The University of Toronto has come under fire for its “shocking” levels of antisemitism, after a senior advisor at the university published a tell-all report detailing the hateful remarks heard by students, which include calling “all Jews liars” who control the world.
The academic paper appeared in the Canadian Medical Education Journal and was authored by Dr. Ayelet Kuper, who was appointed by the school’s administration as a senior advisor on antisemitism after a series of antisemitic incidents on campus.
The paper, titled “Reflections on addressing antisemitism in a Canadian faculty of medicine” and first cited by the Toronto Sun, outlines Kuper’s findings after a year in the role.
According to the report, Kuper found that hatred of Jews exists in the university both on the extreme right and the extreme left.
Given that the faculty of medicine at the University of Toronto used to have a quota system limiting the number of Jewish students it would admit, it’s not surprising antisemitism persists there to this day.
Kuper also details a series of personal anecdotes that occurred during her tenure.
During a lecture she delivered on religious discrimination, Kuper writes, “I was asked by non-Jewish learners (i.e. students) why content about Jews ‘was being forced on the students by the Jew who bought the Faculty.’”
According to Kuper, the university’s decision to rename its medical school as the Temerty Faculty of Medicine (TFOM) in homage to James and Louise Temerty, the Canadian philanthropists who gave a $250 million donation led students to believe they were Jewish. They are not.
“I personally experienced many instances of antisemitism,” Kuper writes, “including being told that all Jews are liars; that Jews lie to control the university or the faculty or the world, to oppress or hurt others, and/or for other forms of gain; and that antisemitism can’t exist because everything Jews say are lies, including any claims to have experienced discrimination.
“More specifically, I experienced the now-common strategy among those at TFOM, who have made … antisemitic statements to say that any Jew who calls them out is just racist and is lying in order to oppress Palestinians,” Kuper, who is a child of Holocaust survivors, said.
She was repeatedly told by both members of staff as well as students at the faculty that “Zionists” and “Zionism” “means various racist and hateful things, ranging from ‘hating all Muslims’ to ‘wanting to murder all Palestinians.’ Such false definitions are then used to justify hatred of any Jews who ‘admit’ to being Zionists.”
“I’ve been told by colleagues that being born in Israel and refusing to denounce the existence of my place of birth as a Jewish state means that I am inherently racist and that any discrimination I encounter as a Jew in Canada is therefore deserved,” she writes.
“I was told by yet another TFOM faulty member that Jews … shouldn’t even be subject to the protection from discrimination as outlined in the Ontario Human Rights Code … on the grounds that what Jews call antisemitism isn’t real.”
TFOM, or what was then known simply as the Faculty of Medicine, was once infamous for having a quota for accepting Jewish medical school applicants. TFOM’s dean publicly apologized for the quota in September of this year.
In January, university faculty accused international human rights activist and Canada’s antisemitism envoy Prof. Irwin Cotler of prejudice against Palestinians after he spoke at TFOM on antisemitism as part of International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
Forty-five university faculty members charged Cotler with the “erasure of Palestinian voices.”
A year ago, the university’s student union walked back an earlier decision to ban kosher food from companies that support Israel, an effective ban on all kosher food.
