The news reported this week in all the major media outlets concerning the antisemitism suffered by children and parents in grades K-12 in Ontario was no longer surprising. But it was a shock, nevertheless, to see the details gathered so carefully and assiduously in a formal report.
University of Toronto sociology professor Robert Brym, wrote the report on the basis of numerous surveys he conducted between January and April of this year regarding the extent and nature of the antisemitism experienced, by Jewish families of children in public schools in Ontario.
The study was compiled for Deborah Lyons, Special Envoy for Preserving Holocaust Remembrance and Combatting Antisemitism. She too was shocked.
“Jewish students deserve what every Canadian child deserves: to feel safe, valued, and included in their classrooms. This is not the reality today – and it must change”, Special Envoy Lyons said.
Prof. Brym was told of some 800 antisemitic incidents in Ontario elementary and high schools that occurred in the 18 months or so from October 7, 2023. 599 Jewish parents responded to his surveys. Most parents reported incidents of antisemitism that were directly connected to Israel’s current war. Prof. Brym noted that “more than 40 per cent of responses involve Holocaust denial, assertions of excessive Jewish wealth or power, or blanket condemnation of Jews – the kind of accusations and denunciations that began to be expunged from the Canadian vocabulary and mindset in the 1960s and were, one would have thought, nearly totally forgotten by the second decade of the 21st century.”
The report was the first time that the manifestations of hatred directed at Jews in the provincially regulated educational system were formally addressed by an arm of the federal government.
Approximately 30,000 Jewish children live in Ontario. The majority attend the province’s public schools. But, as the federally commissioned report attests, the reality for so many Jewish students in Ontario’s publicly funded schools actually prevents them from feeling safe, valued, and included in their classrooms. Of course, this should offend and shock the consciences of all caring, decent, law-abiding Ontarians.
As Special Envoy Lyons resolutely affirmed, “This must change.” But only the Government of Ontario has the power to change it.
Eliminating actual hatred in the hearts of human beings is more chimera than possibility. Eliminating manifestations of hatred, however, in the public spaces of our lives, and especially in publicly funded schools, is an uncompromisable duty of government.
The public schools are failing Jewish children.
The government is failing Jewish children and wider, civil society by neither changing the reality for our children of feeling unsafe, not valued, and excluded from their public-school classrooms nor the reality of the ongoing discrimination that funds the education of children from only one religious grouping in the province.
Where is the provincial government? Why does it not correct the failures that dishearten Jewish children, discourage their families and diminish Ontario’s society?
The Globe and Mail’s report on the federal study is available at: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-antisemitism-special-envoy-report-israel-school-system/
The federal government’s Survey on Antisemitism in Ontario’s K-12 Schools is available at:https://cjs.journals.yorku.ca/index.php/cjs/article/view/40434
•••
GAJE expects to be before the Court of Appeal in the Fall, arguing for the right to a hearing on the merits of our application for fair educational funding in Ontario. When we learn the date of the hearing, we will share it with our readers.
If you wish to contribute to GAJE’s lawsuit, please click here. Charitable receipts for donations for income tax purposes will be issued by Mizrachi Canada. Your donations will be used for the sole purpose of helping to underwrite the costs of the lawsuit. For further information, please contact Israel Mida at: imida1818@gmail.com
•••
Shabbat shalom. Am Yisrael Chai
Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education (GAJE)
July 18, 2025
Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education 