B.C. groups push back against antisemitism

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Amid rising antisemitism in Canada, newly formed Jewish associations are pushing back in professional workplaces in British Columbia.

Shortly after the Hamas attacks of October 7, Jewish medical professionals came together to found Jewish Medical Association of B.C., said Dr. Sharon Gershony, a pediatric nuclear radiologist at BC Children’s Hospital.

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Initially, the group was more to support one another.

“We started as a community of Jewish physicians and allied health-care professionals to gather together recognizing that we were feeling very isolated and in some ways ostracized, and that we needed a community to support one another,” said Gershony.

Since then, the group has officially incorporated, and has a growing membership.

“We are currently advocating on behalf of Jewish health-care workers around the province,” she said.

The group’s mission statement has three basic goals: “To unite Jewish health-care workers by building a supportive community; to confront antisemitism; and to “foster a greater understanding of Israel as the ancestral homeland of the Jewish people … (and) as an integral part of the Jewish identity.”

“We’ve seen a rise of antisemitism across the world, across Canada, and within health care, and it has been chilling.” said Gershony. “We witness hateful words and actions that have some people fearing to state that they’re Jewish. Some people have been wanting to hide their identity, out of fear.”

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This has been a trend across multiple provinces and industries, even in schools. Ginaya Peters, founder of BC Teachers Against Antisemitism, said her organization has become more active since October 7, pushing back against “the hatred and discrimination.

“Since October 7th some horrible things have happened in classrooms and in schools — to teachers and students alike who have been singled out because they are Jewish and only because they are Jewish,” said Peters in a press release.

The University of British Columbia campus is currently the site of an anti-Israel protest encampment. This has concerned some Jewish faculty. David Silver, a professor in the Saunder School of Business who’s also cross-appointed to the medical faculty, is working to establish the Jewish Academic Alliance of BC. It’s not yet formed — they’re working on becoming officially incorporated under B.C.’s Societies Act.

“We organized initially in October, after the attacks by Hamas, and it was in response to some developments on campus,” said Silver, adding that there was “deliberately menacing and terrorizing” language used.

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The group initially wrote a letter to university administration, which he described as “pro-Israel, pro-peace, committed to academic values, including academic freedom and seeking an inclusive environment for Jews, Israelis, Muslims, Palestinians and everybody else on our campus.”

“We’re coalescing into a group to defend these values for everyone in British Columbia,” Silver said.

There are a number of highly vocal pro-Israel organizations in Canada, but Silver said the difference is that his group is on the inside.

“This is an institution that we grew up in, we believe in and we cherish,” Silver said. “And there are other organizations … both from the Jewish community and allies, who do not understand our institution, do not understand its values, do not understand it, and frankly, the nuts and bolts of how it works.”

Another letter the group wrote defended the right of students to protest. “We explicitly recognize the tradition within North American campuses to temporarily occupy spaces,” Silver said. But that doesn’t mean the UBC encampment — or any of the others in Canada — are actually embodying that tradition, he argued.

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“They are eliminationist regarding the State of Israel. They are not pro-peace. They are calling for the violent destruction of the State of Israel and all the human suffering that would entail,” Silver said. “That’s very different than the history of protest, which has been, for example, pro-peace, pro-social justice.

Silver said there are other Jewish organizations representing Jewish faculty, but they don’t necessarily represent the views of all Jewish faculty. His organization aims to offer another view to the public, to journalists and to university administrators.

“The reality is the vast majority of Jews and Jewish academics have a commitment to the ongoing existence of the State of Israel,” said Silver. “Not that those other voices are not legitimate, they can represent themselves, but that we represent the mainstream of Jewish academic views vis-à-vis the legitimacy of Israel.”

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