Testimony for National Library of Israel

One of the chief tasks of any dialogue with the Gentile world is to prove that the distinction between antisemitism and anti-Zionism is not a distinction at all.”

– Abba Eban

Life changed completely for me on October 7. But it should not have. None of the hatred directed at Jews from the postcolonial left was new. It’s just out in the open now.

Downtown Toronto (image courtesy of author)poster showing a fist grabbing the head of a snake

Before October 7, I identified as a Jewish Zionist. I chose to live in downtown Toronto, wanting to be part of the city’s multiethnic tapestry. I belonged to an egalitarian synagogue but rarely went.

Yet, I started a Jewish day school downtown since I wanted my children to know our rituals and language.

I had visited Israel as a child in 1972. I became engaged there in 1989. I was afraid to bring my children after the Second Intifada. They wanted to visit Israel and intended to go on Birthright, but it never worked out. I did not return to Israel until February 2023.

Although I understood that the Palestinians had walked away from the prospect of peace many times, I still attributed some blame to Israel. I was ignorant about the larger picture. I did not understand how completely genocidal Israel’s neighbours are toward Jews. I listened to the Times of Israel podcast but mostly read the Globe and Mail and New York Times.

When October 7 happened, it took days for me to comprehend the barbarity of the attack. A friend and I went for a walk early on that Simchat Torah.  That was the last time I was completely relaxed in my own city.

Within days, virulently antisemitic protests began. Graffiti and posters appeared throughout my city. I thought often of moving to Israel.

Poster in Toronto (image courtesy of author) 

Before I started work each morning as a psychiatrist, I would go for long walks in the city. During sessions with patients, I would often hear laments for the children of Gaza and harsh criticism of Israel. Usually, I would insist that psychotherapy had to be personal not political.

On November 11, I photographed a poster on the University of Toronto campus from socialist.ca saying “End the Genocide in Palestine.” It had been pasted over a torn poster of an Israeli hostage kidnapped by Hamas. I called police to report a hate crime. They said nothing could be done since they do not take sides.

That is when I started tearing down the most hateful posters myself, continuing for about a month. I took comfort from seeing evidence of fellow Zionist’s work. They usually worked under cover of darkness to paint over the egregious posters or put up hostage posters that were inevitably shredded.

In December 2023, I saw some neo-Nazi posters, but these were massively outnumbered by the “pro-Palestinian” variety of Jew hatred.

The next month,  I switched tactics, writing the truth on posters such as “Hamas is a violent, homophobic, misogynistic terror group” or “There are 22 Arab nations and one Jewish nation. Who is the colonizer?” My favourite was adding “All Hamas leaders are billionaires” to the Marxist posters. I often wrote “Jews have lived in Israel for 3,000 years” on the bed of torn hostage posters.

My recognition of the hatred really sunk in soon after. I had written “side by side with Israel” on a series of “Palestine forever” posters on campus. My comments were scratched off within a few hours.

At the same time, I was also responding to the anti-Israel bias in our mainstream media. I wrote many letters to the CBC and Globe and Mail, respectively Canada’s public broadcaster and largest national newspaper.

I became more educated about Israel, reading Einat Wilf, listening to the Times of Israel and Israeli History Unpacked podcasts and reading Israeli English-language newspapers. I started sending my Jewish and non-Jewish friends copies of my daily letters to various editors, educating many of them in the process. Some changed their minds about Israel.
In November, on the anniversary of Kristallnacht, the largest Jewish-owned bookstore in downtown Toronto was vandalized. It was sprayed with red paint while posters denouncing the owner as a supporter of genocide were plastered over the windows. Police soon arrested the culprits, mostly York University professors, since they had been videotaped on security cameras.

In January, I attended a Robbie Burns Night at the house of one of my closest friends. A York University professor, who has lived directly across the street from me for 25 years, was also at the party. We had always been friendly. Since she was in her 70s, I suspected she would be sympathetic to Israel instead of brainwashed by Marxist propaganda. Was I ever wrong.
She told me the problem with York University was that it was run by “radical Zionists.” York is a university in the north end of Toronto that has long been a hotbed of anti-Zionist propaganda. This was apparently not her view. She told me that the professors should never have been arrested or suspended, their defacing of the store was legitimate protest and not antisemitic. I responded that she would never tell a Black or Brown person what was racist but she had no trouble telling me what was antisemitic. She refused to speak further. I offered to have a discussion at a more reasonable time. After that, she avoided me for several months. When she finally said hello again, I told her that I was no longer interested. She laughed.

All charges against the university professors were eventually dropped.

Queen Street West, described on Trip Advisor as “the epitome of cool,” was one of the worst neighbourhoods for antisemitic postering. It was on the route to City Hall, site of weekly pro-Hamas gatherings. One morning, while writing on the posters, I had two people confront me. One was very sad that I would not condemn genocide, but the other was threatening. I ran away from a young man in his late 20s screaming at me since I wrote “Palestinians – four times the population since 1948. Polish Jews – 99% gone. One is genocide. The other isn’t.” After that, I was afraid to go back.

So, I started calling 311, the hotline for city services. Within a few weeks, the hundreds of posters were removed by city workers.

I joined Doctors against Racism and Antisemitism (DARA.) In March 2024, I went to Israel with them to bear witness to the atrocities of October 7 and learn more about geopolitics.

I retired early to take that trip. My life changed, staying close to other doctors and spending my days writing, reading and countering misinformation.

I felt safe in Israel, where hostage posters were almost never torn down. In my neighborhood in Toronto, they barely lasted a day. I photographed a woman in her sixties, who lives in my neighbourhood, tearing down a poster of Kfir Bibas, the little, red headed baby hostage. When I asked her why, she replied the tape was messy.

She became anxious that I would publically condemn her. She posted on Facebook that she was searching for a neighbour who was obviously distressed but that she had no idea what she was tearing down. I started to question myself, although I had seen it with my own eyes. Two days later, the picture of Kfir’s little body was still intact on the pole. She had torn off his head. Was she unaware?

Torn poster of Kfir Bibas (Image courtesy of author)

At the end of April, a fence went up around the Quad at King’s College Circle on the University of Toronto campus, my alma mater.

The fencing, erected annually to keep the grass pristine for graduation ceremonies, signals that medical school exams are nigh. This year, a far sturdier fence than usual appeared, with signs prohibiting trespassing. By 4 a.m. the next day, pro-Hamas agitators had established an encampment.

Encampment at University of Toronto (Image courtesy of author)

In the early days, the metal grate temporary fence panels allowed a clear view of the Quad. We could see them chanting and mostly praying. Their favourite chants seemed to be “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” and “There is only one solution, intifada revolution”  or “Disclose, divest, we will not sleep. We will not rest.” The chanting was catchy and mesmerizing for students, looking for a sense of belonging after the loneliness of the pandemic.

Many of the posters hung all along the fence were hateful, violent, and threatening. The makeshift gate was guarded by people in keffiyehs with their faces covered. I could not enter since I would not proclaim fealty to their antiZionist rules.

The protesters were not helping Palestinians as they claimed. They were threatening Jews and Israelis on campus and in the broader community. They took their tool kit from terrorist groups and BDS. Their entire goal was to marginalize and demonize Israel, boycott Israeli academics and threaten the 90% of Canadian Jews who support Israel.

A number of fringe anti-Zionist Jewish groups were present, particularly Jewish Faculty Network and Independent Jewish Voices. They were used as fig leaves, to hide the obvious Jew hatred. Our media gave these marginal groups outsized news coverage. The “pro-Palestinians” were always loudest when Jews were nearby.

I often collected Israeli flags and Bring Them Home stickers at these protests and would affix them to my front door and windows. I expected them to be torn down like the hostage posters, but they have lasted for months. My house has not been vandalized nor have I taken down my mezuzah.

There were many signs in Arabic around the encampment that I could not read. I was jeered at when I stopped to try to use Google Translate. Although I often wear dog tags with a Magen David, I always tucked them into my shirt when approaching the encampment.

I was stunned by what was happening to my campus. I visited twice a day in early May to see the developments.
On May 8, I attended a rally against hatred, a couple of blocks away. We went to the encampment afterwards, still wearing our Israeli flags. An older woman within the Quad tried to hit us with a stick, but we jumped back, easily separated by the fence.

(Image courtesy of author)

(Image courtesy of author)

The brother of my friend was kicked by a protester for wearing an Israeli flag. Another friend who managed to enter the encampment was surrounded and threatened.

A poster was placed on the fence with messages written to Dr. Meric Gertler, our Jewish president of the University of Toronto. Most said “fuck you” or some variation thereof. I wrote, “Why are you tolerating this pro-Hamas Jew hatred?” It was scratched out a few hours later.

Over the weeks, the encampment became more entrenched, the panel links reinforced by wooden 2x4s and zip ties. They were covered in tarps to hide the occupants’ identities and activities within.

Hamas triangle at encampment (Image courtesy of author)

(Image courtesy of author)

The signs got worse with bloody handprints and upside down red triangles, all symbols associated with Hamas and their supporters. A few of the worst posters, of dismembered Gazan children, were removed, but otherwise all remained intact. Ironically, when our university president testified in a parliamentary committee on antisemitism that the posters had all been removed, the only ones I saw torn down were those of the hostages.

At one point, a Christian theology graduate student attempted to start a pro-Israel faction by erecting a tent, in the small green space left. University security tossed him out within minutes. The “pro-Palestinian” students then practised martial arts katas until we left.

Things felt horrible in one way, but for the first time in my adult life I felt very much a part of the larger Jewish community.

At the end of May 2024, the University of Toronto applied for an injunction to clear the encampment. It would not be heard until July, after the graduation ceremonies. The police were unwilling to clear it without a court order since the university had given mixed messages to the protesters. They wanted them gone, but had provided a route for food deliveries and access to bathrooms.

I was a member of two WhatsApp groups, one consisting of Toronto Zionists and the other DARA. I heard that they were looking for witnesses to provide testimony about the encampment. I wrote to CIJA (the Centre of Israel and Jewish Affairs) with my information and was contacted in June by Monique Jilesen, the lawyer for the University of Toronto.

Ms. Jilesen’s approach to the case proved to be strategically brilliant. I am still dumbfounded by the level of Jew hatred among our intelligentsia. I mistakenly associate antisemitism with ignorance and lack of education. Ms. Jilesen said that we could not be certain of the judge’s views. To be successful, we needed to focus purely on the law, the tort of trespass and the exclusion of others from a public space. She was 100% right.

Two days before I was set to testify, my cross-examination was cancelled by the encampment’s lawyer. My affidavit was accepted on its own.

In the end, the university achieved a pyrrhic victory. Justice Markus Koehnen granted the injunction requested by the university but unnecessarily added his own opinion on the supposed virtues of the protesters.

Looking to the law, Justice Koehnen found that the encampment protesters were trespassers. He had no choice but to evict them, giving 24 hours’ notice.

Had he stopped there, his decision would have been perfect on both the law and the facts. Instead, Justice Koehnen unnecessarily continued. He found that no antisemitism was evident in the encampment. He went out of his way to praise the protesters and wish them good luck.

Koehnen quoted from another judge’s report. The Macdonald Report was written by a retired judge with no experience or understanding in these matters. The report was commissioned by Toronto Metropolitan University after students at its law school penned a heinous, antisemitic open letter on October 20, 2023. That letter minimized the atrocities of October 7 in “so called Israel” and offered “unequivocal support for all forms of Palestinian resistance.” To gain a “Jewish” perspective, Justice MacDonald interviewed a number of Jewish anti-Zionists and relied on the chronically biased CBC and United Nations for background information.

His report exonerated the students, calling them insensitive but not antisemitic. He took the students at their word that they did not intend to be antisemitic, an approach that would never be accepted under Canadian law for any other form of discrimination. Both justices offered their uninformed opinions bereft of any understanding of antisemitism.

In the end, I was extremely relieved to have the students leave peacefully. The encampment brought constant threat, spreading Jew hatred throughout downtown Toronto.

A few days later, a neighbour put a large Palestinian flag out on his porch. That, of course, is his right. We all have to live together, here in Toronto.