Ottawa, ON – September 12, 2022 – Late last week, the Jewish Federation of Ottawa learned that the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board (OCDSB) scheduled trustee training on antisemitism that, despite promises, was arranged without consultation or involvement of Ottawa’s organized Jewish community or even their own Jewish Employee Group. The program, which, contrary to best practices, combined “education” on both antisemitism and anti-Palestinian hate into a single learning session, involved trainers wholly unqualified to educate about anti-Jewish hate.  

Immediately thereafter, the Jewish Federation of Ottawa sent a letter to Director of Education Camille Williams-Taylor and OCDSB Board Chair Lynn Scott expressing “outrage” over the Board’s “blatant disregard for the wellbeing of Jewish students and faculty.”  

“A fundamental principle of all Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) is ‘nothing about us without us.’ The actions taken by the OCDSB show that this principle does not apply to the Jewish community,” said Andrea Freedman, President and CEO of the Jewish Federation of Ottawa.  

The person selected by the OCDSB to lead its antisemitism training is Dr. Jeffrey Wilkinson, a self-described “music educator, musician and composer.” He has actively campaigned against the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism adopted by the governments of both Ontario and Canada as well as by countless other nations, agencies, and leading global organizations. His doctoral thesis also includes offensive Holocaust comparisons that have no place in effective education to combat antisemitism.  

This is not the first time Jewish voices on antisemitism have been silenced by the Board. In spring 2022, the final webinar session of three-part series, “Unpacking Complexity in the Classroom,'' a collaboration between the OCDSB and the Centre for Holocaust Education and Scholarship (CHES), was postponed. The opening speaker for this session was the Honourable Irwin Cotler, Canada's Special Envoy on Preserving Holocaust Remembrance and Combatting Antisemitism. Cotler is an internationally acclaimed human rights activist, a former Canadian Justice Minister, and widely accepted as Canada’s leading expert on antisemitism. The Board asked CHES to uninvite Cotler due to their perception that he was controversial. Then, following a suggestion from Superintendent of Education Shannon Smith that Cotler’s use of the IHRA definition and examples would make “the space unsafe for some,” the OCDSB abruptly canceled the session, allowing it to move forward only when Cotler had been dropped from the program. 

“The recent example of Canadian Heritage anti-racism funding and Laith Marouf, who promoted outrageous and hateful statements on social media, should serve as a cautionary tale about the importance of hiring appropriate people to undertake anti-racism training,” said Freedman. 

This incident occurred on the heels of what Freedman describes as a “wave of antisemitism” at OCDSB schools.  

“Jewish students have been ostracized at school and vilified on social media. Several students changed schools because of harassment, and we have heard stories of families moving to change school zones,” Freedman explained. 

One Jewish student reported to the Federation that a peer told him to “stick with his own kind” because that is “where he belongs,” which was followed by a Nazi salute. A grade seven student told his entire class that he believed “more Jews should be killed” and that “Hitler was right to kill Jews.” At a graduation party last spring, one student wrapped a streamer around a Jewish student’s neck and yelled, “Let’s play choke the Jew!”  

According to Statistics Canada, Jews remain the most targeted religious group for hate crimes in Canada, and are ten times more likely than any other Canadian religious minority to report being the target of a hate crime.  

“Much of antisemitism is rooted in ignorance, and the best way to combat it is through education,” said Freedman. It is on this principle that, since 2017, the Federation has been requesting to work with the OCDSB on anti-racism training that reflects the lived experience of Ottawa’s Jewish community. 

“The response to such hatred targeting Ottawa’s Jewish students should be to work in direct coordination with the Jewish community, to bring in appropriate educators, and to take concrete action to protect students and educators. This is what is happening in other districts, including Toronto. In contrast, OCDSB has dismissed our recommendations and excluded us from the conversation. We call on the OCDSB to right this wrong and include the Jewish community in its discussions on antisemitism.” 

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