Deborah Lyons, the Special Envoy for Preserving Holocaust Remembrance and Combatting Antisemitism, decided to launch a survey after hearing from Jewish parents and organizations.Valentin Flauraud/The Canadian Press
A six-year-old child’s teacher told her she was “half human” because one of her parents was Jewish – one of nearly 800 antisemitic incidents in the Ontario elementary and high school system since 2023 reported to a federally commissioned survey.
Others included a 13-year-old girl being swarmed several times a day by classmates who raised their hands in a Nazi salute even as she begged them to stop, and Jewish children told by their teachers they were baby-killers for supporting Israel in its war with the militant group Hamas.
The stories relayed by Jewish families in a report for the Special Envoy for Preserving Holocaust Remembrance and Combatting Antisemitism reflect the rise in antisemitic incidents reported to municipal police nationwide since Hamas militants in Gaza attacked Israel in October, 2023. The ensuing war has killed tens of thousands of people and displaced millions more.
Antisemitism on university campuses has been explored by parliamentary committees, but the scope of the issue in the K-12 school system has received less attention at the federal level, in part because the schools are provincial responsibilities.
Envoy Deborah Lyons decided to embark on a probe after hearing numerous anecdotes from Jewish parents and organizations about the situation facing younger children. The final report was published Monday.
“Jewish students deserve what every Canadian child deserves: to feel safe, valued, and included in their classrooms,” Ms. Lyons said in a statement.
“This is not the reality today – and it must change.”
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The survey focused on Ontario, home to approximately 30,000 Jewish children, the largest such population in Canada, according to University of Toronto sociology professor Robert Brym. He conducted the study, sending surveys to Jewish families via community organizations between January and April.
Of the 599 Jewish parents who responded, many reported incidents with no direct connection to the war, including the one reported by the family of the six-year-old.
“More than 40 per cent of responses involve Holocaust denial, assertions of excessive Jewish wealth or power, or blanket condemnation of Jews – the kind of accusations and denunciations that began to be expunged from the Canadian vocabulary and mindset in the 1960s and were, one would have thought, nearly totally forgotten by the second decade of the 21st century,” the report says.
Most of the respondents to the survey reported incidents with a connection to the ongoing conflict.
Among the examples: children being told by teachers or fellow students that they personally were responsible for the Israeli government’s actions in Gaza, with one grade nine boy told he was a baby killer.
Nearly one in six incidents that parents described as antisemitic were initiated by a teacher or involved a school-sanctioned activity.
Examples included a teacher telling a child her Hebrew school teachers were lying about the state of Israel existing and teachers wearing shirts with the Palestinian liberation slogan “from the river to the sea.”
Many Jews consider that phrase antisemitic as it is perceived as a call for the destruction of Israel.
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Nearly three-quarters of the reported incidents took place in the Toronto District School Board, the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board and the York Region District School Board.
The TDSB also collects data on incidents through a “Racism, Bias and Hate portal,” and logged 312 incidents classified as antisemitic in the 2023-2024 school year.
But the federal survey report said that school board’s data falls short, in part because the TDSB defines antisemitism as a form of religious hatred and doesn’t count incidents involving students who identify as Jewish for cultural or familial reasons but do not report religious affiliation.
The report also found nearly half of incidents reported to the schools were never investigated.
“It is very disturbing to see the number of reported antisemitic incidents being ignored in Ontario schools,” Ms. Lyons said.
“Silence in the face of antisemitism is not neutrality – it is complicity and sends a bad message to all students about standing up against hate.”