In this update, the first of 2025, we review the course of our cause to date and restate its first principles.

Ontario funds the education, through to the end of high school, of the children of only one denominational community in the province. Although this policy is discriminatory on its face towards the children of other religious denominations, the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) determined in 1996 (the Adler case) through a set of complicated reasons, that Ontario’s educational funding policy was legal. The Court, however, did not preclude Ontario from also funding, fully or partially, the education of the children of other religious denominations.

Due to the inherent unfairness and injustice in Ontario’s educational funding policy and in face of the mounting financial hardships upon young Jewish families preventing so many from being able to ensure an education for their children at Jewish day schools, Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education (GAJE) brought an application in February 2022 – naming both the Governments of Canada and of Ontario as respondents – to have the courts re-assess the 1996 SCC decision as the necessary first legal step in bringing fairness to Ontario’s public funding of education for all Ontario children.

The Attorneys-General of Canada and Ontario, respectively, brought a motion in Ontario’s Divisional Court to have GAJE’s application thrown out of court even before a hearing on the merits of GAJE’s application.

The Attorneys-General’s motion was heard in April 2023.

In a 46-page decision released in August 2023, Judge Eugenia Papageorgiou decided that the application against Ontario should proceed, while the case against Canada should not.

Ontario appealed the decision by J. Papageorgiou in a hearing that took place in June 2024.

In a nine-page decision released in September, 2024, the Divisional Court accepted Ontario’s arguments and dismissed GAJE’s application.

GAJE has appealed the September 2024 decision that dismisses our application, to the Court of Appeal. We are now awaiting the Court’s decision.

•••

It bears emphasizing that the Government of Ontario obstinately refuses to end its patently discriminatory educational funding policy. It also refuses to even allow a discussion on the merits of GAJE’s application, which, at its heart, seeks to discuss in court, the important legal, constitutional, educational, social and human rights policy matters that are bound together in the government’s anachronistic, unjust and inefficient educational, funding policies.

There have been significant legal developments since 1996 – when Adler was decided – that ought to be heard by the court. They bear upon GAJE’s application.

In addition, there have also been significant educational and societal developments since 1996 that bear upon our case. No development has been as profound as the torrent of antisemitism unleashed overtly and even brazenly upon the Jewish community since October 7, 2023,

in public spaces and in many of the institutions and organizations that are relied upon for the orderly conduct of life lived by the norms of democracy.

In the circumstances that have evolved over the past 15 or so months, GAJE’s struggle to assert the rights of the Jewish community in relation to fairness in educational funding is also a struggle to protect the Jewish community.

And as GAJE has often observed, protecting the Jewish community protects our society at large.

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If you wish to assist GAJE and contribute to our lawsuit, please click here.

For further information, please contact Israel Mida at: imida1818@gmail.com

Charitable receipts for donations for income tax purposes will be issued by Mizrachi Canada. Your donations will be used for the sole purpose of underwriting the costs of the lawsuit.

•••

Shabbat shalom. Chag Urim Chanukah samayach

Our hopes and aspirations for a good new year of manifold blessings for our community and for the world… Am Yisrael Chai

Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education (GAJE)

January 3, 2025

Two nights ago, Jews around the world lit the first candle on the Chanukah menorah. In four nights, Jews around the world will greet the new calendar year 2025.

Many themes of Jewish life converge during these days with themes of wider – not only Western – Human continuity. Of course, we rely upon the symbols – and the values underlying them – established by our forebears, to meld these various converging themes to inspire us forward with purpose and determination (in the Northern Hemisphere, for sure).

Such as…lighting candles to dispel darkness, living under freedom rather than under tyranny, the rule of law rather than of might, few prevailing against many, the sanctity of all human life, flame representing the soul of a human being, and all peoples being tasked to try to make tomorrow better than today. And so on…

Our children delight in the tasty, colourful celebrations that incorporate the ancient/modern symbols. Parents and grandparents delight as well, for which parent is not moved by their children’s happiness? But we – parents and grandparents – also know that the celebrations have been hard won. And so, the celebrations play a deeply formative role in raising our children and reminding them -and us – of who and why we are.

Recent Jewish history has been painfully illustrative.

Rabbi Ayala Deckel, in Israel, pointedly expressed this very point when she wrote about her husband and his reserve colleague soldiers lighting the Chanukah menorah last year during their battles in Gaza. “[When] my husband returned from Gaza, I asked why it had been so important for them to light a hanukkiah in between missions. After all, they had such little time to rest at night when they weren’t fighting. He explained that the very act of lighting Hanukkah candles had given them strength. He said it helped them – religious and secular alike – think about how our people had overcome challenges in the past. Lighting the hanukkiah gave them hope that there was indeed still light in the world and that we would all get through this crisis. It reminded them that their own actions could help bring back the light.”

Rabbi Deckel’s observations about “bringing back the light” apply to all of us.

GAJE awaits news of the outcome of our motion for leave to appeal the decision to cast our application out of court. Our determination to try to end the discrimination in educational funding has not flagged. Nor will it. We are inspired by the glow of the lit Chanukah candles.

In addition to the Jewish history embodied by the light of the candles on the Chanukah menorah, their flickering shine also inspire the continual rededication of GAJE’s efforts to bring back the light of fairness and justice in educational funding in Ontario.

We conclude this update as we did at this time last year. “In the year 2025, our community – along with all caring Jewish communities worldwide – joins the fight to defend Israel and the Jewish people, inspired and informed by Jewish education, by “being, knowing, doing and celebrating Jewish”. That is our task going forward into calendar 2025. It has been the task of every generation from Jewish antiquity to today.”

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GAJE awaits a decision on our motion to the Court of Appeal for leave to appeal the decision of the Divisional Court that agreed with the Government of Ontario to dismiss our application for fairness in educational funding.

If you wish to assist GAJE and contribute to our lawsuit, please click here.

For further information, please contact Israel Mida at: imida1818@gmail.com

Charitable receipts for donations for income tax purposes will be issued by Mizrachi Canada. Your donations will be used for the sole purpose of underwriting the costs of the lawsuit.

•••

Shabbat shalom. Chag Urim Chanukah samayach

Our hopes and aspirations for a good new year of manifold blessings for our community and for the world… Am Yisrael Chai

Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education (GAJE)

December 27, 2024

Robert Lichtman, a Jewish community activist in New Jersey wrote an edgy, and some will say, even provocative article this week in which he maintains that “Jewish day schools are the infrastructure that supports a full range of communal services”.

Entitled, The Tree of Life: Root Jewish community in day schools, the article sets out to make the case for day schools as “the keystone that upholds a Jewish community” in all its cultural and social vibrancy and self-sustaining health.

Lichtman writes “boldly”, without nuance and with considerable self-assurance. He confidently writes large, sweeping statements such as: “Synagogues may be the glue that holds the building blocks of Jewish community together, but all of this rests on the foundation of a strong day school.”

Lichtman also makes certain suggestions for ensuring the financial sustainability of Jewish education. To his credit, they are novel and worthy of wider communal discussion.

Agree with Lichtman or not, the heart of his article is a deeply-felt, robust acknowledgement of the utter irreplaceability of organized, intense Jewish education for a truly viable, Jewish community, in the fullest, broadest, most inclusive sense of being Jewish. He refers to such Jewish education as day school education.

GAJE agrees with Lichtman’s core proposition. Indeed, it is our view that this proposition is so important that it must be stated and re-stated whenever the opportunity arises. It is for this reason that we direct readers’ attention to the Lichtman article.

Moreover, it is also our view that the Jewish community of the GTA is a sparkling example of the truth of Lichtman’s core and ancillary propositions regarding the central role played by day schools in the overall health of a community. Community lay and professional leaders, and especially the parents of the school children who cope the best they can with the onerous financial hardship of school tuitions ought to be thanked and praised for this.

Lichtman maintains that day schools play a strategic role “in upholding Jewish community …in addition to the benefits of a day school education that enable communities to thrive: Jewish literacy; scholarship; Israel education and Zionism; embracing Jews and Judaism from a place of love, not fear; and developing future Jewish leaders — communal, rabbinic and philanthropic.”

Again, GAJE agrees with him. And we add that whenever possible, families, schools, educators, organizations and “ordinary” members of the community at large, must seize the opportunities that might enable our youngsters – in Lichtman’s words – to embrace Jews and Judaism “from a place of love, not fear.”

GAJE is committed to precisely this; to helping to turn possibilities into realities.

The Lichtman article can be accessed at:

The Tree of Life: Root Jewish community in day schools

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As GAJE supporters and readers of this weekly update know, GAJE has brought a motion to the Court of Appeal for leave to appeal the decision of the Divisional Court that agreed with the Government of Ontario and dismissed our application. We await a decision on our motion.

If you wish to assist GAJE in our pursuit for fairness in educational funding, and contribute to our lawsuit, please click here.

For further information, please contact Israel Mida at: imida1818@gmail.com

Charitable receipts for donations for income tax purposes will be issued by Mizrachi Canada. Your donations will be used for the sole purpose of underwriting the costs of the lawsuit.

•••

Shabbat shalom. Am Yisrael Chai

Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education (GAJE)

December 20, 2024

Many readers may have already read the essay by Canadian journalist Terry Glavin that was published in The Free Press only two days ago. It is a powerful, comprehensive chronicle about the extent to which antisemitism has encroached into and taken hold of “normal” life in Canada.

Entitled, The Explosion of Jew-Hate in Trudeau’s Canada, the essay is being widely shared through cyberspace. It is a seminal document. It is also a seminal marker, a discussion piece, and a starting point, as it were, depicting the degradation of Canadian civil and civic life since October 7, 2023. For it was on that day that the floodgates of hatred of Israel and of Jews spilled a crossfire of sources onto the public spaces of Canada.

Glavin’s story has a political bite. Not all readers will agree with his point of view. But it is hard to dispute the facts and the atmosphere that most of us see, hear and read about all around us. In the circumstances, the bite of disappointment and anger is warranted.

Gavin accurately describes one of the moods in the community. “This sort of despair [denying of what should be uncontroversial facts] has become a feature of everyday life for Jews across Canada who are experiencing open hatred—and yet are living under a government that appears either blind to it, paralyzed by it, or indifferent to it. Law enforcement in Canada is not blind. Quite the opposite. Officers want to do their jobs. What they say is that they lack the moral support from the political class to enforce the law. And that they cannot keep up with the volume of hate crimes—crimes that arise from a widespread ideology that has normalized the idea that “Zionists” anywhere are a fair target for attack.”

Gavin continues: “Rather than discovering how torn the fabric of their society has become, Canadian Jews are being forced to come to terms with just how deeply antisemitism has been woven into it. This is not a matter of anecdote or impression.

“There are about 40 million Canadians and roughly 350,000 of them are Jewish—representing less than 1 percent of the country’s population.

“Most Canadian Jews feel unsafe and victimized,” the University of Toronto sociologist Robert Brym concluded in an in-depth attitudinal survey of Canadians, undertaken in collaboration with EKOS Research, published earlier this year. “They perceive a rise in negative attitudes toward Jews in recent months and years. Most doubt the situation will improve.”

Glavin’s essay is important reading. We would add that it should be required reading by our elected officials at each of the three governmental levels.

GAJE brings the article to the attention of our supporters and readers for the same reason that the update last week dealt with the unsettling atmosphere for Jewish high school students attending the public school in Ottawa.

We need the government of Ontario – especially – to be aware of the true state of Canadian society as it pertains to Jews. Glavin documents the increasing, open, unembarrassedly-expressed hostility towards Jews. In response, as we noted last week, some Jewish parents are removing their children from public schools. For them it is a matter of the safety – physical, emotional and psychological – of their children.

Being Jewish in Ontario in 2024 is decidedly more fraught than it was in the mid 1980’s when the Government of Ontario decided to extend full public educational funding to children attending Catholic schools only and to no other denominational or independent school. Being Jewish in Ontario in 2024 is decidedly more fraught than it was in 1996 when the Supreme Court of Canada determined (in the Adler case) that Ontario’s discriminatory educational funding policy was legal.

It bears repeating, again, that the Adler decision did not preclude Ontario from funding other denominational schools in addition to the Catholic schools. Nor did the decision preclude Ontario from funding any independent schools in the province.

But since that decision in 1996, almost 30 years ago, the province resolutely refuses to do away with the educational funding discrimination, or even, to allow a discussion of its correctness in the courts. Not even the hatred against Jews and of Israel rolling so menacingly through our society today has moved the conscience of the provincial government.

We urge GAJE supporters and followers to share the Glavin essay with their MPP. Ask them if the burgeoning antisemitism alarms them. Ask them, if the proliferating antisemitism makes them feel worried for the future of our society. Ask them if they still support the decades-old educational funding discrimination against non-Catholic religious communities.

We appeal to the Members of the Legislature, to the government, to the cabinet, to the Minister of Education and to the Premier, finally, to bring fairness for the benefit all Ontario children in the public funding of their respective educations. If not today, in 2024, when the walls of democracy – and respect for all human rights, the very foundation of our governmental structure – are at risk of being worn down, then when?

The Glavin article can be accessed at:

https://www.thefp.com/p/explosion-of-jew-hate-in-canada-trudeau-israel-palestine

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If you wish to contribute to GAJE’s lawsuit for fairness in educational funding, please click here.

For further information, please contact Israel Mida at: imida1818@gmail.com

Charitable receipts for donations for income tax purposes will be issued by Mizrachi Canada. Your donations will be used for the sole purpose of underwriting the costs of the lawsuit.

•••

Shabbat shalom. Am Yisrael Chai

Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education (GAJE)

December 13, 2024

GAJE has reported upon the increasing enrolment this year throughout the day school system in our community. No analysis has been released linking this increase in enrollment to the wide-spread perception that some public schools are inhospitable – sometimes even hostile – environments for Jewish students.

Last week, November 28, Ellin Bessner of The CJN reported upon a disturbing situation in the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board concerning one of the Board’s trustees. The situation involved overt anti-Israel as well as anti-Jewish behaviour. Some people took objection and acted to declare such behaviour objectionable and out of bounds and to try to prevent such behaviour from recurring. 

The report in The CJN and related public school educational stories can be accessed at:

https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/the-cjn-daily-with-ellin-bessner/id1565571997?i=1000678507892

“Donna Blackburn, a long-serving trustee on the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board, has been formally censured by her peers and must take antisemitism training. The vote came on Nov. 26, following an official complaint accusing Blackburn of using slurs about Jews being powerful bullies. While the OCDSB stopped short of suspending Blackburn outright, as others in similar situations have been, Jewish leaders are applauding the school board’s somewhat unexpected stand against antisemitism. The OCDSB has long been accused of treating Jewish students and staff differently than other equity-seeking groups. In this latest example, Dr. Nili Kaplan-Myrth, a trustee on the board, lodged a complaint this summer after a dispute over the Capital Pride Parade. She and Blackburn, a long supporter of the parade, clashed when the school board pulled out of the event after organizers openly supported the Palestinian cause, blamed Israel for a “genocide” in Gaza, said Israel was pinkwashing the war, and called for a boycott of sponsors who were Zionists.”

(Bessner recorded local Ottawa Jewish reactions on the November 28 podcast, The CJN Daily, to the anti-Jewish manifestations occurring in the public school system there.)

•••

The reason GAJE calls attention to this development in the public school system in Ottawa is because it bespeaks an important change in the circumstances of the Jewish community of Ontario – specifically in relation to the education of Jewish children in Ontario – since the era before and including 1996 when the Supreme Court decided the Adler case.

It bears repeating that the Adler decision did not preclude Ontario from funding other denominational schools beside the Catholic schools. Nor did the decision preclude Ontario from funding any independent schools in the province. But the province has steadfastly, resolutely, stubbornly and unfairly refused to even permit the discussion about fairness in educational funding in this province.

Queen’s Park continues to refuse the possibility of funding fairness even in the face of the wide surge, since October 7, 2023, in many public schools of aggressive, abusive, highly intimidating anti-Jewish hatred directed to Jewish students.

This documented open hostility to Jewish students in public schools is a significant, worrisome, door-knocking change in the circumstances of public education from the days of 1996 when the Supreme Court decreed that it was legal for Ontario to fully fund only Catholic schools to the exclusion of all other denominations or other independent schools.

This change in circumstances is deeply alarming. As mentioned above, it stands to reason that parents are withdrawing their children from public schools to find an alternative educational home. But not all Jewish communities have access to local Jewish day schools. For example, there is no Jewish day high school in Ottawa.

We appeal to Queen’s Park to show it cares truly – in the core, citizen-building realm of education – for all the children of the province. We appeal to Queen’s Park to bring fairness for the benefit all Ontario children in the public funding of their respective educations.

In a very real sense, when they champion anti-Israel and anti-Jewish behaviour, some public schools and their school board enablers, betray their sacred duty to the boys and girls of our in their charge and they betray the province itself.

•••

If you wish to contribute to GAJE’s lawsuit for fairness in educational funding, please click here.

For further information, please contact Israel Mida at: imida1818@gmail.com

Charitable receipts for donations for income tax purposes will be issued by Mizrachi Canada. Your donations will be used for the sole purpose of underwriting the costs of the lawsuit.

•••

Shabbat shalom. Am Yisrael Chai

Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education (GAJE)

December 6, 2024

Last week, GAJE reported the observation by Melissa Rivkin, the director of day school strategy at the Seattle-based Samis Foundation that “strong Jewish day school education provides youngsters with a foundation that gives them the wherewithal – knowledge, identity, and confidence – in the future, to take up the task of defending civil western society.”

Defending civil western society – along with Israel, Judaism and Jews – has become the chief priority and preoccupation of our community, and, one can add of communities throughout the West, since October 7, 2023.

But it helps to have allies.

The Aristotle Foundation for Public Policy, a Calgary-based, think tank, is indeed an ally of all Canadians who treasure the rule of law in this country that is founded upon democracy’s truest value: respect for the inherent dignity of all human life.

Earlier this month, GAJE published a personal letter from Mark Milke, the Foundation’s president. The letter was entitled, An attack on all of us: Why the Aristotle Foundation will not be silent on antisemitism. It is inspiring and deeply affecting like the grasp of a hand that reaches out to pull you up after a fall.

This week the Aristotle Foundation published a documentary entitled “Why Canadians Should Support Israel.” It is an important 18-minute statement that warrants wide distribution and wider viewing.

The following are the introductory explanatory remarks that accompanied the documentary in the email GAJE received from the Foundation.

“Canadians have often fought autocracies, tyrannies, and supported a free, flourishing world. Now our liberal democratic allies in Israel are facing their own existential threat. This past week, the International Criminal Court even issued an arrest warrant for the Israeli prime minister, this after civilian casualties in Gaza. Except those are a direct result of the war Hamas started on October 7, 2023. 

“Israelis face what Canada, the United Kingdom, France, and others faced in the Second World War: A genocidal ideology intent on exterminating others. Bizarrely, since October 7, 2023, proper moral blame and proper reasoning for the tragedy of civilian deaths has been turned upside-down and inside-out. 

“You’ve heard the accusations: Israel is the colonizing, warmongering state. Both “sides” in the Israeli-Hamas conflict are somehow equal in blame. This is ghastly wrong. 

“There are excellent reasons for Canadians to support Israel. There are solid reasons to blame Hamas, Hezbollah, and the genocidal regime in Iran for the civilian deaths ever since in Gaza and in Lebanon.  

“Our latest documentary film explores the wrongheaded accusations against Israel and her people. This documentary also exposes the radicals in Canada. Recall the recent “protest” in Vancouver where “Death to Israel” and “Death to Canada” were chanted. 

“Don’t think for a moment the two are not linked. The attacks on Israel are already metastasizing worldwide. They are not only anti-Jewish and anti-Israel, but anti-West, anti-Canada, and frankly, anti-Enlightenment and anti-civilization. 

“That’s why you need to watch “Why Canadians Should Support Israel” and share it far and wide. This is the most important documentary we have ever produced.” 

To the above description GAJE adds: this is a most important documentary for all who care for the permanent, secure future of democracy.

Along with the “knowledge, identity, and confidence” related to living Jewishly that flow from a day school education, this documentary by the Aristotle Foundation, is another arrow in the quiver that we carry near our hearts in the vital task of “defending civil western society.”

(Why Canadians Should Support Israel can be accessed on the website of The Aristotle Foundation for Public Policy.)

•••

If you wish to contribute to GAJE’s lawsuit for fairness in educational funding, please click here.

For further information, please contact Israel Mida at: imida1818@gmail.com

Charitable receipts for donations for income tax purposes will be issued by Mizrachi Canada. Your donations will be used for the sole purpose of underwriting the costs of the lawsuit.

•••

Shabbat shalom. Am Yisrael Chai

Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education (GAJE)

November 29, 2024

GAJE was formed for the sole purpose of trying to help make Jewish day school education more affordable for the majority of young Jewish families in Ontario.

Though not the only way of fostering comprehensive Jewish literacy, life-long identity, and permanent connection to the Jewish people, Jewish day school education is indeed considered the best way.

In the wake of the ugly – and shocking – ascendance of anti-Jewish-anti-Israel hatred after October 7, 2023, day school education has proven its worth in other important ways as well. Day school graduates have demonstrated a strong, self-identifying sense of self that enables them to stand their ground, literally and metaphorically, against the purveyors of hate and abuse. As we have seen and read and heard these past 13 months, some of those purveyors have been intimidating and threatening.

Melissa Rivkin, the director of day school strategy at the Seattle-based Samis Foundation, has written an op-ed/case study that highlights the strength and courage of one day school graduate in particular, Hannah Nash, who stood tall and strong in a difficult situation recently at the University of Washington. Entitled, Jewish day schools: Building leaders, not just students, the Rivlin article appeared last week on eJP’s web site. The purpose of the op-ed is clear from its very title.

Rivlin writes that a strong Jewish day school education provides youngsters with a foundation that gives them the wherewithal – knowledge, identity, and confidence – in the future, to take up the task of defending civil western society.

Rivlin sets the scene of Hannah’s “defining moment”.

“No one could have predicted that Jewish students like Hannah would one day face intense antisemitism on college campuses. As a student at the University of Washington, Hannah experienced firsthand the surge of hostility toward Jews and Israelis especially, following the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7. Campus protests calling for the destruction of Israel, antisemitic graffiti and blood libel against Israel as a country and Jews as a people made her feel unsafe. But she drew on her Jewish day school foundation to give her the strength to speak up when it mattered most.”

The meeting where Hannah spoke became a flashpoint after a year of rising antisemitism on the University of Washington campus. What should have been an orderly public comment period quickly descended into chaos. As Hannah and other Jewish community members..attempted to speak, they were shouted down by protestors. The disruption was so extreme that the regents were forced to shut down the meeting entirely, and protestors took over the room. In the midst of an intimidating uproar, Hannah, who was the only student who was there to testify, stood her ground, displaying uncommon calm and courage in a challenging moment.”

“…Hannah’s presence at that meeting wasn’t just a personal victory—it was part of a larger story that became a rallying point for the entire Jewish community in Greater Seattle. …What started as a chaotic, disruptive meeting turned into a powerful, unified response that no one could ignore. Hannah’s courage in stepping forward to testify made it impossible for university leadership to ignore or deny the reality of Jewish student experiences. Her calm and strength in the face of intense provocation exemplifies the kind of Jewish leadership we have seen demonstrated by Jewish day school students nationwide in this moment.”

Hannah’s story is the jumping off point for Rivlin’s praise for day schools. Obviously, not all day school graduates show the pluck and determination that Hannah did. Individual character and nature play a determinative role in deciding when – if at all – to move away from the shoreline, into the deeper waters of the battle to defend Jews and Israel and to preserve western values and western society. Rivlin’s point however, is that in the best of instances, day school education provides the substantive wherewithal for willing individuals to swim confidently in that deep end where the turbulent waters are rising.

The Rivlin article is available at:

Jewish day schools: Building leaders, not just students

•••

If you wish to contribute to GAJE’s lawsuit for fairness in educational funding, please click here.

For further information, please contact Israel Mida at: imida1818@gmail.com

Charitable receipts for donations for income tax purposes will be issued by Mizrachi Canada. Your donations will be used for the sole purpose of underwriting the costs of the lawsuit.

•••

Shabbat shalom. Am Yisrael Chai

Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education (GAJE)

November 22, 2024

A strong case can be made for the proposition that the four most important words of modern Jewish history are: “We have not yet lost our hope.” (“Od loh avdah tikvateinu.”) Those words are not merely a roadside instruction for GAJE. They are the driving force that inspires our efforts to bring end the discrimination in educational funding in Ontario. They need to be because the wheels of justice are turning exceedingly slowly.

A brief summary of the timeline of the GAJE lawsuit tells the story.

In February 2025, three years will have elapsed since GAJE brought an application in court to compel the Government of Ontario to act fairly, without preference to only one religion, in its educational funding. Yet even today, even after almost three years, we are still not even in the “batter’s box” able to swing at the government’s legal pitches on the merits of our case.

The government responded to our February 2022 application by attempting to have it thrown out of court. In August 2023, one and a half years later, Judge Eugenia Papageorgiou rendered a 46-page decision that refused to agree with the government. She decided that GAJE’s case is worthy of proceeding to a full airing because it raises important legal, constitutional and societal issues.

Rather than accept Judge Papageorgiou’s decision, the government persisted in trying to have GAJE’s application tossed out of court. Queen’s Park was (and is) unwilling to allow a comprehensive legal discussion to bring forward the best possible educational funding policy for Ontarians for this day and age.

On September 10 of this year, a three-member panel of the Divisional Court agreed with the Province of Ontario. Our case was dismissed. Now, GAJE must receive the permission of the Court of Appeal to set aside the Divisional Court’s ruling.

GAJE brought a motion for leave to appeal. Our legal team filed our legal factum at the end of October. We now await the response of the government. After it is filed in the next weeks, we will await hearing whether the Court of Appeal will have granted us leave to appeal the Divisional Court’s decision that dismissed our case.

GAJE believes that the case is strong. It follows legal precedent. We also believe that the case is important for the people of Ontario. It raises matters of wide general interest and public policy importance.

As our legal team asserts, the issues in GAJE’s case “involve legal concepts of constitutional interpretation, as well as the scope of freedom of religion and the right to be treated equally before and under the law.”

Is equal treatment in education a meaningful value in Ontario in 2024? GAJE asserts that it must be.

If it is, should the Constitution of Canada not acknowledge it?  Should the Constitution of Canada not operate in a manner consistent with that value, in a manner that demonstrates the full embrace of equality for everyone?

How can it be appropriate that a constitutional provision enacted in 1867 specifically to protect minority education rights in Ontario and in Quebec, is now being wielded by the Government of Ontario to deny minority educational rights in 2024? It is not.

Does the fact that Quebec abandoned the constitutional provision some years ago, not cast Ontario’s obstinate refusal to end the discrimination in educational funding in an inexplicably unjust and unkind light? It does.

Our fervent hope is that the Court of Appeal will agree with GAJE to grant us the right to appear in the batter’s box, in a subsequent hearing, to argue the case on its merits.

Though the wheels turn exceedingly slowly, we have not lost hope. Nor will we ever.

•••

If you wish to contribute to GAJE’s lawsuit for fairness in educational funding, please click here.

For further information, please contact Israel Mida at: imida1818@gmail.com

Charitable receipts for donations for income tax purposes will be issued by Mizrachi Canada. Your donations will be used for the sole purpose of underwriting the costs of the lawsuit.

•••

Shabbat shalom. Am Yisrael Chai

Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education (GAJE)

November 15, 2024

The Canadian Handbook on the IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism

Now in its second year, the campaign against Israel and Jews continues on the streets and public spaces of Canada. But Jews and increasingly, non-Jewish champions of civil, democratic society are fighting back. This is not only a source of inspiration for our community but it also represents a substantive deployment of forces for democracy. We know – enlightened society knows – that antisemitism is dangerous to Jews, of course, and also to everyone who values freedom and humanity.

 The Alliance of Canadians Combatting Antisemitism (ALCCA) is at the vanguard of those champions. This week ALCCA advised that the Government of Canada has just released The Canadian Handbook on the IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism.

The handbook is intended to guide anti-racism policies and codes of conduct at schools and universities, to educate and to inform those who design DEI programs in and outside government agencies, and promote greater understanding regarding antisemitism in law enforcement circles across the country. It was developed in partnership with the Office of the Special Envoy for Preserving Holocaust Remembrance and Combatting Antisemitism, Deborah Lyons.

In the communication from the ALCCA, Alliance chair, Mark Sandler, elaborated upon the IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism itself and upon the significance of the federal government’s handbook.

GAJE reproduces Sandler’s correspondence (below). It is an excellent mini-primer for GAJE supporters about the IHRA document and how the handbook can benefit the fight against antisemitism, i.e., the fight to protect and preserve democratic values.

•••

“The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) is an intergovernmental organization with 35 Member Countries and 9 Observer Countries that was founded in 1998 by former Swedish Prime Minister Göran Persson to address issues related to the Holocaust and genocide of the Roma. The IHRA definition is the most authoritative and comprehensive definition in the world today. It has been adopted by 42 other countries, and many others, including Canadian provinces, cities, towns and townships listed in the handbook.

Key moments:

• In 2019, the Government of Canada adopted the non-legally binding IHRA definition as part of its anti-racism strategy.
• In 2021, the Government committed itself to “continue to enhance the adoption and implementation of the working definition.”
• In 2022, the Government undertook that it would develop and publish this handbook. The Prime Minister indicated that the handbook will “support the adoption, understanding, and practical use of the [IHRA] definition across Canada.”
• And now in 2024, the Government has released the Canadian Handbook on the IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism.

“The publication of the handbook represents an important step – but only a step – in combatting antisemitism across the country:

• The handbook is only meaningful if it is used to guide anti-racism policies and codes of conduct at schools and universities.
• It is only meaningful if it educates and informs those who design DEI programs in our private and public institutions.
• It is only meaningful if it is utilized to promote greater understanding in law enforcement circles of the scourge of antisemitism, and its modern manifestations.

“Make no mistake – its adoption and use will be bitterly attacked because it recognizes the right of Jewish self-determination. And because it explains that modern antisemitism is often manifested by demonizing Israel – through denying its very existence and legitimacy, and by demonizing all Zionists, without distinction, including 91% of Canadian Jews who support Jewish self-determination in Israel.

“The campaign against the IHRA definition is largely based on the false claim that the definition immunizes Israel from criticism, and as such, is invalid, even racist. The handbook exposes that this is untrue. The working definition is clear that criticism of Israel, its policies and practices is not antisemitic. Israel is not immune – nor should it be – from the same types of criticism levelled against any country. But the definition’s opponents are unencumbered by the facts.

“I commend Deborah Lyons, the Government of Canada, and many others responsible for the publication of this handbook. Our community and allies must now commit to promoting its use to combat antisemitism across the country.”

••• 

GAJE assiduously follows, supports and applauds ALCCA’s moral leadership. GAJE also commends the federal government for fulfilling its promise to provide a handbook for the appropriate application of the IHRA’s definition of antisemitism.

The handbook can be downloaded at:

https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/services/canada-holocaust/antisemitism/handbook-definition-antisemitism.html?utm_campaign=pch-pch-special-envoy-lyons-24-25&utm_medium=smo&utm_source=lnkn&utm_content=guide-antisemitism-en-241030-pch

•••

On September 10, a three-member panel of the Divisional Court agreed with the Province of Ontario that GAJE’s lawsuit for fairness in educational funding should be dismissed. On September 25, GAJE filed a Notice of Motion seeking leave to appeal the court’s decision. Last month, GAJE filed its factum for the motion for leave to appeal.

•••

If you wish to contribute to GAJE’s lawsuit for fairness in educational funding, please click here.

For further information, please contact Israel Mida at: imida1818@gmail.com

Charitable receipts for donations for income tax purposes will be issued by Mizrachi Canada. Your donations will be used for the sole purpose of underwriting the costs of the lawsuit.

•••

Shabbat shalom. Am Yisrael Chai

Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education (GAJE)

November 8, 2024

The Aristotle Foundation for Public Policy is a relatively new, Calgary-based, think tank. According to its website, the Foundation “aims to renew a civil, common-sense approach to public discourse and public policy in Canada.” 

On October 5, Mark Milke, the Foundation’s president, published a personal letter about the Foundation’s work on antisemitism and Israel. It is a succinct, substantive communication that warrants wide reading.

Entitled, An attack on all of us: Why the Aristotle Foundation will not be silent on antisemitism,  Milke identifies at least three reasons for the rise in antisemitism and radicalism across Canada this past year. Equally as important, he articulates a statement of principle concerning the deeper truth of the current, namely, that Israel is fighting against Iran and its appointed armies all of whom are dedicated to Israel’s annihilation.

“Aristotle Foundation’s scholars refuse to be silent on antisemitism’s rise in Canada. We also refuse to abandon moral clarity on Israel.”

Milke’s statement is rare.

When so many governmental, academic, media and other purported leaders of men and women these days are silent or equivocate or worse, condemn Israel for deigning to defend itself, Milke is forthright and direct in explaining Israel’s case and pointing to its justice.

That is why we call readers’ attention to his words in this update.

“In the past year, we have written and spoken out on this issue. Know that we will do even more work in the coming year to educate Canadians about antisemitism and radicalism.

“Antisemitism and attacks on our liberal democratic ally, Israel, are not “just” an attack on Jews, Arabs, Christians, and Baha’i who live in Israel. They are also an attack on Canada and on the tolerant, open civilization painstakingly and progressively built here and in the rest of the West, and increasingly in recent decades, in non-Western nations as well.”

It is this last point that should compel the attention of all Canadians. Since the manifestations of anti-Israel/anti-Jewish hatred have appeared in Canada after October 7, GAJE has made the very same point: [Antisemitism and attacks on Israel] are also an attack on Canada and on the … civilization…built here.

Milke’s letter is available at:

An attack on all of us: Why the Aristotle Foundation will not be silent on antisemitism

The page on which Milke’s public letter appears is also a portal to a trove of other opinion essays related to combatting antisemitism and to explaining Israel’s predicament defending against Iran’s annihilationist axis.

That the Jewish community is not alone in its campaign to protect our society against the purveyors of antisemitism is deeply heartening. GAJE is grateful to Mark Milke and the board of the Aristotle Foundation for Public Policy for understanding the underlying importance of Israel’s struggle against theocrats, autocrats, thugs and dictators opposed to the West.

But, as GAJE has often stated and restates in this update, the first and most effective lines of defence and offence against haters of Jews and of Israel, is finding pride, purpose and expression in being Jewish. We protect cherished universal values by asserting the particular profundity of our Judaism. Education is the pathway to discovering, reinforcing and celebrating who we are.

•••

On September 10, a three-member panel of the Divisional Court agreed with the Province of Ontario that GAJE’s lawsuit for fairness in educational funding should be dismissed. On September 25, GAJE filed a Notice of Motion seeking leave to appeal the court’s decision.

•••

If you wish to contribute to GAJE’s lawsuit for fairness in educational funding, please click here.

For further information, please contact Israel Mida at: imida1818@gmail.com

Charitable receipts for donations for income tax purposes will be issued by Mizrachi Canada. Your donations will be used for the sole purpose of underwriting the costs of the lawsuit.

•••

Shabbat shalom. Am Yisrael Chai

Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education (GAJE)

November 1, 2024