Ryerson University in Toronto. Photo: ryerson.ca.
A staged walkout on Tuesday during a session to discuss instituting “Holocaust Education Week” at Ryerson University in Toronto was an act of blatant antisemitism and “one step away from denial” of the Nazi genocide, Jewish students in attendance told The Algemeiner.
Tamar Lyons, a vice president for campus advocacy group Students Supporting Israel (SSI) and a StandWithUs Emerson Fellow, called the response to the initiative on the part of members of the school’s Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and Muslim Student Association (MSA) chapters – who snickered, heckled and then exited the premises en masse – a “shameful, agenda-driven” perversion of one of the greatest tragedies in history.
“The Holocaust is not controversial, and this motion had absolutely nothing to do with Israel,” Lyons said.
In a recording obtained by The Algemeiner, voices identified as those belonging to leaders of SJP are heard discussing a plan to disrupt the meeting and protest the motion on the basis of its ostensible relationship to Zionism.
One man is heard saying that though he is “totally fine” with having a Holocaust Awareness Week, he is against the “people promoting it,” because they “are from a pro-Zionist foundation. So we want to vote that motion down.”
Samantha Cooper, the author of the motion, told The Algemeiner that though a first draft had included the rejection of anti-Zionist propaganda and that the intention to seek UJA Federation assistance, it was edited ahead of the vote to be “very clearly, very carefully worded, so that it was not political.”
The final version of the motion presented at the Ryerson Student Union (RSU) forum, she said, called for education “about the value and pluralism and the acceptance of diversity,” making no mention of Israel, Zionism or even Jews. “It did not include any language about specific religions, ethnicities or places of origin. It was entirely apolitical. Yet, something that should be entirely educational and uncontroversial was politicized. That’s antisemitism.”
Lyons told The Algemeiner that when heads of the MSA and SJP realized they had no anti-Israel grounds for opposing the resolution, They coerced every one of their members to walk out of the room,” using hand signals and text messages to do so.
According to Ryerson Hillel member Aedan O’Connor, MSA and SJP leaders were patrolling the hallway outside the meeting hall – even blocking the doors to the bathroom – to ensure that none of their adherents returned to the room.
As a result, the meeting lost the quorum – a minimum of 100 students – necessary to vote on or amend any motion, and the RSU had to adjourn. As a result, the Holocaust education motion was shelved.
Atara Shields, a journalism student who attended the meeting, told The Algemeiner there is no other justification for what happened other than “blatant” Jew-hatred and said student groups who usually try to distinguish between anti-Israelism and Jew-hatred “didn’t attempt to sugarcoat or hide their antisemitism.”
Lyons told The Algemeiner that, before the quorum was lost, “while I was …read more
Source:: The Algemeiner