Opinion
Doctor’s report on anti-semitism at Toronto medical school highlights age-old stereotypes of Jewish power, money and control
By MYRON LOVE We who grew up as part of the postwar “baby Boom” generation have lived in what could be described as an ahistorical time. I have lived my life both in a Jewish milieu and also in a free and open society where being Jewish has – for me – never been an issue. I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times I have experienced what some might call anti-Semitism.
In the aftermath of the horrors of the Holocaust and the rebirth of the State of Israel, classic anti-Semitism was thoroughly discredited (or so I had thought). What Jew hatred there was emanated almost exclusively from a handful of fringe losers who would have been referred to as far right – people such as German-born Ernst Zundra or Alberta high school teacher Jim Keegstra – who represented no one and faced condemnation by all.
Sadly, judging by a report by Dr. Ayelet Kuper of the University of Toronto Temerty Faculty of Medicine, that era where classic anti-Semitism is held in opprobrium has come to an end.
Kuper is an Israeli-born child of Holocaust survivors who grew up in Montreal and has studied at Boston and Oxford. What she found in her study of the situation – along with her personal experience – is greatly disturbing because what she describes goes beyond the unfortunately expected anti-Israel and anti-Zionist garbage. Demonstrating that she herself is not of a conservative bent, the Senior Advisor – Temerty Faculty of Medicine, Office of Inclusion and DiversityUniversity of Toronto, writes that she “has many proud Jewish and non-Jewish colleagues and friends who support the existence of an independent Palestine in multiple ways (as I do) without also perpetrating hatred for Jews”.
“In the years before the war in Gaza,” she reported, “I overheard faculty colleagues complaining about “those Jews who think their Holocaust means they know something about oppression,” heard about non-Jewish students who thought a Jewish classmate had the power to block their residency matches and offered to help address the refusal of student groups to provide kosher food for students at TFOM events. “However,” she continues, “growing support for antisemitism at TFOM has been carefully re-framed since the spring of 2021(after the latest Israel-Hamas conflict) as political activism against Israel and as scholarly positions held under the protection of academic freedom. The resultant physician advocacy has, however, been rife with dog-whistles, traditional antisemitic tropes and disingenuous claims of oppression. I personally experienced many instances of antisemitism, 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 what I believe to be antisemitic statements to say that any Jew who calls them out is just racist and is lying in order to oppress Palestinians.
“There are also,” she goes on, “a small number of people who identify as Jews or as having Jewish heritage among the group of people whom I have witnessed to be encouraging antisemitism at TFOM. Some of those self-identified Jews have said discriminatory things to me about Jews; some of them have also described to me a deep embarrassment at being Jewish. However, their being Jewish is often used by them and by their non-Jewish colleagues to claim that what they are all saying or doing can’t possibly be antisemitic.”
She notes that the traditional antisemitic trope that, in her experience, crops up is the age-old accusations that Jews control the media, the economy, and the actions of major nation-states. “I have heard it said,” she reports, “(in person and on social media) within TFOM that Jews control CaRMS (the Canadian Residency Matching Service, which manages the residency selection process), Jews control faculty hiring, and Jews control TFOM’s promotion decisions. To share a specific example, when a lecture on religious discrimination was instituted within the medical school in the spring of 2021, I was asked by non-Jewish learners why content about Jews was “being forced on the students by the Jew who bought the Faculty.” Those learners explained that they meant James Temerty, who with his wife had made a sizeable donation to the Faculty (which was subsequently renamed in their honour), and who is not Jewish.
“I was specifically told that a substantial number of students had assumed that the Temerty family was Jewish because of their obvious wealth. I have also heard repeated many times a pervasive belief in certain circles of faculty members and learners that anyone at TFOM who angers “the Jews” will have their career destroyed by “the Jews”–and I have had it explained to me on multiple occasions that this fear of Jews, instead of being a bias to be combatted, is actually the reverse: that those who fear Jews based on this egregious stereotype are actually the ones being discriminated against, since they have to cope with their fear of “the powerful Jews”! And of course, I have heard non-Jews who stand up for Jews, including in the face of these sorts of hateful comments, being accused of having been “bought by the Jews” or similar.”
She points out that “even some of the friendly, supportive non-Jews I know and like still seem to buy into the centuries-old stereotype of the rich and powerful Jew. For example, almost all TFOM faculty members are physicians, and so by definition are some of the highest earners in Canadian society; nonetheless, it is my experience that Jewish physicians who have comfortable lifestyles are sometimes talked about by other faculty members as having those lifestyles because they are Jewish, not because they are physicians. I have been subject to a long list of microaggressions perpetrated by otherwise lovely and reflexive people at TFOM and at its affiliated hospitals about Jews being pushy and demanding and in charge, Jews having (or wanting) lots of money, and Jews only looking out for other Jews.
Furthermore, the antisemitic trope of excessive Jewish power means that Jews standing up to antisemitism only worsens antisemitism because it is used to justify further fear of a cabal of powerful Jews, turning us into the problem TFOM must solve instead of the victims of discrimination ourselves.
She adds that she has 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 she is inherently racist and that any discrimination she encounters as a Jew in Canada is therefore deserved.
“Even as an experienced educator, social justice scholar, and leader, I was frequently at a loss as to how to escape from the circular reasoning that dismissed my experience of discrimination while dehumanizing me, calling me out as racist for defending myself against racism, and ascribing to me sinister, hidden power,” she writes. Although I
am very practiced at speaking out against the oppression of members of many other social groups, it has sometimes been impossible to defend myself against those who twisted any form of defense against the oppression of Jews into ‘proof’ of a powerful and controlling Jewish cabal.”
Regrettably, Kuper offers few solutions to this abhorrent resurgence of traditional anti-semitic views other than standing up for each other as Jews and trying to educate supportive non-Jews.
A bleak report indeed!
Local News
Is It Alberta’s Turn to Regulate Online Gambling? Looking at the Possibilities
Online gambling and betting in Canada is booming, with each province allowed to regulate its own space. Ontario, Canada’s most populated province, turned two this year after leading the way in April 2022. In what should motivate Alberta and other provinces, Ontario is already reaping the rewards, generating $100 million annually in gambling revenue. Will the local administration in Alberta do what is needed?
Talks have been rife that Alberta is considering going the Ontario way by having an open-licensing system. In July 2023, the minister for Service Alberta and Red Tape Reduction, Dale Nally, issued a mandate to make this province a hub of online sports betting and gambling.
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith recently asked Nally to cooperate with indigenous partners and other stakeholders to develop an online gaming strategy. The main focus will be on revenue generation and responsible gambling. In light of this, Nally said Alberta’s primary focus is becoming a “leading hub for iGaming” with streamlined regulations and low corporate taxes. Such conditions should position Alberta to become a leading iGaming destination.
A few weeks ago, the minister attended the ICE international gaming conference held in London. Together with Ontario’s Attorney General, Doug Downey, and other stakeholders, Nally participated in a roundtable discussion regarding the status of iGaming in Canada. CDC Gaming Reports also revealed that the discussion highlighted the success of iGaming in Ontario and how Alberta can emulate this success story.
Looking into the Alberta Budget 2024, it’s evident that state monopoly could soon give way to Canadian casinos to thrive in the province. Alberta took the first baby steps towards a more liberal gambling sector after setting aside $1 million for gambling. This budget will support the looming review of the Gaming, Liquor, and Cannabis Act and supporting Regulation. The idea is to review the entire regulatory framework to find more funding ways for Alberta charities and community projects.
Major operators like BetMGM, PointsBet, and PokerStars have since hired lobbyists to ensure commercial operators become a reality in Alberta. Speaking to investors and industry analysts in March this year, PointsBet CEO Sam Swanell tipped Alberta and British Columbia to legalize online betting soon. He noted that this could provide the much-needed expansion of that TAM.
Alberta is yet to take full advantage of online gambling despite being the country’s fourth-largest province, with around 4.3 million people. Smaller markets in North America, such as West Virginia and Connecticut, are already benefiting from commercialized online gambling. The good news is that noises about legal online gambling are getting louder in Alberta. It’s just a matter of when the government will make the announcement.
What Next for Online Gambling and Betting in Alberta?
Including a $1 million gambling review budget is definitely a step in the right direction. However, there’s still much to do to end Alberta’s long-standing gambling status quo. But at least the budget opens the door for further discussions and reforms regarding iGaming in Alberta. That discussion has been underway, although the momentum has increased in the last year or so.
As it stands, PlayAlberta.ca is the only regulated online gaming platform in Alberta. It’s a government-run website operated by the AGLC (Alberta Gaming Liquor and Cannabis). Besides casino games, this website provides sports betting and lottery-style gaming experiences. The legal sign-up age on PlayAlberta.ca is 18 years.
For Albertans who prefer more gambling freedom, the government doesn’t restrict anyone from joining offshore operators. Most gaming sites operating in Alberta are licensed in Curacao, the UK, and Malta. Compared to PlayAlberta.ca, these websites provide a more extensive variety of games, rewards, and general experience.
In conclusion, it’s just a matter of when Alberta will introduce an open-licensing market. This approach has proved to be a success elsewhere, especially in Ontario. A recent Ipsos report in Ontario revealed that only 13.6% of the residents prefer to gamble on offshore websites. Alberta could soon follow this path, although there’s much work to do to realize this dream.
Opinion
Hamas savages make no distinction between Israeli Jews, Arabs
By MYRON LOVE I remember many years ago attending a presentation by Simon Wiesenthal, the world’s leading Nazi hunter, during which he made the point that the focus of Holocaust education should not be on the number six million – the number of estimated Jews who were murdered – but rather on the 12 million martyrs – including other targeted groups such as the Roma, people who were gay, the mentally and physically handicapped and the many great many Slavic people who were also murdered. After the Jews, the Slavs were next on the list.
By focusing strictly on Germans killing Jews, he observed, it became too easy to make it out to be only Germans versus Jews – thereby making it easier for Holocaust deniers and absolving the other European peoples who were complicit in the killings.
Similarly, while we naturally mourn our Jewish brethren who were so horribly slaughtered on October 7, we need to also bear in mind that Hamas made no distinction in its murderous rampage between Israeli Jews and Israeli Arabs or between Israelis and foreign workers.
In a posting for The Gatestone Institute on November 30, Israeli-Arab journalist Khaled Abu Toameh noted that he Hamas terrorists who attacked Israel on October 7 did not slaughter Jews alone. The terrorists also murdered and kidnapped scores of Muslim citizens of Israel, including members of the Bedouin community. The terrorists’ murder spree made zero distinction between young and old, Muslim and Jew.
“Scores of Arab Israelis were wounded, murdered or taken prisoner,” he reported.
One such brave individual was 23-year-old Awad Darawshe, an Arab-Israeli paramedic who was on duty at the music festival near Kibbutz Re’im, which was among the first locations under attack. When the medical staff on site were ordered to flee, he insisted on remaining behind to treat the wounded.
Abu Toameh suggests that the paramedic thought that because he was Arab, he could reason with the killers. He was murdered nonetheless.
Another courageous Arab-Israeli that the writer noted, 50-year-old Abed al-Rahman Alnasasrah, was murdered by Hamas terrorists when he attempted to rescue people from the music festival. He was married and a father of six children.
Fatima Altallaqat, 35, from the Bedouin village near Ofakim, was murdered while working with her husband near the city of Ofakim in southern Israel. She was a mother of nine children, the eldest nine years old.
Abu Toameh quotes her husband as saying: “We’re a religious Muslim family and she wore the traditional headdress of a devout woman. It is inconceivable they [Hamas terrorists] could not see who was inside [the car]. They were five meters away from her as they passed.”
Forty bullets were fired into her.
Abu Toameh further cites the comments of Suleiman Zayadneh, brother and uncle, respectively, to four of the Arab-Israeli hostages, who describes himself “as proud to be a Palestinian and Muslim”.
‘The people who came to shoot and kill — they know nothing of religion,” the writer quoted Zayadneh as saying. “These [Hamas] people came and killed left and right.”
Abu Toameh went on to reference the words of Nuseir Yassin, a video blogger with 65 million followers. Two days after the massacre, he wrote: “I realized that… to a terrorist invading Israel, all citizens are targets. More than 40 of them [the murdered] are Arabs. Killed by other Arabs. And I do not want to live under a Palestinian government. Which means I only have one home, even if I’m not Jewish: Israel…. So from today forward, I view myself as… Israeli first. Palestinian second. Sometimes it takes a shock like this to see so clearly.”
Abu Toameh reported that “there have been many storie about reciprocal inter-communal generosity and heroism in the aftermath of this national tragedy, and they create hope for the future”.
He quoted a statement by the Darwashe Family:
“We are very proud of Awad’s actions… This is what we would expect from him and what we expect from everyone in our family — to be human, to stay human and to die human.”
Abu Toameh also quoted Ali Alziadna, four of whose family members were kidnapped, as saying that he was “touched by the outpouring of support” by other Israelis.
“People from all over the country have come to hug and support our family,” Alziadna said. “The entire nation is one family now.”
Abu Toameh pointed out that many Arab citizens of Israel serve as IDF officers and policemen, risking their lives for their fellow Israelis. Many are serving at the front lines, saving lives.
Undoubtedly, Abu Toameh suggested, one of the objectives of the Hamas massacre, in addition to slaughtering as many Israelis as possible, was to thwart normalization between Israel and Arab countries, especially Saudi Arabia. Hamas may also have aimed to damage relations between Jews and Arabs inside Israel.
”The terror group was, without doubt, hoping that we would witness another cycle of violence between Jews and Arabs inside Israel, similar to that which erupted in May 2021,’ Abu Toameh posited. “Then, Hamas succeeded in inciting a large number of Arab citizens of Israel to take to the streets and attack their Jewish neighbors and Israeli police officers.
“This time, however, the Arab-Israelis have not heeded the calls by Hamas. One reason is that Arab-Israelis saw, with their own eyes, how Hamas terrorists make no distinction between Jews and Muslims.
“Hamas has repeatedly demonstrated that it cares nothing for the well-being of Arabs and Muslims. From their luxury homes and hotel rooms in the safety of Qatar and Turkey, Hamas leaders give the orders to attack Israel and then sit back and let the world weep over the destruction they wrought upon their own people.
“On October 7,” Abu Toameh concluded, “Hamas metaphorically shot itself in the foot by showing the world, with unfathomably ghoulish pride, by way of Go-Pro cameras and other self-documentation, that it has neither a religious nor a secular-humanist set of values. Perhaps the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip should look at the Arab citizens of Israel and note how they enjoy equal rights, democracy, freedom of speech and a free media. If Palestinians wish to live well, like the Arab-Israelis, this is the time for them to get rid of Hamas and all the terror leaders who, for seven decades, have brought them nothing but one disaster after another.”
It is too bad that so many gullible fools in our Western societies refuse to open their eyes to the truth.
Opinion
An Arab Trusteeship Council for Gaza
By Prof. BRYAN SCHWARTZ Oct. 17, 2023 (Originally posted to The Times of Israel)
1 No peace is possible with Hamas. It is genocidally antisemitic. This position is foundational, not rhetorical or mutable. Waiting for the emergence of a “pragmatic” version of Hamas is suicidally naïve.
2 Peace and cooperation are possible with most of Israel’s non-Iranian neighbours. They are militarily threatened by Iran, not Israel. For many in those countries, Iran’s version of Islam might be more problematic from the religious perspective than Israel’s Jewishness.
3 Hamas’ attack was partly to prevent a Saudi deal and a long-term economic cooperation
4 Israel has no territorial claim to Gaza and no material, religious, or ideological interest in running it.
5 Israel has vital moral and material interests in the emergence of a peaceful, demilitarized, and prosperous Gaza. If that can occur in the medium term, a long-term reconciliation of the Palestinians with Israel is achievable.
6 As and when Hamas is evicted from power, Gaza will need some new form of government.
7 The Palestinian authority probably cannot be trusted to take over Gaza. It is corrupt and lacked- and probably still lacks- credibility with a majority of the population in Gaza.
8 There used to be a concept called trusteeship in international law, whereby foreign powers would govern a territory in its best interests until its final status is clarified at the wishes of its own people.
9 The United Nations cannot be trusted to administer Gaza – any more than it has shown to be trustworthy to maintain strategic security in Southern Lebanon or to operate UNWRA in a manner that is effective for Palestinians and not hostile to Israel.
10 Consider this alternative. After Hamas is evicted from power, there is an interim period- say five to seven to ten years -of governance over Gaza by an Arab trusteeship council. The Council members are appointed primarily by Arab states sympathetic to Israel and eager to see the people of Gaza thrive. This Council could include local Gaza representatives and a representative of the Palestinian Authority but the majority would be representative of states like Egypt, Morocco, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia.
11 The trusteeship agreement would be formal, agreed to by Israel, and unequivocally state its objectives, including:
-demilitarizing Gaza;
-defining the sole purposes for which outside reconstruction and development money can be spent and requiring strict accounting
-ensuring that the education system in Gaza is not contaminated by antisemitic hatred;
-promoting sound administration of Gaza, including providing for transparent and non-corrupt government, with significant safeguards for human rights, and conformity to the rule of law;
-promoting the development of a real economy for Gaza, not one fuelled primarily by international subsidies.
13 No state could participate in the Council without having a peace agreement with Israel.
14 In fact, the creation of the Council and Saudi participation in it could be part of a peace deal with Saudi Arabia. The deal could involve a reconstruction package from the Saudis for Gaza, which would help secure the support of the people of Gaza for the Council arrangement as an interim measure.
15 Policing would be carried out by a force composed of Palestinians and members of the police forces of Trusteeship states, under the direction of the Council.
16 The net effect would be to remove Gaza from Iran’s influence and establish temporary control by a consortium of mostly Sunni states. The latter would be chosen from among those that are at least reasonably friendly to Israel and genuinely committed to good governance in Gaza.
17 The definitive solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict can only be achieved in a series of steps. Compromises are even more painful if they are framed as permanent. But if practical peace, stability, and some prosperity can be achieved in the medium term in Gaza and the West Bank, an amicable and enduring resolution should be achievable with the Palestinians.
18 While Israel is under severe military menace right now, it is not too early to think about how a positive political outcome can be achieved after the necessary and painful battle is concluded.
19 The current catastrophe is a so-far successful attempt by the regime in Teheran to disrupt peace negotiations involving Israel, the United States, and Saudi Arabia. Political vision along with military force might enable Israel to turn around the situation and complete and consolidate a lasting peace with almost all of its Arab neighbours and to set the stage for a formal and enduring peace with the Palestinians. The Teheran regime would be isolated, diminished in prestige, and more likely to be replaced from within.
About the Author
Bryan’s Jewish-themed musical “Consoulation: A Musical Mediation” premiered in the Spring of of 2018; https://consoulation.com His new album will appear in the coming months. Bryan Schwartz graduated with a doctorate in law from Yale School and holds an endowed chair at the University of Manitoba Law School. He is the author or editor of over thirty books and collections of essays. Bryan also created and helps to deliver an annual summer program at Hebrew University in Israeli law and society. He has served as a visiting Professor at both HU and Reichman university. . As a practising lawyer, Bryan has argued a number of cases at the Supreme Court of Canada, advised governments, and served as an arbitrator at the provincial, national and international level.
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