Antisemitism

U of T launches new Institutional Equity Commitments website

ksoobria — Tue, 13 Feb 2024 16:10:33 +0000

U of T launches new Institutional Equity Commitments website ksoobria Tue, 02/13/2024 - 11:10

The University of Toronto community has a new website that enhances the way it tracks institutional progress on addressing recommendations from its equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) working groups and task force.

Launched in December 2023, the Institutional Equity Commitments website outlines the commitments U of T has made in response to recommendations from the Anti-Black Racism Task Force, Antisemitism Working Group and Anti-Asian Racism Working Group; provides status updates on each initiative; and shares articles, photos, and resources that bring this work to life. 

“The university is committed to building on the strong foundation for change laid in the reports of our EDI working groups and task force,” said U of T President Meric Gertler. “It is also imperative that our actions be transparent and accessible to all members of our community. We hope that the new Institutional Equity Commitments website will foster an increased awareness of what we have achieved together so far and inspire participation in the many initiatives yet to come.” 

Developed through collaboration among the Office of the President, the Office of the Vice-President & Provost and the Office of the Vice-President, People Strategy, Equity & Culture, the Institutional Equity Commitments website is an evolution of a pilot project that began in 2021. The pilot version, known as the Commitments Dashboard, was created to track the implementation of Anti-Black Racism Task Force recommendations and later expanded to include Antisemitism Working Group recommendations. Over the years, there has been a growing need to enhance the existing site. 

“Guided by our community’s feedback, we have designed a site that is easier to navigate and clearly demonstrates institutional accountability while celebrating our shared progress,” said U of T’s Vice-President, People Strategy, Equity & Culture Kelly Hannah-Moffat.

The updated website has a redesigned look and enhanced user experience, including featured stories, progress snapshots, and status updates on the recommendations. Visitors can filter the entire page by specific report. Additionally, divisions or offices responsible for reporting progress on each commitment are now identified. 

“The nature of equity work is that it is an ongoing journey, characterized by continual growth and change,” said Jodie Glean-Mitchell, executive director, equity, diversity and inclusion.

“The newly revised Institutional Equity Commitments website provides the university with a tool to put EDI accountability into action as we engage our collective responsibility to foster an equitable and inclusive university.”    

Members of the U of T community are encouraged to explore the new site and consider how the working group recommendations might inform change in their own areas of the university. Feedback on the site and stories about local progress on EDI commitments are also welcome and can be submitted using the feedback form.  

“We are fortunate to have a very engaged community of students, faculty, librarians and staff who make important contributions to this work, and we’re glad to have their continued input,” said Trevor Young, U of T's vice-president and provost. “Our ongoing goal is to better deliver and report on the institutional commitments we've made to equity and to improve transparency and accountability.”

U of T launches new Institutional Equity Commitments website

(photo by Johnny Guatto)

Melinda Mattos 

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New Lab for the Study of Global Antisemitism will be a hub for scholarly inquiry and interdisciplinary collaboration

Christopher.Sorensen — Wed, 17 Jan 2024 17:27:17 +0000

New Lab for the Study of Global Antisemitism will be a hub for scholarly inquiry and interdisciplinary collaboration 

Christopher.Sorensen Wed, 01/17/2024 - 12:27

Cutline

(photo by University of Toronto)

Faculty of Arts & Science Staff

Topic

Our Community

Antisemitism

Trevor Young

Anne Tanenbaum Centre for Jewish Studies

Faculty of Arts & Science

Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy

A new lab at the University of Toronto’s Anne Tanenbaum Centre for Jewish Studies (CJS) will be a hub for scholars from across disciplines to examine the persistence of antisemitism in a global context.  

“Antisemitism has emerged in the global public discourse on a level that has not been seen in generations,” says Anna Shternshis, director of the CJS and the Al and Malka Green Professor of Yiddish Studies in the Faculty of Arts & Science. “By offering a space for convening and intellectual conversation, we hope to generate new insights on antisemitism as a phenomenon, and new responses for tackling its insidious pervasiveness around the world.”

Shternshis is a distinguished scholar with an international reputation for her expertise in Jewish culture in Russia and the Soviet Union, oral history as well as Yiddish music. Recently awarded a prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship for her work on Nazi-occupied Ukraine, she lectures widely around the world and her work has been featured in print media in 45 countries in 22 languages.

The new Lab for the Study of Global Antisemitism will be housed at the CJS, and its inaugural director will be Ron Levi, a professor at the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy and the department of sociology who is a Distinguished Professor of Global Justice. Levi’s research focuses on aspirations to law and justice, and on how we address crime, violence and atrocities during turbulent times. This includes a collaborative project studying hate and counter-hate speech that’s funded by the University of Toronto-Hebrew University of Jerusalem Research & Innovation Alliance. Levi is director of the Global Justice Lab in the Munk School, which works with justice systems under stress, and a recipient of the Ludwik & Estelle Jus Memorial Human Rights Prize. 

“There is a long history of expertise on issues relating to antisemitism, across fields of study, within and beyond the Anne Tanenbaum Centre for Jewish Studies,” says Levi, “and I am eager to strengthen these connections, to learn from each other, to inquire, and to build our collective understanding of antisemitism and global responses to this challenge.”

The goals for the new lab include bringing together scholars and students whose work connects, directly or indirectly, with the study of antisemitism. Among the lab’s first initiatives will be to convene an international scholarly lecture series on antisemitism across a wide range of fields of study, opening new opportunities for collaboration among researchers worldwide. The lab will develop research, teaching and study partnerships with other centres of knowledge for the study of antisemitism globally.

“The University of Toronto is well situated for this scholarship,” says Trevor Young, U of T’s vice-president and provost. “Our academic community has long-standing reach and expertise on the social and cultural issues of societies worldwide. Within the Canadian context, the University of Toronto offers the opportunity to study antisemitism as a global and comparative phenomenon, thereby offering a unique academic perspective within the field.” 

Melanie Woodin, dean of the Faculty of Arts & Science, says “it’s imperative that we continue to invest in scholarship in this area, and the connection to racism and exclusion broadly.”

She adds that she is committed to bringing together expertise within the faculty and beyond, and foresees that the lab will also help the faculty grow its research and other scholarly activities in relation to the state of democracy. 

In addition to the expertise within CJS, Woodin sees great opportunities for the lab to pursue academic collaborations – such as with the Systemic Islamophobia Research Lab (SIRL) in the Institute of Islamic Studies and the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy, which has an area of focus on the future of democratic societies and is soon to launch a new series of talks on the Middle East conflict. 

“It’s an understatement to say we are seeing a rise in antisemitism and other forms of hate, not just in places of higher learning, but in all facets of society,” says Woodin. “In search of any solutions, we must delve into the complexities before us and openly collaborate to examine how antisemitism continues to permeate the world around us.”

‘Putting people front and centre’: Historian Anna Shternshis keeps Holocaust survivors' stories alive

siddiq22 — Fri, 27 Jan 2023 16:36:02 +0000

‘Putting people front and centre’: Historian Anna Shternshis keeps Holocaust survivors' stories alive

siddiq22 Fri, 01/27/2023 - 11:36

Cutline

Anna Shternshis, director of the Anne Tanenbaum Centre for Jewish Studies, explores Jewish history through the long-lost songs of Holocaust survivors (photo by Jaclyn Shapiro)

Topic

Anne Tanenbaum Centre for Jewish Studies

Faculty of Arts & Science

History

Music

Research

For University of Toronto historian Anna Shternshis, understanding the past means connecting with people’s stories – or, in the case of her research, their songs.

Shternshis, director of the Anne Tanenbaum Centre for Jewish Studies and the Al and Malka Green Professor of Yiddish Studies in the department of Germanic languages and literatures in the Faculty of Arts & Science, examines Jewish culture in Russia and the Soviet Union through oral history and Yiddish culture, music and theatre.

Her 2018 project Yiddish Glory: The Lost Songs of WWII, highlights forgotten Yiddish music written during the Holocaust in the former Soviet Union. Shternshis collaborated with Russian songwriter and performer Psoy Korolenko to contextualize archival material, bringing together a global ensemble of musicians to produce a Grammy Award-nominated album. The resulting songs reveal how Jews fought against fascism, tried against all odds to save their families and expressed themselves through music.

Shternshis, who serves as special adviser on community engagement to the dean of the Faculty of Arts & Science, has continued this work, most recently collaborating with the BBC for a radio documentary exploring the long-lost wartime songs of survivors who escaped the Holocaust by fleeing to Central Asia.

She spoke to Josslyn Johnstone at the Faculty of Arts & Science and Tabassum Siddiqui at U of T News prior to the International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust about how survivors’ stories still resonate today.

How does International Holocaust Remembrance Day help us better understand history – and learn from the past?

Having one day of the year when we talk about an issue is not enough, but I think it’s important to have that time when we’re reminded to think about what happens to a group of people, often a minority. if they're not protected by law and by society's understanding of justice. At least there is one day when we talk about what happened to Jews in Europe – and it’s especially important in the context of university education because this is our chance to rigorously address the issue with our community of students and faculty. If not us, then who else could talk about this in a way that’s relevant? It’s important and it offers a chance to see the complexity of history by putting vulnerable individuals front and centre.

What are you trying to learn and convey about Jewish history through your research?

I’m studying how people experienced violence during the Second World War, and how they made sense of it during the war itself. I’m looking at the songs they created to document what was going on and express what they were feeling. Specifically, I’m interested in the history of the Holocaust in the Soviet Union and my focus is on people who rarely get to tell that story in their own voice. For many, music was the only way to document what was going on with them – and to leave a message for the future, which many of them did not expect to see

Anna Shternshis, top, with Yiddish Glory collaborator Psoy Korolenko (photo and design by Dan Rosenberg)

What have survivors told you about why music was a vehicle for expressing what they had been through?

In the archives that they found in Kyiv years ago, there were no stories – just songs. Survivors were terrified of telling those stories right after the war because the Soviet governmen ttreated anyone who survived the war and German occupation with suspicion, especially Jews. Survivors who had lived through hell were now afraid to go to jail for surviving. The only thing they could do was to sing because authorship of a song was not immediately attributed to them – they could just say they heard it somewhere. So, they told that story through music. History and memory are not always telling the same story.

Have you found common threads within the music they created?

In these songs, there are a lot of calls for justice; there’s also a lot of humour – they’re making fun of things that terrify us, like death or starvation. There was a sense that a lot of the people who were writing these songs would not see tomorrow. Many of these sentiments become less relevant after the war – and that’s why these songs are almost always forgotten, because people begin to worry about other things. But they give us a sense of what mattered to people there at that time.

You’re continuing your research into the songs of Holocaust survivors by looking at what happened in Central Asia during the war. Why is that region significant?

This past fall, I went to Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan with BBC Radio producer Michael Rossi – who had done a story a few years ago on my previous work – and British singer Alice Zawadzki, whose family were Polish citizens in Kazakhstan during the war. We wanted to explore the angle of those Muslim lands rescuing Jews during the Holocaust. So, she was tracing her grandmother and I was tracing the songs. And when we got there, she sang some of those songs and some of the local musicians performed with her as well. We used photographs from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., to see where people had gone during that time. The story is incredible – 1.4 million Soviet Jews and around 250,000 Polish Jews survived the war there. And there are a lot of descendants of those people living in Toronto today.

But when we got there, one of the takeaways for me was how the memory and knowledge of that story was just not there. We thought it would be a source of pride – that history of saving all these refugees. But because there are almost no Jews left in the region, the story is just gone. So, it felt really special to bring the songs there and sing them to remind ourselves that just because history is forgotten doesn’t mean that it didn’t happen. And in today’s world, where so many refugees are fleeing and countries are once again arguing about whether they should welcome people, it was important to go there and remember how these small countries with no resources still rescued all these Jewish families that were not welcome anywhere else in the world.

Anna Shternshis, left, and Alice Zawadzki in Bukhara, Uzbekistan during their research for a new BBC radio documentary (photo courtesy of Anna Shternshis)

Why is doing this work important to you?

I teach diaspora studies and the students and I often discuss what it’s like to be asked the question, “Where are you from?” This question rarely comes out of curiosity, but most often out of the need to assert difference or even a distrust. My research draws attention to experiences of violence among people who are “not from here,” or treated as strangers even in their own land. It is challenging to look at people as people, as opposed to just talking about numbers, processes and resources, but I argue that such an approach is crucial for understanding both the past and the present. My work is clearly connected to my personal family history as well – through my journeys, I got a little closer to understanding what my ancestors went through.

How can telling the stories of survivors help create a more equitable and inclusive society?

I think a lot about that. Racism often comes from a point of view of fear – and it’s hard to be afraid of someone who you’ve met and had a conversation with, or to see that person as a source of potential danger. Almost all mass violence happens preventively: “We’re going to kill those people so that they don’t kill us.” It’s much harder to believe those kinds of statements if you actually begin to understand the other person. Obviously, my work does not have direct policy implications, but I do think in-depth learning of those refugee experiences really helps, including talking about the history of the Holocaust and antisemitism.

Listen to Yiddish Glory on the BBC Radio 3

U of T to host restorative circle, other events in support of Jewish community

Christopher.Sorensen — Fri, 06 Jan 2023 18:21:50 +0000

U of T to host restorative circle, other events in support of Jewish community

Christopher.Sorensen Fri, 01/06/2023 - 13:21

Cutline

(photo by Johnny Guatto)

Adina Bresge

Topic

Our Community

Antisemitism

Anti-Racism & Cultural Diversity Office

Meric Gertler

Multi-Faith Centre

The University of Toronto will host a restorative circle for the Jewish community this month as part of a slate of programming that aims to address antisemitism on its campuses and beyond.

The Jan. 23 session – led by Jacqueline Dressler, advocacy manager at Hillel U of T and organized by U of T’s Anti-Racism and Cultural Diversity Office – will provide a forum for faculty, students, staff and librarians who identify as Jewish to share experiences about the harms of antisemitism while healing through restorative practices.

It’s just one example of the many seminars, workshops, training sessions and other initiatives taking place across the university – including in its various faculties and divisions – that seek to eradicate what U of T President Meric Gertler has condemned as “a pernicious and despicable form of racism.”

In recent a letter to U of T’s Governing Council, President Gertler called on all members of the U of T community to unite against the scourge that plagues Jewish people.

“We must do everything we can to combat and eradicate it,” he said. “Antisemitism subverts and demeans our entire community, not just those who are targeted.

“The University of Toronto must respond as a community.”

Dressler will return to U of T this spring for a seminar about understanding antisemitism on campus. As well, trainer and consultant Shari Golberg, who holds a PhD in religion from U of T, will facilitate a workshop held in collaboration with the Multi-Faith Centre (MFC) that will trace the millennia-long history of antisemitism to its modern-day manifestations, equipping participants with tools to identify and address instances of antisemitism to foster a more inclusive learning environment.

U of T staff and faculty can learn more about antisemitism at the Multi-Faith Centre’s annual religious diversity and inclusivity training later this year. The centre is also running a training program addressing antisemitism, Islamophobia and religious accommodations for the Residence Life team on U of T’s St. George campus.

President Gertler, who recently wrote an op-ed in the Globe and Mail on a similar topic, said in his letter that collective action – “from education, solidarity, speaking out, challenging casual discrimination, standing with our Jewish friends and colleagues” – is ultimately the key to making progress.

“This is how we will succeed,” he said.

U of T’s programing — both new and ongoing — comes as the university prepares to mark the one-year anniversary of the U of T Antisemitism Working Group’s final report, which was formally entrusted to the administration last February.

President Gertler said in his letter that U of T has already made progress on fulfilling its institutional commitments, including redefining the Institutional Equity Office’s (IEO) mandate to explicitly include antisemitism, updating employment guides with clearer language on accommodations for religious observances and raising awareness on steps to report hate-related vandalism.

But more work remains to be done, he said, and “because antisemitism is insidious, like other forms of racism, addressing it will take time, persistence and patience.”

Further education and outreach initiatives are underway across U of T’s campuses, faculties and divisions.

The Temerty Faculty of Medicine has made learning about the Holocaust and antisemitism part of its MD curriculum. It also has a mentorship program for diverse students, including Jewish learners, and is expanding antisemitism and antiracism training for instructors.

The medical school is also taking accountability for injustices within its own history, issuing a formal apology last fall for the use of quotas to cap admissions of Jewish students around the mid-20th century.

Meanwhile, the Faculty of Law is preparing mandatory antisemitism training for all first-year law students and is considering similar programming for all upper-year students.

U of T is engaging with Jewish community members about how to promote inclusion on campus, including through regular meetings between the Institutional Equity Office and Hillel representatives.

At U of T Scarborough, a working group representing Jewish Student Life, the Office of Student Experience & Wellbeing and the Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Office convenes monthly to discuss strategies and supports.

U of T Mississauga has implemented processes to simplify facilitating religious accommodation requests for students. The Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Office at U of T Mississauga has also created a central resource for supporting religious accommodations and keeping observances front of mind for annual academic and administrative planning.

“Sadly, antisemitism is clearly on the rise in Canada and in other countries,” President Gertler said. “We must not be lax on our campuses. We will commit to accelerating our progress and adding support capacity at U of T.

“We will not shrink from our goal of being the most welcoming, diverse, inclusive and excellent academic community in the world.”

Antisemitism

U of T launches new Institutional Equity Commitments website

New Lab for the Study of Global Antisemitism will be a hub for scholarly inquiry and interdisciplinary collaboration

‘Putting people front and centre’: Historian Anna Shternshis keeps Holocaust survivors' stories alive

Listen to Yiddish Glory on the BBC Radio 3

Read more on Yiddish Glory from the BBC

U of T to host restorative circle, other events in support of Jewish community