Offering Rebuke
The November 5 incident at Toronto Metropolitan University was beyond disturbing. Even setting aside the rising antisemitism it reflects, the prospect that uninvited people would interrupt a private event in a private space, damage property, and leave multiple attendees with injuries that required trips to the hospital is outrageous. To the extent that alarm bells weren’t already going off, for Jews and non-Jews alike, they should be now.
For those familiar with the atmosphere at TMU, this is unlikely to be a surprise. There are ways in which the administration has been supportive of Jewish life on campus, but when it comes to combatting antisemitism, we’ve been pushing for them to uphold their own policies and hold members of the campus community who violate them accountable. The response has been, at best, incomplete.
In the face of this and similar responses across North America, we continue to advocate for Jewish student safety and inclusion. In part, this is because it’s our job and responsibility to do so, but there’s another reason: Jewish tradition makes tochechah – offering rebuke – more than optional. Leviticus 19:17-18 instructs, “You shall not hate your kinsfolk in your heart. Reprove your kin but incur no guilt on their account.” Thus, offering rebuke is mandatory, a commandment that falls squarely within our broader obligations.
Some commentators limited this duty to rebuking other Jews, the logic being that the communal relationship with God and each other makes all of us responsible as mutual guarantors and imposes consequences on us all. In a modern context, this logic can be extended more broadly. After all, with Jews being so tightly interwoven with society at large, any one person’s mistake affects everyone, regardless of their identity or background. More specifically, when a non-Jew is engaging in antisemitism or failing to take steps to mitigate it, Jews feel those shortcomings and transgressions more than anyone else.
Post-biblical interpretations flesh this directive out further. One should start with a private, calm, and gentle rebuke to avoid embarrassment, but if the person does not alter their behavior, it’s appropriate to provide public criticism. You should approach the person with humility, give them the benefit of the doubt, and embody yourself the kind of openness to critical feedback that you hope to see in others. Your rebuke should offer the transgressor a way back, embracing forgiveness and rejecting vengeance and grudges. All told, the commentary is extensive and emphasizes that offering rebuke is required, not optional, and should maximize the likelihood of change.
What does this have to do with preventing and combatting Jew hatred on campus? It puts the onus on those of us who have relationships and authority to offer critique of actions that stray from what’s acceptable and put Jewish students in danger. We should do this in a way that matches our tradition’s guidelines: privately before publicly, doing our best to avoid shaming or embarrassment, keeping the doors open to conversation, and offering support in changing behaviors.
We’ve done our best to act in this way with the TMU administration. Over the past year, we’ve regularly urged specific actions, from training staff to de-recognizing student groups that promote antisemitism, starting in private and shifting to more public feedback. While there has been some responsiveness and some successes, they have largely failed to recognize and act on this in a wholesale manner, leaving Jewish students isolated and vulnerable.
And so our efforts continue and intensify. We have convened a coalition of Jewish advocacy groups to engage the Hon. Nolan Quinn, Ontario’s Minister of Colleges, Universities, Research Excellence and Security to urge governmental pressure on the administration as a way to compel TMU to uphold its own policies and guarantee Jewish student safety. We amplify Jewish student perspectives and experiences to promote awareness of what’s happening on campus. We ongoingly ensure that members of the TMU community have access to legal advice and support in upholding their rights and are exploring a comprehensive legal response to the comprehensive shortcomings we bear the brunt of. And through all of this, we continue to engage with members of the TMU administration, pointing out ways in which they can improve and extending our support when they choose to do so.
We know from experience that understanding the ever-changing ways that antisemitism reveals itself and acting against it is difficult. Our hope is that, by continuing to offer to be the administration’s guide in navigating the often complicated paths towards effective advocacy and fighting antisemitism, they will come to appreciate the positive impact they can have on Jewish students’ lives and ensure that events like those of last week never occur again.
