Parents protest TDSB as Ontario to investigate anti-Israel field trip

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More than a hundred protesters gathered in front of the Toronto District School Board headquarters on Tuesday to denounce a recent school field trip that turned into an anti-Israeli rally.

Protesters who gathered outside the building on Yonge Street waved Israeli and Canadian flags and held placards that read “Keep our kids out of your politics,” “We’ve lost trust in TDSB,” and “Hey teacher! Leave us alone,” among other slogans. The protesters called on the Ontario government to immediately fire those responsible for allowing students from 15 Toronto schools to take part in a protest held in downtown Toronto on Sept. 18.

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“We’re here today because the Toronto District School Board has failed to protect our children, and they must all be relieved of their duties,” Amir Epstein told the protesters. Epstein is the executive director of Tafsik Organization, a Jewish advocacy group that organized the rally.

“Teachers put children as young as eight years old in harm’s way,” he said. “Countless pro-Palestinian rallies have resulted in violence and arrest. Everyone has seen these protests. No normal person would think to bring their children to such a place…. Yet, teachers, administrators, principals of the Toronto District School Board did.”

Last week, students attended a rally in support of the Grassy Narrows First Nation, a community in northwest Ontario that has long suffered from mercury pollution caused by a pulp mill that operated more than 50 years ago. Students were to attend the Grassy Narrows River Run, a march that started at Grange Park in downtown Toronto, but parents were reportedly told they would not be participating.

However, social media video emerged showing students at a rally chanting anti-Israel slogans, including “From Turtle Island to Palestine, occupation is a crime.”

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Toronto City Councillor James Pasternak said the protest on Tuesday sent a strong message that parents want to keep our schools safe.  

“Freedom of speech does not mean you can say what you want, when you want, especially in front of children,” Pasternak told the assembled crowd. “Our city needs the growing talent that comes out of our school system and not brainwashed and indoctrinated children who have been taught conspiracy theories and hateful tropes.”

He said teachers were silent when other authoritarian governments killed civilians in Yemen, Syria and minorities in China and only take to the streets to “demonize Israel and the Jews.”

“We helped build this city in this country. We fled world conflict zones, pogroms, the Holocaust. We are not going anywhere. We will continue to light the menorahs in our public squares during Hanukkah,” said Pasternak, who is Jewish. “We will continue to raise the flag of Israel.”

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Esther Mordechai, who founded Canadian Women Against Antisemitism, has an 11-year-old. Her daughter wasn’t on the field trip, but she told National Post she attended the rally because she fears her daughter could be indoctrinated at school.

“She’s innocent. She wants to talk about nails,” she said of her daughter. 

Mordechai said the anti-Israel field trip is part of a broader trend and she compared the situation in Toronto schools to what the Nazis were doing in Germany in the 1920s and 1930s.

“It makes you angry, but I’m used to it, because this is ongoing issue in TDSB,” she said. “This is nothing new. It’s just got worse. That’s all.”

Talia Leighton told National Post before the demonstration that she wants to protect her children, who attend TDSB schools. She said that she felt fortunate because her son’s school chose not to participate in the field trip.

“It definitely does degrade the trust that I have in the school board,” said Leighton. “I will certainly be much more vigilant in scrutinizing what kind of trips my children are going on in the future, because I don’t think I can trust the school board.”

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Leighton has a son in grade eight and a daughter in grade five, and said she is concerned about growing antisemitism in the school board.

“My daughter’s school was plagued last year by swastikas in the bathroom. My son was silenced in his class for talking about his identity as an Israeli and as a Jew, and I’m deeply concerned,” she said. “I think that the antisemitism is only growing in the school board, and any amount of attention that we’re giving to it, it’s not working.”

Weidong Pei, a Toronto District School Board trustee, said in a lengthy statement on X that an investigation into the field trip should conclude by Feb. 1, 2025, with a public version of the report released that same day.

On Sept. 20, two days after the field trip, the TDSB issued a statement acknowledging concerns that the trip went beyond its intended focus. The board apologized “for the harm that some students may have experienced as a result” and said it would investigate the incident.

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“This excursion was organized as an educational experience for students to hear from Indigenous voices about the ongoing challenges faced by the people of Grassy Narrows,” said the statement.

In a news conference on Monday, Ontario Premier Doug Ford called the field trip “disgusting.”

“They don’t need to be indoctrinated in some protest. It’s unacceptable,” Ford said. “There needs to be an investigation, and we’ll be all over this and make sure people are held accountable.”

The TDSB said in a statement on Tuesday that it will cooperate with the minister of education on its investigation into the field trip.

“TDSB has serious concerns about what took place,” the board said in a statement. “We have made clear that if the investigation concludes that TDSB policies, procedures or professional standards were not followed, we will take action, including disciplinary action, to ensure accountability.”

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