'I get very nervous': Jewish student group feels targeted by a toolkit circulating at York University

Johanna Joseph says she feels nervous about wearing a necklace from her late grandmother when she goes to class at York University because it bears the symbol of the Star of David.

“One of the pendants was from my late grandmother, who was a Holocaust survivor,” Joseph told CTV News Toronto in an interview. “Whenever I enter classrooms, I, you know, take it off. I get very nervous.”

Joseph is part of Hillel York, a Jewish student group that feels targeted at school after “A Toolkit for Teaching Palestine” started to circulate.

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CUPE Local 3903 published a 15-page toolkit for teaching assistants at York University to provide guidance on teaching and discussing Palestine in the classroom. In it, the union’s education committee breaks down why it calls for action, who should teach about Palestine (and how), as well as supports for members experiencing reprisals.

READ MORE: Group at York U calls for reinstatement of employees charged in Indigo defacement

“This toolkit reflects on our collective, moral and professional responsibility to speak, write and teach on Palestine in spite of the culture of fear that has dominated much of Western academic institutions,” the document reads.

The document asks its CUPE members to join the call for action from Jan. 21 through 28, and divert the week’s tutorials to focus on teaching Palestinian liberation and refuse “to abide by York University’s culture of repressive normalcy.”

In the toolkit, the union says York University is complicit in Israel’s occupation of Palestine due to its investments and “economic and academic relationships with various Zionist cultural institutions (e.g. Hillel) and Israeli universities (e.g. Hebrew University of Jerusalem), some of which are on UN-recognized illegally occupied Palestinian lands.”

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by Hillel York (@hillelyork)

“Being a Jewish student, this is one of the only places I do feel safe on campus, and the labelling and calling out makes it feel like Hillel kind of is a target now,” Jacob Berman said.

Dean Lavi, director of Hillel York, told CTV News Toronto more than a dozen students have since contacted him, expressing concerns their teaching assistants will mistreat them.

“They’re sitting there in the classroom, and the person who can grade them is the one telling them that what they’re saying is wrong and that their opinions don’t matter and that, you know, they’re in the wrong for existing as their whole selves,” Lavi said.

York University President Rhonda Lenton recently wrote in a letter that senior administration does not find CUPE 3903’s latest email containing the toolkit “to be in accordance with the rightful expectations of the students and the legitimate claims of the community.”

A student at York University in Toronto.

This is not the first time York University administration has issued a statement with regards to the Israel-Hamas war.

READ MORE: ‘Abhorrent’: York University condemns student union groups statement appearing to glorify Hamas

Shortly after Hamas' attacks on Oct. 7, the York Federation of Students, the York University Graduate Students Association and the Glendon College Students Union issued a joint statement appearing to call the move a “strong act of resistance” while reaffirming their solidarity with Palestinians.

York University “unequivocally” condemned the statement.

“Freedom of expression has limits and comes with responsibilities. It must never reach into promoting or justifying violence against unarmed civilians,” the university said then.

The university’s administration says the dialogue on world events inside the classroom should allow for diverse perspectives to be expressed, but added it should always be respectful.