Montreal, July 22nd, 2024
Independent Jewish Voices (IJV) and Palestinian and Jewish Unity (PAJU) are horrified by the Quebec government’s and local media’s uncritical reception of CIJA’s Unlearn It curriculum, which includes harmful pro-Israel propaganda, and is not a useful resource for learning about and addressing antisemitism.
A primary aim of Unlearn It appears to be suppressing criticism of Israel, so it will disappoint educators hoping to promote equity, empathy, and respectful dialogue in their classrooms. There are no signs that any Canadian teachers were involved in creating Unlearn It, which only bears the logos of Zionist organizations including CIJA (Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs), Canada’s largest pro-Israel lobby; and Facing History and Ourselves, an educational resource that has been criticized for omitting Palestine, and conflating anti-Zionism and antisemitism.
Though the Montréal Gazette described Unlearn It as being developed “with [Quebec’s] Jewish community,” there is no evidence of this in Unlearn It materials, which still refer to Ontario’s provincial Code of Conduct for schools and only include Ontario-based “Case Study” videos for kids (the curriculum was originally launched in Ontario in 2022). Although one video mentions Montréal’s 1934 Days of Shame, the curriculum offers no context for antisemitism in Quebec—or in Ontario, for that matter. It is impossible to understand antisemitism in isolation, without considering geographical, political, and other circumstances, or the status of other religious and ethnic groups in Canada, but Unlearn It largely ignores those factors, unhelpfully making antisemitism seem eternal and inevitable. In the first “Case Study” video, for example, a classmate upsets the narrator, Sara, by telling her, “Jews suck! Israel should be destroyed!” The video does not examine why Sara’s classmate said this or show how her teacher handled the conflict, leaving viewers without any strategies for navigating similar situations.
Sara’s video and the Unlearn It content intended for older viewers imply that criticism of Israel is solely due to antisemitism. CIJA employee Jess Burke, who narrates most of the videos, tells viewers, “Toxic antisemitic concepts shifted from targeting Jewish people to targeting the Jewish country.” The curriculum not only avoids mentioning the Nakba or the conditions Palestinians have endured since; it never uses the words “Palestine” or “Palestinians,” revealing how anti-Palestinian racism suffuses this whole project. This colossal omission is typical of CIJA, which has spent the past several months lying to justify Israel’s genocidal attacks on Gaza.
One of the “Additional Resources” recommended by Unlearn It is the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism. Israel and CIJA promote the IHRA definition, but IJV, PAJU and many other organizations and institutions oppose it because it conflates antisemitism with legitimate criticism of Israeli policies. The examples of “antisemitism” in Unlearn It include “comparing Israelis to Nazis or Israel’s policies to Nazism” and “denying the Jewish people their right of self-determination” which are taken directly from the IHRA definition’s illustrative examples.
IJV and PAJU have often warned Canadians about the use of the IHRA definition to suppress pro-Palestine speech. Unlearn It also contends, “Calling for the destruction of Israel means calling for genocide against the world’s largest Jewish community.” Viewers are meant to conclude that anti-Zionists who object to Israel’s existence as a Jewish supremacist ethnostate are advocating for the murder of Israeli Jews, which is not true. One of the most harmful aspects of Unlearn It is its apparent determination to pit Jews against Palestinians and their allies. Antisemitism education should strengthen solidarity between Jews and other marginalized groups, not least because contemporary conspiracy theories link antisemitism to other forms of oppression, such as xenophobia and transphobia.
Unfortunately, CIJA is so desperate to portray Jews as uniquely vulnerable that Unlearn It contains many ridiculous assertions. It describes the 1933 Christie Pits riot, which was terrible but did not result in any deaths, as “the worst ethnic violence in Canadian history.” Jacqueline Dressler from Hillel Ontario (which is not identified as a pro-Israel organization) declares, “Posting a petition to ban Zionists from campus is a call for removing Jews from the university!” Dressler does not say where this occurred nor who posted the petition, but this seems to be an alarmist misrepresentation of the BDS movement. BDS does not target Jews, and it pressures institutions and corporations (rather than individuals) to end the Israeli government’s oppression of Palestinians. Burke says Ashkenazi Jews only have white privilege “as a result of generations of gender-based violence” (i.e. pogrom-related rapes by Europeans) and calling them white Europeans “upholds misogyny…and [erases] intergenerational trauma.” Unlearn It cites no sources to back up these shocking claims (nor most of its claims). Rapes did occur during pogroms, but exaggerating their impact to deny that white Jews have white privilege is offensive.
Unlearn It refuses to recognize that Canadian Jews are less oppressed now than they were during the early twentieth century. The curriculum emphasizes how often Jews are the victims of hate crimes, but neglects to mention studies showing that crimes targeting Indigenous people, and racialized and Muslim Canadians, are woefully underreported. Moreover, as Sheryl Nestel explains in IJV’s publication The Use and Misuse of Antisemitism Statistics in Canada, most antisemitic hate crimes are not physically violent, such as graffiti, and pro-Israel groups like B’nai Brith include pro-Palestine activism in their counts of “antisemitic incidents.” Unlearn It thus comes off as insensitive to more marginalized groups who still regularly face deadly violence, police brutality, and barriers to education, employment, and medical care, especially when the “solution” recommended in the last Unlearn It video is including Jews in Diversity, Equity and Inclusion initiatives intended to tackle structural discrimination.
It is the government’s duty to help ensure that the next generation rejects all forms of racism, and that includes antisemitism. But as noted in the subtext to IJV’s working definition of antisemitism: “privileging the efforts to combat discrimination against [one group], risks further marginalizing the other targeted groups, and undermines solidarity and cooperation among them in fighting their common enemies. Fighting and educating against antisemitism must therefore be part of a larger struggle against all group hatred and discrimination.”
Given the parallel and inter-connected rise of Islamophobia and Anti-Palestinian Racism throughout Canada and in Quebec, it is imperative that any new government-sanctioned resource takes extra care not to contribute to further harm. Unlearn It clearly fails that test.
