Over 80 students and faculty members attended the Brock University event, “Antisemitism: Law, Justice, and Decolonization in a Time of Genocide,” on Oct. 30.
The event was co-sponsored by the President’s Advisory Committee for Human Rights, Equity, and Decolonization; the Social Justice Research Institute; the MA Program in Social Justice and Equity Studies; the Indigenous Educational Studies and the Centre for Women’s and Gender Studies. It was hosted by associate professors Dr. Margot Francis, Dr. Gökbörü Sarp Tanyildiz and Dr. Tami Friedman.
The event featured three scholars from the Jewish Faculty Network — Dr. Alejandro Paz, associate professor of anthropology at the University of Toronto (UofT); Dr. Sheryl Nestel, sociologist and affiliated scholar at UofT; and Jillian Rogin, criminal defence lawyer and associate professor within University of Windsor’s faculty of law.
The panel presented a cross-disciplinary analysis informed by decades of historical research, contemporary social data and unfolding legal reforms. All three speakers argued that accusations of antisemitism are being increasingly used to silence criticism of Israeli state violence at a moment that they identified as genocidal, rather than to protect Jewish communities from genuine harm. The panel discussed how accusations of antisemitism can be weaponized to shield Israel from accountability amidst the ongoing genocide in Palestine, suppress Palestinian advocacy and expand policing and criminalization in Canada, all within the historical context of Palestine, Israel, and settler colonialism
Dr. Alejandro Paz opened the discussion by warning against the isolation of antisemitism from other racialized ideologies. “To properly deal with antisemitism, we need to be able to deal with racism and bigotry of all kinds,” said Paz. “Our struggles are united.”
Paz pointed to recent comments by conservative commentators, including Elon Musk’s “Sieg Heil Hitler salute,” Charlie Kirk’s claims that “Jews control media industries” and Candace Owen’s statements that Judaism is a “pedophile-centric religion that believes in demons and child sacrifice” as evidence that classic antisemitism is not only alive but flourishing on the political right.
For Paz, the danger lies not only in the resurgence of overt antisemitic expression, but also in the political choice by pro-Israel organizations to treat antisemitism as a uniquely separate phenomenon.
“They do not want to place antisemitism alongside other forms of racism,” he explained, arguing that doing so would require these institutions to acknowledge “their own Islamophobia and anti-Arab and anti-Palestinian racism.”
Paz traced the origins of what is now commonly referred to as the “new antisemitism” to the period following the 1967 war, when Israel’s military occupation of the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem triggered a wave of international criticism. Rather than responding to this criticism on political grounds, Paz explained that some Israeli leaders and affiliated organizations reframed it as racial animus.
Paz cited former Israeli Foreign Minister Abba Eban’s early articulation of this approach: “Anti-Zionism is merely the new antisemitism.” Paz argued that this rhetorical strategy positioned the State of Israel as “the so-called collective Jew,” making political critique appear indistinguishable from antisemitic hatred.
Paz continued to highlight how this dynamic is now embedded in the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism, a widely promoted document whose examples warn that describing Israel as a racist endeavour or applying “double standards” to the Israeli state may constitute antisemitism.
For Paz, a historical account directly contests this definitional logic, noting that an “evidence-based discussion of the ongoing settler-colonial enterprise is not antisemitism,” but a necessary part of any honest political analysis.
Dr. Sheryl Nestel expanded on Paz’s framing by examining what she described as the contemporary moral panic surrounding antisemitism. While acknowledging recent violent incidents targeting Jewish schools and community spaces in Canada, Nestel argued that pro-Israel organizations have vastly overstated the threat posed by pro-Palestine activism.
Nestel said, “accusations that tens of thousands protesting Israel’s assault on Gaza are primarily motivated by antisemitism have been central in attempting to rally support for Israel as it carries out what has been characterized as a plausible genocide.”
She continued to highlight a series of annual “audits” released by B’nai Brith Canada, which report record levels of antisemitic incidents which include criticism of Israel and attendance at Palestine solidarity demonstrations as evidence of antisemitism. She contrasted these statements with sociological studies showing low levels of antisemitic sentiment among the Canadian public, noting that, “for most individuals and most groups, anti-Zionism is not antisemitism.”
Nestel — like Paz — emphasized that central to the weaponization of antisemitism is the IHRA Working Definition, which she said has been aggressively promoted by Israeli government bodies and pro-Israel organizations worldwide. “What renders the definition controversial is the inclusion of 11 examples of antisemitism, seven of which define strong criticism of Israel as antisemitic,” said Nestel. She described IHRA as a global strategy intended to silence Palestinian narratives and suppress academic freedom, noting that over 700 Canadian academics and the Canadian Association of University Teachers have publicly opposed its adoption.
Her critique aligns with findings published in the Jewish Faculty Network’s recent report, The CIJA Report: A Pattern of Anti-Palestinian Racism and Genocide Denial at the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs. The report, which analyzed more than 1,600 CIJA posts and media statements, concluded that the organization engages in “racism, the dehumanization of Palestinians, the promotion of unconditional support for the State of Israel, and the silencing of Palestinians and their allies.”
Nestel referenced similar patterns in her talk, notably the tendency to equate criticism of Israel with threats to Jewish safety. “It’s imperative that we separate clear antisemitic threats from politically motivated actions and words,” she said, noting that treating Palestinian advocacy as antisemitic erases genuine instances of white supremacist antisemitism, which remains the primary driver of anti-Jewish violence in North America.
The evening’s final speaker, Jillian Rogin, traced how these rhetorical trends are reshaping Canadian criminal law. “Pro-Israel lobby groups […] have played an important role in framing Palestinians and Palestinian activism as an existential threat to Jewish people,” she stated.
Rogin discussed how this framing has underpinned a series of legislative changes and proposed changes that effectively criminalize anti-Zionism. She began with the 2022 amendments to the Criminal Code, which created a new offense of “willfully promoting antisemitism” through Holocaust denial.
While Holocaust denial is widely condemned, Rogin argued that the law’s narrow focus — restricting criminalization to denial of the Jewish Holocaust — “makes the Jewish experience of genocide exceptional,” leaving denial of other genocides, not limited to but including that of Indigenous and Black peoples in North America, untouched.
Rogin was especially concerned by the now defeated 2024 Online Harms Act, which proposed a maximum life sentence for certain hate speech offenses and allowed people to obtain restraining orders on the basis of fearing that someone might express hate in the future. “Thought itself could have criminal consequences,” she warned, adding that “thinking Palestine was at risk of becoming criminalized.”
She explained that, although the bill did not pass, its logic reappeared in the 2025 Bill C-9, which expands the definition of hate crimes, introduces new offenses tied to public protest and removes longstanding oversight requirements for prosecuting hate propaganda. The cumulative effect, Rogin argued, is to give police broad discretion to target pro-Palestinian activism.
She cited the arrest of a Toronto protester charged with “causing a disturbance” for chanting “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” and the use of no-knock warrants against activists who splashed red paint on Indigo bookstore windows to protest the CEO’s investments in Israeli military initiatives. “None of the 11 protesters were convicted,” she noted, emphasizing that the charges were labeled hate-motivated despite the absence of evidence.
She concluded that “more policing, more state repression, more Criminal Code offenses, more jail will not make any of us safe. When I hear calls for more policing, I hear calls for more violence, more racism and more unsafety.”
She argued that criminalizing anti-Zionism ultimately heightens danger for Palestinians, racialized communities and even Jewish communities, as it further conflates Jewish identity with the political project of Zionism.
Rogin concluded the panel stating, “Jewish people will not be safe until we stop equating being Jewish with being Zionist […] until Palestine is free.”
The panelists expressed that there is a coordinated and escalating attempt to redefine antisemitism in a way that shields state violence from scrutiny. Their critiques of the IHRA definition and their reliance on independent research, including the Jewish Faculty Network’s CIJA report, outline that antisemitism is being transformed from a term describing racialized hatred into a political instrument aimed at suppressing legitimate dissent, undermining academic freedom and criminalizing solidarity with Palestinians.
With recognition to a moment when scholars, students and activists face mounting surveillance and sanction for speaking out, the panelists argued that defending the integrity of antisemitism as a concept — and resisting its weaponization — is essential not only for Palestinian liberation, but also for the safety and future of Jewish communities.