divisions on Canadian campuses, both Gould and Shnier strongly advise against inserting political viewpoints into application essays.
“Canadian applications really don’t have a place to put in politics,” Gould said. “Admission committees are looking for the quality of your extracurriculars, not your personal beliefs.”
Diversity and census concerns
Loren Cohen, a Jewish graduate school applicant, was startled to find a question about religion on her application for Ontario teachers colleges. “They actually asked on the application, which I was shocked about, what your religion is,” she said. “I didn’t think that they were technically allowed to ask you.” Cohen has always been open about her Jewish identity in her personal and professional life, but she hesitated when filling out the form.
“I actually chose not to say on the application because I didn’t want it to affect me getting the education I want.”
The Ontario Universities’ Application Centre (OUAC) includes an optional Applicant Diversity Census that allows students to self-identify their religion, ethnicity, and other demographic details. Universities state that the data is used to monitor biases and inform support programs. Gould advises students against filling it out.
“That’s just for census data. It’s not required, and I wouldn’t answer it anyway,” she said. “It doesn’t matter whether you’re Jewish, gay, or whatever—it’s nobody’s business, and it won’t increase or decrease your chances of getting into a program.”
Jay Solomon, chief advancement officer with Hillel Ontario, says it’s troubling that many Jewish students feel the need to avoid selecting the Jewish identity box.
“No student should ever be forced to hide their Jewish identity or downplay their connection to the Jewish community,” he said in an email statement. “Jewish students deserve the right to fully embrace their religious and cultural practices in an environment free from discrimination.”
Despite her concerns, Cohen ultimately chose to keep Jewish-related experiences on her resume, including her roles at Chabad’s Ledbury Jewish Centre and Aleph Champ Hebrew School.
However, she later questioned that decision after others suggested she remove explicit references to Judaism. “Someone said that I should have taken ‘Jewish’ out and just written ‘Ledbury Centre.’ But I hadn’t even thought about that,” she said. The uncertainty left her stressed about an application process that she had previously assumed would be straightforward.
But she was recently accepted into two teacher’s college programs.
“I’ve gotten into two of the schools already, York being one of them… but I’d rather not go there with all the antisemitism. But like if I’m going have to go there, I’m going have to go there.”
Concerns beyond academia
Beyond university applications, Jewish students applying for jobs are also questioning whether to conceal their Jewish identity during the hiring process, according to Ometz, a Jewish employment and immigration agency based in Montreal.
Lori Rubinger, director of employment at Ometz, said both young and older clients—including many immigrants from Israel—are deeply concerned about antisemitism affecting their job prospects.
“Many are set on removing or at least downplaying their Israeli experience on their CV,” she wrote in an email statement. “If they have no recent experience in Montreal and need to list their Israeli experience, they leave it, but they apply mainly to Jewish-run companies. Some that have both Israeli education and Canadian experience will create two CVs—one for Jewish employers and the other for non-Jewish employers.”
Rubinger added that some Israeli applicants choose to leave their Israeli experience but remove details about their military service.
An employment specialist at Ometz, who asked to remain anonymous, said concerns about antisemitism in hiring can serve as a litmus test.
“For those wondering whether to keep or remove their Jewish background and work history, Hebrew language skills, and education, I point out that if an employer doesn’t want to hire them because they are Jewish, that’s not right, of course. But I also tell them this is a way to screen out employers who are not interested in hiring Jewish applicants. After all, they likely wouldn’t be happy working for an antisemitic employer.”
Focus on leadership
Maya Zimmerman, student president of Hillel Montreal, says fear of antisemitism within hiring teams or admission committees is “something all Jewish students are thinking about.”
A second-year undergraduate student at McGill University, Zimmerman says she is not yet focused on grad school or job prospects, but knows she will need to consider her approach when the time comes.
“I’m not taking (Hillel president) off my CV. But maybe I’ll need to highlight the leadership role and focus less on (affiliations) with Jewish life,” she said.
While consulting applicants, Gould stresses the importance of standing out as a leader.
“They’re looking for the quality of your extracurriculars—where you had impact, where you created change,” she said. “That’s what matters most.”
Shnier echoes this sentiment. “My advice is, don’t hide,” she says. “Showcase the hell out of yourself. Demonstrate the significance of your experience, the impact, the growth, and how that ties into your bigger goals.”
