Our story begins in the heart of Ontario’s public school system. We are both mothers, one of Palestinian children and one of Jewish children. What unites us is a profound commitment to justice, empathy and the fundamental dignity of all human beings. We are not just parents. We are witnesses, and we want a better future for all children.
The numbers are devastating and impossible to ignore. Over 46,000 Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli state. More than 17,000 of them are children. Twenty-five thousand children orphaned. Thousands maimed. Hundreds of thousands displaced. These are not just statistics — they are families like ours, their dreams shattered, futures stolen.
As mothers, we value a public school system that teaches our children justice and inclusion, and gives voice to those who suffer.
When we heard that the Ontario Ministry of Education had allocated more than $550,000 to the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA), Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Centre (FSWC) and Liberation75 to teach about antisemitism, it felt like a profound betrayal. Not just of our children, but of the very principles of public education that we hold sacred.
A Palestinian family’s pain
Ameena
These last 16 months have been tremendously painful for our family. We live in fear for our loved ones in Palestine and have prayed for an end to the horrors. Despite our grief, we continue to teach our children to be proud of who they are and to understand that Palestinians seek freedom. We also teach them the importance of knowledge and solidarity in the struggle to end oppression.
Our children know, however, that these lessons end at their school door. They speak in hushed tones about Palestine in their classrooms, if at all. The silencing at school is real, in large part because of the presence of pro-Israel non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in our education system, which have a long history of causing our children harm.
In 2021, students at Marc Garneau Collegiate organized a walkout to protest the Toronto District School Board’s (TDSB) silencing of Palestine solidarity. CIJA quickly issued a press release calling these students’ actions “hateful” and “antisemitic.” The Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Centre (FSWC) went even further, tweeting that these young activists “promoted a genocidal slogan.” This is outrageous, as the slogan in question was “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” which is a call for peace and dignity for all.
In November 2023, students at the same school staged a protest against the genocide in Gaza. In response, CIJA posted a video which manipulated the caption so that students chanting “Trudeau, Trudeau, you can’t hide” were made to look like they were chanting “Judah, Judah, you can’t hide.” This was false and defamatory, portraying the students as dangerous antisemites. That video showed the children’s faces and was viewed over a million times before CIJA deleted it, with no apology or retraction. Children who were protesting the killing of other children were defamed and smeared as hateful, and CIJA was never held to account.
EDITOR’S NOTE: CIJA did not respond to requests for comment for this story.
FSWC, which regularly conducts educational sessions in schools, is reported to have used its access to surveil students. In a CBC News article published in December 2023, two former employees of FSWC said they had been instructed by their employer to “report students who made comments critical of Israel to the organization.” Those employees noted that anyone using the terms “genocide” or “occupation” in reference to Israel’s treatment of Palestinian people was to be reported to FSWC, who would then “inform the school they have an antisemitism problem….accusing them of antisemitism, encouraging more pro-Zionist workshops or lessons.”
EDITOR’S NOTE: When asked about this by CBC News and other media in 2023, FSWC did not respond. But in January 2025, FSWC responded to The Grind’s questions to say “FSWC staff never, under any circumstances, report students for the comments they make during our workshops.”
In 2024, at our children’s school, Rawlinson Community School, Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center (FSWC) was invited to conduct a workshop on antisemitism. Our family, along with other families, objected to having an organization that strongly supports Israel — especially at a time when Israel is committing genocide — come into our school community. The workshop proceeded despite our concerns, and as expected portrayed pro-Palestine solidarity as dangerous and hateful.
With very little explanation given in the workshop, the actions of pro-Palestine activists targeting an Indigo store with posters and paint were described as antisemitic. What was not mentioned was that Indigo’s founder and CEO, along with her husband (who now owns the company) have donated tens of millions of dollars to an organization, HESEG, that supports former lone soldiers in the Israeli military, prompting criticism that the organization assists in recruitment. An unofficial site about joining the Israeli military, for example, lists HESEG as one of the supports available.
Instead of having an informed discussion about this act of protest, our school community was essentially told that Palestinian solidarity is antisemitic, which is not true.
As another example, the following tweet from American anti-Zionist Jew Amanda Gelender from Nov. 10, 2023, retweeted by Toronto Star columnist Shree Paradkar, was included among other posts and article headlines in a FSWC slide titled “Antisemitism in the Aftermath of the Hamas Terror Attacks,” presented at the Rawlinson workshop. Over 10,000 Palestinians in Gaza had been killed by Israel over the previous month at that time. The post on the FSWC slide included a quote tweet from media personality Jesse Brown, criticizing Paradkar for reposting this in the same week as there had been an attempted arson overnight at a Jewish temple in Montreal. The building was empty at the time, no one was hurt, and there was minor physical damage.
Another slide, titled “Contemporary ‘New’ Antisemitism” includes an image of a t-shirt with the words:
“Resist
Racism.
Sexism.
Zionism.
Homophobia.
Transphobia.
Islamophobia.
Antisemitism.
Ableism.
Colonialism.”
The implication FSWC made here is that opposition to Zionism is inherently antisemitic. Zionism, as it has actually developed and been implemented, involves the creation and violent enforcement of a Jewish ethno-state in historic Palestine, privileging Israeli Jewish citizens over others. As such, it has long been criticized as racist and oppressive by both Jews and non-Jews.
EDITOR’S NOTE: In a statement to The Grind, FSWC says their “workshops are not focused on geopolitics. Our parent workshops, like the one presented at Rawlinson Community School, are focused on antisemitism in Canada and the experience of Jewish Canadians. These are distinct from our Holocaust education student programs, which we conduct at schools across the province under the auspices of the Ministry of Education’s Holocaust education curriculum. Our programs do not define or describe pro-Palestinian solidarity as antisemitic. However, exploiting the tragedies of the Middle East as an excuse to target Canadian Jews is antisemitic. As are calls for the annihilation of Israel, support for Hamas and the celebration of violence against Jews — which we have seen and continue to see in Canadian protests.”
While the workshop may not have focused directly on the larger conflict, a repeated theme in its text and images was that Palestine solidarity comprises, in the facilitator’s own words, “contemporary new antisemitism.”
The workshop’s examples of this purported modern form of antisemitism also included student walkouts, an open letter by Toronto Metropolitan University law students (which was unequivocally held by an external review to not be antisemitic), and red paint splattered at a Toronto Starbucks (in protest of the company’s suppression of pro-Palestine speech among workers and the former CEO’s support of Israel).
FSWC dangerously suggests that pro-Palestine solidarity seeks to harm Jewish people. This is anti-Palestinian racism in its purest form.
It is not just this single workshop in which Palestine solidarity is demonized as hateful. Liberation75, another organization funded under Ontario’s new initiative, relies on educational materials that equate Palestine advocacy with antisemitic extremism, juxtaposing images of Palestine solidarity with white supremacists and neo-Nazis.
These organizations which our province is funding are also actively trying to block protection for our children from discrimination. CIJA and FSWC are both actively campaigning against recognizing anti-Palestinian racism (APR) as a legitimate form of discrimination.
FSWC tells The Grind that they “unequivocally oppose racism against Palestinians.” However, the organization has been vocal in opposing the TDSB’s proposed anti-racism strategy that includes the term “Anti-Palestinian Racism.”
I want my children to be safe and included in their schools, as their whole selves, no less so during this dark time for their family and community. These organizations which loudly support Israel and which silence and smear our children have no place in our schools.
A Jewish mother’s resistance
K.
As a Jewish mother, I cannot accept what these organizations claim to do in my name. My family’s history is rooted in the fight against antisemitism — my grandparents survived concentration camps, though many of my family members did not. It is because of this that I advocate for Palestinian human rights and broader struggles for all human rights, rights that the state of Israel has been violating.
My critique of Israeli policies and practices is grounded in the teachings and traditions of Judaism that call for justice, peace and tikkun olam, meaning “repairing the world.” These organizations betray these values by weaponizing antisemitism to shield Israel’s policies from criticism, silence dissent and alienate potential allies in the fight against hate and prejudice.
I want my Jewish kids in the TDSB school system to learn about both antisemitism and anti-Palestinian racism, the Holocaust and the Nakba. I want my Jewish kids to feel safe to say that they support a free Palestine and an end to the bloodshed. The “education” provided by CIJA does not make them safer, it reduces their identity to a specific perspective on Israel and would characterize them as “self-hating Jews” for supporting the rights of their Palestinian peers.
The question is not whether our schools should be teaching about antisemitism — of course they should!— it’s how these lessons should be delivered. Education on antisemitism cannot be based on the view that the essence of antisemitism is the criticism of Israel. Students need to know the racial, religious and political origins of antisemitism. This requires an approach that integrates antisemitism into a broader framework of anti-racist and anti-oppressive education, emphasizing the shared roots of all forms of discrimination.
CIJA has a vested interest in stopping criticism of Israel. This includes silencing, demonizing and criminalizing anyone who advocates for Palestinian rights or anyone who simply displays symbols of Palestinian culture — like the keffiyeh, a traditional scarf worn by generations of Palestinians and now by their allies.
The approach taken by CIJA and others is inaccurate, divisive and fear-based. It creates polarization between students, parents and teachers.
CIJA and similar pro-Israel organizations have no place in Ontario schools. Their advocacy undermines anti-racist education by conflating criticism of Israel with antisemitism, as seen in their push for a new and widely criticised understanding of antisemitism, the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition. This definition silences debate, criminalises Palestinian advocacy, and perpetuates anti-Palestinian racism by misrepresenting symbols like the keffiyeh and equating solidarity with extremism.
The TDSB has acknowledged anti-Palestinian racism as a distinct form of discrimination, yet these pro-Israel groups still shape classroom narratives, fostering division instead of understanding. Education must empower students to critically examine all forms of hate, connecting struggles for justice rather than privileging any state’s agenda.
We call on the Ontario Ministry of Education to end funding for organizations that perpetuate division. Redirect resources to justice-oriented programs that teach empathy, critical thinking and solidarity — ensuring schools are spaces where every child can thrive.
K. Silverman is an educator, the mother of two Jewish children at the Toronto District School Board (TDSB), and a member of Toronto Jewish Families (TJF). Ameena Sultan is a lawyer, the mother of three Palestinian children at the TDSB, and a member of Toronto Palestinian Families (TPF). TPF and TJF work in coalition to challenge anti-Palestinian racism in public education, and to build a school system that is truly equitable and inclusive of all students and families.