The Jews purged from Canadian public life
Caught in a worldwide trend
On Thursday, as many as 12,000 demonstrators massed in the Swedish port city of Malmo for the sole purpose of protesting the involvement of an Israeli singer in the Eurovision Song Contest.
Israel has participated in the event since 1973, and has won it four times. But mobs — which included Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg — wanted 20-year-old Israeli singer Eden Golan banned from the competition due to her country’s war against Hamas. Golan was ultimately forced to move around Malmo with a security detail befitting a foreign head of state; a motorcade comprising 100 Swedish police officers with a police helicopter providing escort. (She finished fifth overall in the jury vote late Saturday night but received the second-highest tally in the popular vote.)
It’s only the most extreme example of a trend that’s also been happening in Canada for months. Multiple Canadian venues, events and festivals have openly purged Jewish artists and athletes from their lineups over the most tenuous of Israeli connections — if any connections even existed at all.
Below, a roundup from just the last five months of Jews and Jewish symbols being ousted from Canadian public life due to anti-israel sentiments or pressure.
Photographer pulled from a Vancouver toy art exhibition over Israeli birthplace
Vancouver photographer Dina Goldstein’s famed In the Dollhouse photo series could not have anything less to do with Israel. In 2012, Goldstein staged a series of whimsical tableaus of domestic scenes involving actors representing a Barbie and Ken-esque couple. So, photos from the series were a natural fit for a toy-centred exhibition at the Vancouver Centre of International Contemporary Art.
But Goldstein was born in Tel Aviv. And for this reason alone, Goldstein told the Vancouver arts magazine Stir that she had been informed by organizers that they feared vandalism.
Goldstein told Stir she had a phone call with curator Viahsta Yuan who mentioned that the exhibition had “got a complaint from a group of Vancouver artists who didn’t think I should be showing because of the war in Israel and Gaza . ... She told me they were fearful of being vandalized.” The artist added that the Gaza conflict had also come up in a text message with Yuan.
Shortly after, In the Dollhouse was pulled from the exhibition, although Yuan would tell Stir it was entirely for budgetary reasons and no such complaints had ever been received.
❚ The Star of David purged from Ontario school materials
In the official multifaith calendar for the York Region District School Board, Jewish holidays are denoted with a small menorah, while the holidays of other religions are denoted with their usual representative symbols (a cross for Christians, the star and crescent for Muslims, etc.). The decision might have gone unnoticed if not for a leaked email revealing that administrators deliberately avoided using the Star of David — the traditional symbol of Judaism — lest it remind students of Israel.
“For Judaism, the Menorah was chosen over the Star of David due to its purely religious significance, while the Star of David carries political connotations with the State of Israel,” says the email.
The board said last week it would change the symbol in the calendar to the Star of David after the public backlash.
❚ Anti-israel pressure forces cancellation of Jewish-canadian play
The Runner, written and performed by Christopher Morris, surrounds an Israeli volunteer paramedic who attends the aftermath of a terrorist attack and decides to treat the suspected Palestinian perpetrator rather than her Israeli victim. Morris isn’t Israeli and has little personal connection to the Gaza conflict.
And his play is anything but a jingoistic celebration of the State of Israel. One review called it “an accessible yet poignant conduit for audiences to better understand the people and the fractured lives that are to be found in the fissures of this heightened political and social division.”
In January, Victoria’s The Belfry Theatre capitulated to anti-israel demonstrators in cancelling a scheduled performance of The Runner. Protesters — some of whom had vandalized the venue with “Free Palestine” stickers and graffiti — sought to enforce a “cultural boycott” in which any art with even a peripheral connection to Israel be targeted for cancellation.
The Belfry went ahead with the cancellation, despite a vigorous counter-protest whose accompanying petition attracted far more names than anything from the pro-cancellation faction. But the theatre justified their decision by saying Morris’s play “does not ensure the well-being of all segments of our community.”
❚ Canadian Jewish Film Festival evicted from its venue
In December 2023, Hamilton’s Playhouse Cinema agreed to be the venue for the three-day Hamilton Jewish Film Festival in early April.
But with only three weeks to go, the Playhouse Cinema abruptly told the festival they were no longer welcome due to “safety and security concerns at this particularly sensitive time.” They also cited “numerous securityand safety-related emails, phone calls, and social media messages.”
Jewish groups quickly accused Playhouse of folding to threats.
“When the theatre received some threatening phone calls and letters over renting their venue to the Hamilton Jewish Federation for a Jewish cultural film festival, instead of standing up to the hate, they caved to it,” Judy Zelikovitz, a vice-president at the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, told the National Post.
As to the festival’s content, the only connection to Gaza was that they were screening The Boy, the last film by Israeli filmmaker Yahav Winner, who was murdered by Hamas on Oct. 7.
❚ Jewish cyclist disinvited from International Women’s Day event
Cyclist Leah Goldstein had been invited to address a March 8 International Women’s Day event in Peterborough, Ont. Just three years ago, Goldstein became the first woman to win the solo category of the Race Across America, a gruelling endurance race in which cyclists cross the United States as fast as possible with minimal breaks or sleep (her time was 10 days, eight hours and 54 minutes).
In early promotional materials for the event, attendees were told that Goldstein would describe her life story of overcoming “bullies, sexism, terrorism.”
But in February, Goldstein (who now lives in Vernon, B.C.) was abruptly pulled from the program because — as a Canadian-born woman raised in Israel by Israeli parents — she had completed military service with the Israel Defense Forces starting in the late 1980s. Organizers said Goldstein was dropped “in recognition of the current situation and the sensitivity of the conflict in the Middle East.”
❚ The Runner cancelled again (this time from Vancouver festival)
Not long after The Belfry struck The Runner from its schedule, Vancouver’s Push International Performing Arts Festival followed suit. In this case, the cancellation was a pretty obvious capitulation to a British-palestinian artist who was also on the Push program. Basel Zaraa’s Dear Laila is an interactive installation that “shares the Palestinian experience of displacement and resistance through the story of one family” — and Zaraa publicly threatened to cancel unless the festival fired Morris.
In a statement, Push that while they “deeply respect” Morris’s artistry, they were acceding to Zaraa’s conditions. As to why Zaraa had taken priority over Morris, they said the former’s “perspective is grossly under-represented in Canadian theatre.”
Morris, who had notably made no similar demands against appearing in the same festival as Dear Laila, reacted to the cancellation with a statement saying, “It’s unsettling when Canadian theatres cannot be a space for the public to engage in a dynamic exchange of ideas.”
❚ Israeli hockey players barred from competition (then reinstated conditionally)
The controversy in this case surrounded an under-20 hockey tournament in Bulgaria, and the key decisions were made by the International Ice Hockey Federation, a body headquartered in Switzerland.
But given Canada’s invention of hockey, the IIHF naturally has a Canadian on its executive, Team Canada was set to be a major contender at the Bulgarian tournament, and the Israeli team at the centre of the case has three Canadian players.
Just two weeks before the tournament, the IIHF told the Israeli national team not to show up because their safety couldn’t be guaranteed. The Bulgarian arena hosting the tournament was located near a “large student population from the affected areas in the Middle East,” it said.
The decision was reversed following massive international pressure — including from the NHL — but the IIHF has still kept Israel off the roster for future tournaments citing the same reason, and said it will continue to weigh Israeli participation on a “case-by-case basis.” (Israel swept the tournament and won gold, by the way.)