Objections raised over ETFO hiring anti-Zionist group for antisemitism training
· Toronto Sun
OTTAWA — The decision by Ontario’s elementary teachers union to hire a so-called “fringe” organization to deliver antisemitism training is being criticized by a Jewish labour group.
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Earlier this year, the Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario (ETFO) announced they’d recruited Independent Jewish Voices — an organization that describes itself as anti-Zionist — to deliver antisemitism training to members of the union’s executive.
Concerns raised by Jewish ETFO members
That’s a move being criticized by the Canadian Jewish Labour Congress (CJLC,), which said they’d been contacted by concerned Jewish ETFO members.
The CJLC’s Leslie Wolfe told the Toronto Sun that ETFO leadership did reach out to concerned union members asking who they thought should provide the training, but said they were disheartened to learn the union decided to use IJV anyway.
“When they learned that IJV had been hired, it caused them to feel even more marginalized within their union,” Wolfe said.
“The concern is that IJV doesn’t represent the mainstream majority understanding of antisemitism, nor their experience with it.”
IJV rejects widely-accepted definition of antisemitism
The IJV have gone on record as rejecting the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s widely-accepted Working Definition of Antisemitism (IHRA-WDA,) describing it as “ designed to silence criticism of Israel and of Zionism by equating this criticism with antisemitism.”
In an IJV-produced website specifically meant to oppose the IHRA-WDA, the group accused pro-Israel lobbyists and government officials of using the IHRA definition as a means to shield Israel from criticism and excuse a so-called “genocide” against Palestinians.
No comment from ETFO, IJV
Wolfe is critical of the ETFO’s decision to choose IJV as “its first organization to lay the groundwork in what is meant to be annual antisemitism training” over the objections of some of its Jewish members and some in the Jewish community.”
“It appears that ETFO is more interested in pushing forward a particular ideology than it is i about understanding and representing its mainstream Jewish members.”
The Sun’s invitations to both the ETFO and IJV for comment went unacknowledged.
B’nai Brith Canada described ETFO’s decision to retain IJV as “deeply concerning,” saying it demonstrates the increasing disconnect between the union and the Jewish community.
“Antisemitism training for a public teachers’ union should have been developed in consultation with leading Jewish institutions that possess recognized expertise in combating antisemitism and that use the IHRA definition of antisemitism, the definition of antisemitism adopted by both the federal and provincial governments,” said B’nai Brith Canada’s Austin Parcels. “IJV rejects the IHRA definition, advances a fringe ideological position within the Jewish community and promotes views that reject core elements of the Jewish faith, including … the continuous connection of the Jewish people to their ancestral homeland.”