Statement by Jewish Faculty Network Nova Scotia re student encampment at Dalhousie University
28 July 2024
We are members of the Nova Scotia chapter of the Jewish Faculty Network (JFN), a Canada-wide organization of Jewish academics. We insist on an energetic defence of academic freedom. In the context of Palestine/Israel, academic freedom entails respecting a diversity of Jewish voices as well as the views of Palestinian, Arab and Muslim faculty and students. As members of a people that has experienced discrimination and persecution over many centuries, we oppose the intervention on campuses that level spurious charges of antisemitism from organisations claiming to represent a singular “Jewish community.” To those who conflate criticism of Israel with antisemitism, we say “Not in our name!”
We condemn Israel’s mass slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza which the International Court of Justice has identified as a plausible genocide. The respected British medical journal The Lancet recently suggested that the number of dead in Gaza may be as high as 186,000, nearly five times the official count. As well, every university there has been destroyed.
We acclaim the recent confirmation of the same court that Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories is illegal under international law.
We have supported the Dalhousie encampment, involving students from several universities, since it began. This is what universities should be all about. And we condemn the recent move by Dalhousie to evict the campers.
At a student rally at Dalhousie on July 23, Saint Mary’s University professor Shira Lurie and a member of JFN said, “As a faculty member, I could not be prouder of these students. In its best moments, higher education is not about job preparation or grades on a transcript – it is about students and faculty imagining and building a better world. The campers here have embraced this purpose and said loudly and clearly that in this moment of crisis, they will not stand by while those with power refuse to stand up.”
The so-called Atlantic Jewish Council (AJC), claiming to represent Jews in Nova Scotia has issued a scurrilous denunciation of the Dalhousie encampment and of Dalhousie University administration for tolerating the encampment, suggesting that Jews feel unsafe by its mere presence. We in the JFN have visited the encampment consistently over the past several months and have found no evidence of such un-safety. Indeed, many of the campers are Jewish students.
To suggest that Jews are united in favour of Israel is another calumny spread by the AJC. Moreover, to suggest that all Jews are alike or think alike is in itself a form of ethnic essentialism, a component of antisemitism. Foregrounding antisemitism in the struggle against bigotry also risks minimising other forms of hatred.
The facts show a great divide in Jewish communities. For example, a February 2024 survey of Canadian Jews showed 51% say Israel has no right to build Jewish settlements in West Bank
A 2023 EKOS survey of Canadian Jews showed that 60% feel that the Canadian gov’t should refuse to meet with ultra-right Israeli politicians; 59% say the Israeli government is moving in the “wrong direction” and 31% want establishment Jewish organizations to be more critical of Israel.
A 2018 survey of Canadian Jews showed that 60% do not see criticism of Israel as antisemitic and 50% believe accusations of antisemitism are “often used to silence legitimate criticism of Israeli policies”
And a 2021 survey of US Jews showed 25% (38% under 40) agree “Israel is an apartheid state;” 22% agree (33% under 40) “Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinians.” And that was before the current crisis.
We urge Dalhousie University to negotiate with the campers and reach an agreement similar to that between the University of Windsor and its campers that provided for:
more anti-racism initiatives,
support for students impacted by the crisis in Gaza,
"responsible" investing, and
annual disclosures of direct and indirect public fund investments,
boycotting institutional partnerships with Israeli universities until the "right of Palestinian self-determination has been realized."