Three months later, we finally have details on what happened. Swastikas were painted outside a Jewish student's dorm room on campus.
The silence around this case highlights a larger problem about campus antisemitism at uOttawa, one tackled by Isabelle Leahey Jay, the reporter at the student newspaper who broke this story.
The campus Chabad Rabbi Chaim Boyarsky said that students reported to him that there were desks etched with swastikas at the campus library, students joking during lectures that “Jews are the cause of natural disasters”, Jewish students enduring insults and slurs as they walk on campus.
Soon after October 7 2023, Jewish students met to pray for the victims of the attacks and were harassed by anti-Israel students tell them to leave.
Perhaps most disturbing, the students are reluctant to report these incidents because they believe that this will only make things worse for them. They have good reason to think this: even after this report in the Fulcrum, an online discussion included people justifying hate against Jews because of "Palestine" and others calling it a Jewish false flag operation.
Nevertheless, the university spokesperson Jesse Robichaud said in December that the graffiti was an "isolated incident."
The University of Ottawa created a position of Special Adviser on Antisemitism held by Professor Jonathan Calof. Surprisingly, he was not quoted in this article. He reports to the Vice-Provost, Equity, Diversity and Inclusive Excellence which makes one wonder how effective he can be; antisemitism is not just another form of bigotry that can be fought with similar tools and diversity/inclusivity/equity teams are often the problem more than the solution.
The head of the EDIE group at uOttawa, Awad Ibrahim, organized a conference in 2024 that was meant to be about antisemitism, Islamophobia and "anti-Palestinian racism." Yet the only Jews invited to the panel were both members of an anti-Zionist group who railed against the "Israel lobby" - evoking the very antisemitic tropes they are supposed to fight against. . This is not just an oversight - this shows how little the DEI at the university understands about modern antisemitism.
I am concerned that this position of special adviser on antisemitism, reporting to a leader who is either ignorant about antisemitism or actively tries to minimize it, is more a figurehead rather than having any teeth.
For example, Professor Calof does not have a webpage where he can issue statements directly to students. After the swastika incident occurred in October, he was quoted as saying that there were three more antisemitic incidents that week alone. Shouldn't these be publicized (without identifying victims)? Shouldn't the news about this incident have come from his office before the student newspaper uncovered it? It seems like the university is very interested in sweeping antisemitism under the rug, and Dr. Calof does not have the tools to do anything real besides counsel student and faculty victims of antisemitism.
“I’ve had students crying in my office because they have been isolated by people, they thought they were their friends, who are now afraid of wearing a Magen David,” said Calof. “I’ve had faculty say that their colleagues stopped speaking to them due to differences in opinion. It has gotten really bad. The illegal encampment, protests and graffiti of last year have given way to a more institutionalized form of antisemitism.”
Calof did not respond to my request for comment.
The role was created in 2024, but the professor who was appointed was forced out after only three months for tweeting his support of Israel's pager operation against Hezbollah, calling it "brilliant." Which it was. If the person who is meant to fight antisemitism at the university cannot be publicly and proudly pro-Israel, then the role is all but meaningless - it means that anti-Israel activists have veto power over a role that would expose them as antisemitic.
The fact that the adviser role remained vacant for over a year afterwards makes one wonder how important fighting antisemitism is to the university compared to making it look like they are taking it seriously.
More than half of all hate crimes in Ottawa are against the small Jewish community there. Based on the reporting I'm seeing, it seems that this is a severe undercount.
Working behind the scenes has its advantages, but from all appearances, the University of Ottawa is more interested in hiding its antisemitism problem than publicly fighting it. When that happens, light is the only real disinfectant.
|
"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024) PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022) |
 |
Buy