Parent Sharon Aschaiek said she fears what her child might experience attending a York Region District School Board school.
In her role as a member of YRDSB’s parent, family and community engagement advisory committee, she has heard from many parents about antisemitic incidents in schools.
“I’m as concerned as any other Jewish parent about them receiving hate,” she said. “I’ve already advised my child not to advertise their Jewish identity in the school. This isn’t an environment I want my child to learn in. I don’t think effective learning can take place when children feel like they’re hated.”
Aschaiek published a report June 20 highlighting the concerns that many Jewish parents within the school board are feeling regarding antisemitism. The survey of 193 YRDSB families highlighted the experiences that Jewish students are having with discrimination. Asked to rate their fear about the safety of students who openly identify as Jewish on a scale of one to five, 43.8 per cent of respondents rated it as five and 39.1 per cent rated it as four.
The report also features many family anecdotes about their experiences within the school board.
“My daughter is afraid to come to school by herself, she heard numerous times that “Jews are the problem” and that they desire Holocaust. She got food leftovers thrown onto her,” one respondent is quoted as saying.
“There have been several instances of swastikas painted on the walls of the school,” another anecdote said. “There are students that feel it is OK to mumble "Jew" as they pass Jewish students or say "Hitler was right" when authority figures are not around. They use the "your word against mine" theory and it is ultimately let go of and not dealt with.”
Aschaiek undertook the report independently and said she wanted to respond to the anecdotes she was being told about.
“I was disturbed, but not surprised,” Aschaiek said about the survey. “The findings reflect what we’ve been hearing by word of mouth for families for months and actually years. Children are experiencing bullying, harassment and intimidation.”
Aschaiek said that parents have pushed for years to address issues of antisemitism but have not made much headway with the board.
NewmarketToday did not receive a reply to a request for comment from York Region District School Board before publication deadline. But in the wake of conflict erupting between Israel and Palestine in October, the board committed to addressing both antisemitism and Islamophobia.
"To be clear, any act of hate will not be tolerated, we are committed to addressing and eliminating all forms of hate in our schools," the board said Oct. 12, 2023.
The poll has several questions related to antisemitism, including how concerned respondents are about social isolation for Jewish students, (43.5 per cent rated five, 31.8 per cent rate four), antisemitic graffiti (69.8 per cent rated five, 21.9 per cent rated four) and fear of physical attacks (46.4 per cent rates five, 30.4 per cent rated four).
Aschaiek said the board needs to take measures to address these situations and that at the school level, not enough is being done. She said that teachers should have mandatory antisemitism training, as they do for other forms of racism.
“What’s more disturbing is this is being allowed to happen by the adults in the school system,” she said. “Children behave in ways that they’re taught. The adults can and should know better.”
The report makes several recommendations to address antisemitism, including efforts to make it part of the board’s next multi-year strategic plan and equity and inclusive education strategy, having Jewish representation among the board’s team of senior leaders and taking steps to address recommendations from the board’s 2018 subcommittee on the mater.
Aschaiek said the report's recommendations are not new ideas and advocates have been sharing them a long time with the board.
“This report highlights the urgency of anti-Jewish hatred in YRDSB schools,” she said. “It underscores the fact or the need for urgent and timely and meaningful action. The Jewish community is here to work with the school board. We have a reasonable expectation to send our children to schools that are safe.”
The report also recommends adopting the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, adopted by the provincial and Canadian governments and Toronto District School Board as part of their efforts to address the issue. However, YRDSB decided to halt a vote on adopting this definition back in 2022, over concerns from parents and groups like Independent Jewish Voices of Canada that the definition can silence legitimate criticism of Israel's government.
