Hear why the Jews of Victoria, B.C. don’t feel safe going downtown on the weekends

Poster at the University of Victoria
A pro-Palestinian poster hung in the gender studies department at the University of Victoria last month on Vancouver Island, taken by a Jewish professor of military history, David Zimmerman. (Courtesy David Zimmerman)

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The conflict between Israel and Hamas has also been playing out in one of Canada’s smaller Jewish communities: Victoria, B.C.—where a city councillor sided with Hamas and wore a Palestinian keffiyeh scarf, and where the 400 Jewish students at the University of Victoria reported being spit on, and they and their Jewish professors have to run the gauntlet of anti-Israel protests on campus.

Although the B.C. premier, David Eby, and other provincial politicians have thrown their support behind the Jewish community by announcing mandatory Holocaust education in Grade 10 by 2025, and have condemned antisemitism–as has the university president–the anti-Israel climate in the B.C. capital now is, as one Jewish leader put it, making Jews feel unsafe to go downtown on weekends.

To learn more, The CJN Daily is joined by Sharon Fitch, president of the Jewish Federation of Victoria and Vancouver Island, and Noa Arama, a student at UVic who is co-president of the campus Hillel club.

What we talked about

  • Read more about the controversy surrounding Victoria city councillor Susan Kim, and calls for her to resign, in The CJN.
  • Learn more about the situation for profs and students at the UVic, in The CJN.
  • Victoria is the fastest growing Jewish community in Canada, according to the latest census figures, on The CJN Daily.

Credits:

The CJN Daily is written and hosted by Ellin Bessner (@ebessner on Twitter). Zachary Kauffman is the producer. Michael Fraiman is the executive producer. Our theme music is by Dov Beck-Levine. Our title sponsor is Metropia. We’re a member of The CJN Podcast Network. To subscribe to this podcast, please watch this video. Donate to The CJN and receive a charitable tax receipt by clicking here.