Over 100 Jewish doctors who are faculty members at the University of Toronto’s Temerty Faculty of Medicine (TFOM) will stop acknowledging their affiliation with the school in response to what they see as a failure to protect Jewish students and faculty.
The doctors will continue to perform all of their regular roles and responsibilities. However, in instances when they would have noted their relationship to UofT, they will now decline to do so. That includes publications, presentations and professional correspondence.
“We are not refusing to do any of our academic activities. This is really a symbolic gesture that we’re doing,” said Dr. Jerry Teitel a hematologist who works at St. Michael’s Hospital and as a professor of medicine at UofT.
“So if I give a talk to a group of trainees… as I’ll be doing in a couple of weeks, on my title slide, instead of putting as my affiliations, ‘St. Michael’s Hospital, University of Toronto,’ I’ll leave out the University of Toronto.”
The decision, which was announced by Doctors Against Racism and Antisemitism (DARA) on June 6, comes amidst a campus climate that discriminates against Jews, as the doctors see it. In fact, most of the doctors who have decided to refrain from acknowledging their relationship with the school are declining to make their names public, for fear of reprisal.
Teitel is near the end of his career so doesn’t fear the repercussions in the same way, but he understands why his colleagues choose to remain anonymous, especially given the recent experiences of Jewish faculty and students.
“If you are a junior faculty or if you’re a student, I think you’re going to be more in the line of fire… We realized, you know, if we ask people to sign the letter and put their name out there, they’re at risk of being doxxed on social media, it’s going to come back and hurt them,” he said. “That we wanted people to express themselves, but anonymously, shows you how the degree of intimidation has affected us.”
Doxxing is the act of publishing an individual’s personal details on the internet so that people can target them outside of just online spaces.
“If I were early career, if I were a student, I would say, if I were active on social media, I wouldn’t want to live in an environment where I knew that I was going to be a personal target of hatred,” Teitel said.
In DARA’s press release announcing the action, they gave many examples of the kind of behaviour that they say is indicative of the school and medical faculty’s “failure” to defend Jewish learners and professors.
The examples include certain TFOM faculty speaking at rallies calling for an intifada and posting vile messages on social media, and issues at or near the pro-Palestinian encampment on the school’s King’s College Circle such as physical confrontations and calls for Jews to return to Europe. Jewish medical students were even offered the option to have their classes moved online in an acknowledgement of unsafe conditions.
“As long as UofT fails to act, the UofT affiliation under the signature of the Jewish physician faculty tarnishes these faculty members’ reputation,” the DARA press release reads. “This protest against UofT’s failure to protect Jews on campus will continue until UofT institutes bona fide measures to provide a welcoming and safe environment for Jews.”
A spokesperson for the TFOM sent a statement to The CJN in response to the DARA announcement.
“We are saddened that in this time of global and local crisis, many of our faculty at Temerty Medicine are experiencing pain and distress as a result of antisemitism on campus and beyond,” read the statement. “We remain committed to combatting antisemitism through education and will continue to address all incidents of antisemitism and other forms of discrimination that are brought to our attention, within the context of our institutional policies and processes, and the law.
“We acknowledge and accept that faculty members may choose to express their criticism of the University and its actions in different ways, under the university’s Statement of Institutional Purpose and Statement on Freedom of Speech. This includes the right by faculty members to choose whether to continue their affiliation with UofT. President Meric Gertler has explained the University’s commitment to free speech.”
Dr. Ted Rosenberg, a Vancouver-based geriatrician who resigned from his faculty position at the University of British Columbia (UBC) earlier this year, understands why the UofT doctors are taking this step. The situation is not unique to just his former school or UofT, either. Rosenberg says it is being experienced by every Jewish doctor who sympathizes with Israel, a number he put at approximately 80 percent according to polling.
“This has been happening at every single university across Canada and every single medical school. I’m in touch with doctors across the country and they’re all saying the same thing. ‘We have been marginalized. We’ve been delegitimized. We are exposed to this demonizing hatred and we’re exposed to this double standard. We do not feel part of the Canadian tapestry and we do not feel part of our universities anywhere,’” Rosenberg said.
“UofT now is starting to stand up after, like us in UBC, trying to work with administration and being rebuffed and marginalized. They’re saying enough is enough.”
