Illustrative: People take part in “Shut it down for Palestine!” protest outside of Tyson’s Corner as shoppers participate in Black Friday in Vienna, Virginia, US, Nov. 24, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Leah Millis

Jewish community leaders across Canada are pushing back against a campaign by anti-Zionist activists that seeks to pressure accrediting bodies to reconsider recognition of several Jewish children’s summer camps.

The controversy centers around at least 17 overnight camps in provinces including Ontario, Quebec, Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, and Nova Scotia, according to a statement circulated by the activist group.  A coalition of leftist and pro-Palestinian groups has identified the camps and is urging provincial associations to review and potentially revoke their accreditation.

Members of the anti-Israel coalition — which includes the Palestinian Canadian Congress, Just Peace Advocates, the Ontario Palestinian Rights Association, PAJU Montreal, and the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign — claim that some of the camps promote or normalize support for Israel.

Organizers say institutions connected to Israel, which they falsely accuse of committing genocide against Palestinians, should face scrutiny.

“We have identified at least 17 overnight summer camps throughout Canada that support the State of Israel in some way,” the campaign says. “These camps are not problematic because they encourage connection to Jewish identity. Rather, they pose a problem because they encourage support for a genocidal, settler-colonial state.”

Among the claims cited are that camps celebrate Israeli national holidays, incorporate Israel-focused educational content, or employ staff members who have previously served in the Israel Defense Forces, including in non-combat capacities.

The messaging reflects themes commonly associated with the BDS movement, which seeks to isolate Israel from the international community as a step toward its eventual elimination. The campaign against Jewish camps has been endorsed by the official Canadian BDS Coalition.

The campaign appears to represent a new front in a broader pattern of activism that has targeted universities, cultural organizations, and other institutions over perceived ties to Israel.

Camp leaders and Jewish organizations say the effort singles out Jewish institutions and risks politicizing spaces designed for children, while presenting a threat to effectively dismantle Jewish life. 

The UJA Federation of Greater Toronto described the campaign as harassment and intimidation directed at Jewish families. Community leaders have emphasized that summer camps are focused on youth development, cultural enrichment, and recreation, not political advocacy

“This direct targeting of Jewish campers and staff is a deliberate act of intimidation,” UJA wrote in a statement.

The Ontario Camps Association, which accredits camps in that province, also condemned the initiative. The association said accreditation decisions are based on health, safety, and program standards, not political views, and characterized the coalition’s allegations as discriminatory.

The dispute has unfolded amid a surge in antisemitic incidents over the past two years, following Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel, amid the ensuing war in Gaza.

According to the Jewish advocacy group B’nai Brith Canada, which tracks antisemitism across the country, antisemitic incidents in 2024 rose 7.4 percent from 2023, with 6,219 adding up to the highest total recorded since it began tracking such data in 1982. Seventeen incidents occurred on average every day, while online antisemitism exploded a harrowing 161 percent since 2022. As standalone provinces, Quebec and Alberta saw the largest percentage increases, by 215 percent and 160 percent, respectively.

(JTA) — Emery Lehman, a Jewish speedskater and four-time Olympian, captured a silver medal in the men’s team pursuit on Tuesday, his second career medal.

Lehman, 29, and his teammates Casey Dawson and Ethan Cepuran finished 4.51 seconds behind the host country Italy in what was considered an unexpected loss for the United States. Since the 2021-2022 season, Lehman’s team had set three world records and won five straight World Cup season titles, the 2022 Olympic bronze medal and a 2025 world championship.

Lehman has said he plans to retire from speedskating after the 2026 Olympics.

“Eight years ago, none of us had skated a team pursuit together,” Lehman said after the race, according to NBC. “Now, to be finishing off with two Olympic medals, I’m pretty proud of it.”

Lehman, a Chicago native, took up speedskating at 9 years old to improve his ice hockey skills at the urging of his mother, Marcia. Marcia Lehman is a former executive at Chicago’s Spertus Institute for Jewish Learning and Leadership and at the American Friends of the Hebrew University of Israel. She is also an alum of the Yeshiva of Flatbush, according to her social media.

Emery Lehman went on a Birthright trip to Israel in May 2018.

“Unreal experience seeing those who fought for Israel throughout the years,” Lehman wrote in a post from Mount Herzl cemetery in Jerusalem. “Seeing all sorts of graves from such a diverse group of people fighting to keep the people in Israel safe was very touching.”

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(JTA) — A pro-Israel group says it is taking legal action against the Reina Sofía Museum in Madrid after a museum staffer ejected three elderly Israeli women who displayed the Israeli flag and the Star of David on its premises.

The incident drew condemnation from Jewish groups and leaders as video from the encounter on Saturday circulated online.

The video appears to show two individuals holding large Israeli flags being told to leave by a security guard who told them that visitors were “bothered” by their display, according to video of the confrontation.

The video captured a portion of an incident in which three women, one of whom is reportedly a Holocaust survivor, were accosted by other museum-goers who shouted insults including “genocidal maniacs” and “murderers” at them for displaying the flag and wearing a Star of David necklace, according to the right-wing Spanish outlet OKDiario.

“We are not doing anything illegal,” said one of the women in Spanish in the video. “If I walk around here with a Spanish flag, no one can kick me out.”

🇪🇸 — ANTISEMITISM: Three elderly Israeli women were expelled this weekend from Madrid’s Reina Sofía Museum after wearing Jewish symbols, including an Israeli flag and Magen David necklace, Spanish outlet Ok Diario reported today.

• According to video from the scene, other… pic.twitter.com/EgzCx8pzqL

— Belaaz News (@TheBelaaz) February 16, 2026

It was not clear why the women, who have not been identified publicly, chose to display Israeli flags inside the museum. But the museum has raised concerns among pro-Israel advocates over its programming, which last week included a seminar on “aestheticide” in Gaza, and has previously been the site of pro-Palestinian activism. In 2024, the museum changed a program titled “From the River to the Sea” to “Critical Thinking Gatherings” following condemnation from Israel’s museums’ association.

The incident comes against a backdrop of sharp anti-Israel sentiment in Spain, where the government has emerged as one of Europe’s most outspoken critics of Israel over its conduct in Gaza. The sentiment appears to have driven a rise in antisemitism: In 2024, Spain saw a 60% increase in antisemitic hate crimes, despite an overall drop in hate crimes, according to the Ministry of the Interior.

The Reina Sofía Museum quickly drew condemnation from Jewish leaders and groups in Spain, including the Jewish Community of Barcelona and the Federation of Jewish Communities of Spain, which said it had requested an explanation from the museum.

The European Jewish Congress called the expulsion of the Israeli visitors “deeply troubling and unacceptable” in a post on X, adding that the “decision to remove the victims raises serious concerns about discrimination within a public cultural institution.”

“The response from the museum staff is deeply troubling,” wrote the World Jewish Congress in a post on X. “They didn’t remove the people who were harassing them. They removed the people who were targeted with antisemitic abuse.”

Dana Erlich, the chargé d’affaires at the Israeli embassy in Madrid, also criticized the museum. “It is hypocrisy that other flags and displays of disinformation are accepted without any problem in that museum, while my flag, our flag, is considered provocative,” wrote Erlich in a post on X.

On Monday, the pro-Israel Spanish group Action and Communication on the Middle East announced that it would initiate legal action against the museum, accusing it of a “repeated pattern of political instrumentalization, indirect discrimination, and possible promotion of narratives of hatred toward the State of Israel and the Jewish-Israeli community from a public institution funded by all Spanish taxpayers.”

In a statement shared with the Spanish news agency EFE, the museum said that it had requested its security department “immediately open an independent and transparent internal investigation to clarify what happened” and expressed opposition to antisemitism.

“The museum wishes to unequivocally express its commitment to equality, religious freedom, and zero tolerance for any type of violence or discrimination related to antisemitism,” said the statement, which emphasized the “importance that Jewish artists, patrons, and benefactors have had for the institution and its collection, especially in the avant-garde, without whose selfless collaboration the museum as we know it today would be inconceivable.”

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