Ahead of Israeli Apartheid Week – a yearly celebration of antisemitic propaganda and disinformation about Israel that takes place in March – Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center has been tracking planned events and speakers at universities across Canada. This yearly week-long event fuels discord on campuses and has historically left Jewish students feeling uneasy and unwelcome as anti-Israel groups spread propaganda and misinformation as they vilify and demonize Israel - the only democracy in the Middle East. Previous Israeli Apartheid Week events on university campuses have promoted terrorism and violence against the Jewish people of Israel - and this year they are no different.

This week, FSWC reached out to the presidents of the University of Toronto and McMaster University expressing concern over speakers lined up for events scheduled for Israeli Apartheid Week. In a letter to University of Toronto President Meric Gertler, FSWC demanded the administration take quick action to cancel scheduled events that will involve speakers with histories of defending terrorism and promoting antisemitic tropes. One such speaker, who was invited to the campus by U of T student group Students Against Israeli Apartheid, is an American journalist who has accused Israeli Jews of using “Hitler’s methods,” accused the “Zionist lobby” of “selling” the Holocaust in order to create fear and promoted numerous other false claims about the situation in Israel.

FSWC has also reached out to McMaster University President David Farrar after learning that notorious anti-Israel provocateur Norman Finkelstein has been scheduled to deliver a keynote lecture as part of the campus’s Israeli Apartheid Week events next month. In a letter to Farrar, FSWC wrote, "Anyone who denies Israel the basic legal and natural right to defend itself from murderous attacks against its civilians demonstrates a basic disdain for the value of Jewish life. Under no circumstances should Finkelstein enjoy the privilege and prestige associated with speaking at McMaster or any other Canadian university.” This was the second time FSWC reached out to Farrar this past week. On Friday, FSWC demanded that the McMaster administration ban the student group Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights after the club used images of convicted terrorist Lela Khalid holding an AK47 to fundraise for and advertise Israeli Apartheid Week programming.

FSWC continues to monitor the growing epidemic of antisemitism and anti-Israel bias at Canadian universities and remains engaged in advocacy work with university leaders to promote policies of zero tolerance toward antisemitism on campus.