A radical antisemitic ideology has infiltrated Canada.

Ideas can no longer be challenged, since every course of study has begun to embed an ideology that is working to divide people and demonize select groups, like us Jews.

Canadian institutions that were once a place for intellectual discourse and learning have evolved into dangerous and radical institutions that breed hate. (photo:Paramraj Singh/Unsplash)

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This is a guest essay written by Shauna Small.

You can also listen to the podcast version of this essay on Apple Podcasts, YouTube Music, YouTube, and Spotify.

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As Canadian children begin to prepare for a new school year, the anxiety of the Jewish community continues to rise.

Unfortunately, a war being fought across the ocean has made its way onto Canadian streets, into businesses, universities, and sadly our public schools too.

There is a chill in the air for Jewish parents who are sending their children through the doors of public schools with the uncertainty of how the Ontario school boards will keep them safe.

There is a fear for both the physical and mental well-being of Jewish children as they are faced with navigating classrooms and a public educational system that has become politicized.

It is difficult not to see the exponential rise of antisemitism that is sweeping through Canadian streets and social media. It is difficult not to see the antisemitic graffiti, attacks on synagogues, arson on Jewish businesses, harassment of Jewish communities, shootings and fire bombs thrown at Jewish institutions.

It is especially difficult to miss the daily hate rallies that spew “death to Jews” and other antisemitic blood libels which target the Jewish community. It is worrisome to think about how schools are becoming complicit in stoking the flames of antisemitism.

The Chief of Police in Toronto, Myron Dempkiw, reported that antisemitic crimes are the number-one form of hate crime in the city — and they have risen more than 65 percent since October 7th.

Yet, our own prime minister has chosen to close his eyes to the hate and further isolate a community that continues to be traumatized by October 7th, the worst and most barbaric act of terrorism that has been perpetrated against the Jewish people since the Holocaust.

Our Jewish community cannot yet begin to heal from the massacre of 1,200 innocent victims since more than 115 hostages continue to be tortured and hidden away in Gaza. Our Jewish community is further injured every day when we hear the silence and hypocrisy of the Canadian government.

A radical ideology has infiltrated our university campuses and found its way into the hearts and minds of young Canadians. Institutions that were once a place for intellectual discourse and learning have evolved into dangerous and radical institutions that breed hate.

Ideas can no longer be challenged, since every course of study has begun to embed an ideology that is working to divide people and demonize select groups. These universities hold the promise for the future of this country. Our future leaders are being bred to hate and construct meaning through a “black and white” lens.

Shame has become a weapon that is used to mobilize our youth to take action in world issues that they do not understand. Today those misinformed and biased students have become the teachers in our public schools who have begun to use their positional power to prepare our children to become the future soldiers for their political agenda.

This is exactly how the “Nakba” has made its way into school board rooms across this province and this country. The “Nakba” has already been commemorated on the multi-faith calendar in the Peel board, although it is not a “faith-based” holiday. It is simply a political agenda.

The “Nakba” can be translated to “catastrophe” in Arabic. The day that Israel declared its independence on May 14th, 1948 is referred to by an Arab population who identify as Palestinian as the “Nakba.”

It is irrelevant whether one agrees or disagrees with the narrative of the “Nakba” — which puts all the blame on Jews for Palestinian refugees created by the First Israeli-Arab War that the Arabs started, after these same Arabs refused to negotiate at all with Israel to create a two-state solution leading up to 1948. (Sound familiar?)

The fact remains, it is history from another country that does not belong in our Canadian classrooms.

Do children in Syria learn about the war of 1812? On November 17th, do students in Jordan commemorate Louis Riel day and learn about the North-West rebellion of 1885? Do you think that Moroccan or Lebanese institutions commemorate September 30th as a day to learn about the Indigenous people of Canada and their history on this land? On July 1st, is Canada Day celebrated in Iraq or Egypt?

I think not!

So, why then should Canadian children be subjected to this narrative that belongs to another people in another part of the world? What intentions are behind the introduction of the “Nakba” in our schools? Is it to further divide Canadians? Is it to demonize the Jewish People?

One must question the motives behind individuals who are pushing this narrative into classrooms across Canada.

Whose agenda might this be coming from? I further question how the National Council of Canadian Muslims is involved in these decisions and how their partnerships with Canadian School boards have led to a public education system that has become highly biased and politicized.

Why are local unions that are openly fueled by hate and antisemitism being tasked in creating content for Ontario classrooms? Would we entrust our children’s education to the Ku Klux Klan and allow them to create units of study for students?

There are so many other significant days to people around the world that we do not learn about because it is not Canadian history. We can teach about the “Farhud” that occurred in Iraq on June 1st, 1941 when a large-scale pogrom occurred. Iraq had one of the oldest Jewish communities in the world that dated back to 2000 BC. In 1941, there was a continued presence of over 150,000 Jews.

The violence of the “Farhud” made it clear that there was no longer a future for them in Iraq. The Jewish population was ethnically cleansed and today there are less than five Jews who remain there. Should we mark Canadian calendars with that history of a displaced population?

We can add April 25th to our calendars as a day to commemorate the Mexican-American war of 1846. It was then that Mexicans lost some of their land and America added New Mexico to their growing country. This annexation also led to a displaced population.

We can commemorate September 1st, 1939 — when Poland was invaded by Germany and World War Two began. After all, the Germans lost that war, so maybe we should honor them with a day of commemoration for their loss of a war that they initiated? Isn’t that what the “Nakba” does?

There are wars and occupations of land all over the world. Borders change and people flee countries or become displaced. As we speak right now, hundreds of thousand Venezuelans and Sudanese are losing their homes, becoming refugees or being displaced in their countries.

Yet, we do not mark those days on our calendars. Why is the “Nakba” seen differently? Is it because it involves the creation of the only Jewish state, Israel? Is it because of the demonization of the Jewish state and the Jewish People that has taken hold of the mainstream media and educational institutions across the world?

Our schools do not concern themselves with any other plights around the world or genuine (i.e. actual, real-life) genocides happening. Students are not taught to mourn the tens of thousands of Muslims massacred in Muslim countries, the Christians massacred in Muslim countries, or the exile of Jews from across the Muslim world.

Students do not learn about the 3.5 million Jews who became refugees from Europe in 1945 and had no homes to return to. These refugees had to flee Europe and begin a new life; however, they did not remain classified as refugees. They moved throughout the world to countries that took in small numbers of Jews and integrated into new societies so that they could move forward instead of dwelling on their loss.

Many of them were the immigrants of British-occupied Palestine. They were the pioneers who contributed to reconstituting the Jewish homeland as promised in the Mandate for Palestine. Sadly, one percent of that refugee population was killed when the surrounding Arab countries attacked on May 15th, 1948, which is marked as the “Nakba” by the Palestinian community.

However, that day is commemorated as a “catastrophe” not because of the death toll but instead to mark the failure of the Arab community in their planned genocide of the Jews there and destruction of the nascent State of Israel. That is the “catastrophe” that is commemorated by the “Nakba.”

If children are to learn a narrative of the “Nakba” then we can argue that they should also learn about Israel’s Declaration of Independence and all the history that led up to it. We should be focusing on critical thought and teaching children there are different perspectives to the same story. We should implore our schools to present facts and teach children to decipher truth from all the different sources of information that have weaponized the media and feed our children’s minds through TikTok and other such platforms.

So this victory for the Jewish People, the long journey of 2,000 years to return to their homeland and reconstitute the Jewish state in their ancestral land, was referred to as a “catastrophe” (the “Nakba”) by Palestinian leader (and colossal terrorist) Yasser Arafat in 1964.

The narrative of the “Nakba” only became widespread among the Arabs when Arafat created the nationalist movement and terrorist organization, the Palestine Liberation Organization.

“Nakba Day” in the Palestinian Territories was created precisely 50 years after May 15th, 1948 to vilify Israelis and demonize the State of Israel while Israelis celebrated their 50th anniversary. It is a narrative predominantly made up of half-truths, gross distortions of history, and major omissions. Is this what Canadian children will be taught?

The “catastrophe” really was that the Arab nations had lost the war that they never imagined they could possibly lose. The “Nakba” is actually the commemoration of the embarrassment of their loss to the tiny, infant State of Israel. Hence, it is usually celebrated or marked by Palestinians through acts of violence committed against Israelis by Palestinian terrorists and their sympathizers.

I wake up at night with fears of how our school system will commemorate a day like October 7th. Will students be taught to celebrate the death of 1,200 innocent victims who were slaughtered in their homes or at a music festival? Or will they be taught to honor the innocent victims of terror, despite the fact that they were Jewish and/or Israeli?

Will students be taught to empathize with victims of terror regardless of their nationality and religion?

I am fearful that our Canadian cities will become celebratory on that day and teach children that “death to Jews” is a good thing and we should pray for more of it as we chant, “Long live October 7th!” I also fear that schools across this country, along with its invisible leadership, may choose indifference. They may choose to be silent on that day, so as not to offend a hateful Canadian who sees the mass murder of Jewish babies as justice being served.

I fear that we will see the cowardice of Canada’s leadership as they choose to be silent so that they do not receive the backlash from a community who will choose to be out on our streets in full force waving their flags and celebrating the savagery that Israel endured on that fateful day.

I equally fear hearing words of “moral equivalence” on a day that the Jewish community worldwide mourns the tragic and unspeakable horrors which took place in Israel with the horrible casualties of war that have occurred in Gaza as a result of October 7th. Will October 7th, 2024 become another day that is used to push an agenda for the Palestinian people, or will it be a day of remembrance for innocent victims of that agenda?

I argue that a narrative of a complex topic such as the Arab-Israeli conflict must not be introduced to children who do not have the intellectual capacity nor the background understanding to process this information. This is the difference between indoctrination and learning. If we want children to learn, we ought to teach them the skills to critically think, analyze, synthesize, and draw conclusions based on facts.

Our schools should never become a place for indoctrination. Our children need to learn skills at school, not politics. They will have time later in life to apply their skills to learning about politics and standing up for their beliefs.

The “Nakba” is completely political and it has no place in our schools. We need to keep our schools safe for all students to learn. Our schools must be inclusive and strive to build bridges by bringing children together and creating a respectful Canadian culture that will be the promise for a brighter future.

Politics is what divides people and creates hostile environments. Politics must stay out of our Canadian classrooms.

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