By Joseph Marshall
Over the past year and a half, Jewish families across Ontario have found themselves quietly adjusting to a new, uneasy normal. Police cruisers parked outside schools have faded into the background, no longer the jolt they once were. Kids come home with strange new words and chants on their lips, echoing playground debates they only half grasp. Parents, who once worried about math scores and field trips, now find themselves in tense meetings with principals about incidents that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago. There’s a hum of anxiety beneath daily routines; a sense that safety, once taken for granted, is now something to be negotiated. In moments like these, every choice an educational institution makes feels heavy with meaning.
This is why, when the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario announced it would bring in Independent Jewish Voices Canada to lead antisemitism training for its leadership, the news hit so many nerves at once. For many families, it wasn’t just a policy update, it was personal.
Independent Jewish Voices describes itself as an anti Zionist organization. Its public statements on Israel lean heavily on words like ‘apartheid’ and ‘settler colonialism.’ In the aftermath of October 7, the group’s response placed political context front and center, alongside condemnations of violence. There are Jewish Canadians who share that worldview, but, for most, it’s not the mainstream. For so many Canadian Jews, Zionism isn’t just a political label. It’s woven into the stories their grandparents told, into the memories of Holocaust survivors at family gatherings, into WhatsApp messages from cousins in Tel Aviv. It is, at heart, about the deep, sometimes unspoken belief that Jewish safety is never a given.
So when an institution chooses a group that openly challenges those attachments to shape what counts as antisemitism, it’s not just a bureaucratic decision, it’s a message. Intended or not, it tells Jewish families that one particular take on Jewish identity will be privileged, while the rest, the heart of the community, can take a back seat.
All of this is playing out against a backdrop that, frankly, should have made every institution more cautious. It wasn’t so long ago that the Laith Marouf scandal rocked the country, a government funded anti racism initiative ended up elevating someone whose online history was filled with the most grotesque, dehumanizing language about Jews. Only after journalists sounded the alarm and outrage boiled over did funding stop. There were hearings. There were apologies. There were promises from Ottawa that this kind of oversight would never happen again.
The lesson then seemed simple enough. When it comes to antisemitism, institutions can’t afford to be careless about who they give the microphone to, or what counts as expertise. Carelessness is never neutral. It chips away at trust, bit by bit.
But instead of dialing down the rhetoric, Ontario’s education system feels like it’s turning up the heat.
At the most recent ETFO annual meeting, delegates did something that, on its own, should have been good news. They committed to annual antisemitism training for union leaders and staff. But, in the very same weekend, they also passed motions about anti Palestinian racism and broader political advocacy, putting Israel and Palestine front and center in the union’s social justice agenda. These weren’t just debates about keeping kids safe at school. The language was steeped in talk of colonialism, oppression, and liberation. That framing matters, a lot, when the same group is deciding who will shape antisemitism education.
School boards across the province are wrestling with the same dilemmas. The Toronto District School Board, for example, added anti Palestinian racism to its anti racism framework, a move that sparked heated debate. Jewish trustees and parents argued that the board was venturing into fraught political territory without really grappling with the sharp rise in antisemitism targeting their kids. Other boards are still stuck on what words to use, with some trustees pushing back against the idea that certain forms of anti Zionism may cross the line into antisemitism. At public meetings, Jewish parents often leave feeling brushed aside, told their worries are just part of some faraway geopolitical squabble.
This isn’t just theoretical. Jewish students hear the way adults talk about these issues. Jewish teachers notice which voices are given legitimacy. When institutions pass motions loaded with political language and then turn to an explicitly anti Zionist group to lead antisemitism training, it’s hard to escape the feeling that Jewish identity is being squeezed through a political filter, rather than seen and respected for what it is.
None of this means everyone in the Jewish community has to agree about Israel, far from it. Debate is part of Jewish life. But it does mean acknowledging that, for the overwhelming majority of Canadian Jews, Zionism is not a fringe belief, it’s a core piece of who they are. If antisemitism education is going to work, it has to start from that simple truth.
Jewish families in Ontario aren’t asking for special treatment. They’re asking for common sense. They want institutions to know the difference between political grandstanding and actually keeping students safe from hate. And they want those lessons from recent failures, like the Marouf scandal, not just acknowledged, but taken to heart.
Antisemitism in Canada today isn’t just a news headline. It’s there in classrooms, in school hallways, in the uneasy conversations around dinner tables. If our institutions are serious about confronting hate, they can’t afford to blur the lines or hand off responsibility to groups whose stances only guarantee more division. Rebuilding trust will take more than well meaning motions. It will take leaders who understand the weight of this moment, and who are willing to act with care, empathy, and courage.
