GOLDSTEIN: Shocking anti-Semitism at University of Toronto’s medical school: report

Lorrie Goldstein writes in the Toronto Sun:

Given that the faculty of medicine at the University of Toronto used to have a quota system limiting the number of Jewish students it would admit, it’s not surprising anti-Semitism persists there to this day.

Even so, the appalling level of Jew hatred within the school, as described in a new academic paper appearing in the Canadian Medical Education Journal by Dr. Ayelet Kuper, is shocking.

Especially so considering that these are supposedly intelligent people — university professors and medical students — many of whom would undoubtedly describe themselves as progressives on societal issues.

Kuper, a child of Holocaust survivors, was appointed by the school’s administration as a senior advisor on anti-Semitism, after a series of anti-Semitic incidents within the school.

Her report, “Reflections on addressing anti-Semitism in a Canadian faculty of medicine” described her experiences and findings after taking on the assignment for a year.

They reflect the reality that hatred of Jews exists across the political spectrum, from the extreme right, to the extreme left and among both the ignorant and highly educated.

Along with her more general findings, Kuper describes a series of personal experiences that are deeply alarming.

While giving a lecture on religious discrimination, Kuper writes, “I was asked by non-Jewish learners (i.e. students) why content about Jews ‘was being forced on the students by the Jew who bought the Faculty’.”

They had assumed that because U of T’s medical school is now called the Temerty Faculty of Medicine (TFOM) in honour of a $250 million donation by Canadian philanthropists James and Louise Temerty, that they had to be Jewish. They’re not.

This combines two false anti-Semitic stereotypes — that all Jews are wealthy and that they use their wealth to control the agendas of societal institutions such as universities.

“I personally experienced many instances of anti-Semitism,” Kuper writes of her year in the job, “including being told that all Jews are liars; that Jews lie to control the university or the faculty or the world, to oppress or hurt others, and/or for other forms of gain; and that anti-Semitism can’t exist because everything Jews say are lies, including any claims to have experienced discrimination.

“More specifically, I experienced the now-common strategy among those at TFOM, who have made … anti-Semitic statements to say that any Jew who calls them out is just racist and is lying in order to oppress Palestinians …”

Kuper said she was repeatedly told by some staff and students within TFOM that “Zionists” and “Zionism” — support of a Jewish homeland in Israel — “means various racist and hateful things, ranging from ‘hating all Muslims’ to ‘wanting to murder all Palestinians’. Such false definitions are then used to justify hatred of any Jews who ‘admit’ to being Zionists …

“I’ve been told by colleagues that being born in Israel and refusing to denounce the existence of my place of birth as a Jewish state means that I am inherently racist and that any discrimination I encounter as a Jew in Canada is therefore deserved.

“I was told by yet another TFOM faulty member that Jews … shouldn’t even be subject to the protection from discrimination as outlined in the Ontario Human Rights Code … on the grounds that what Jews call anti-Semitism isn’t real.”

There’s a lot more in Kuper’s report, but you get the idea.

Just imagine how doctors and doctors-in-training holding these vile beliefs will treat Jewish patients out in the real world.