It was a beautiful day for a protest.
However, only a few dozen people turned up to the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) headquarters Wednesday afternoon to express their concerns about the controversial 170-page Islamic Heritage Month guide.
While a handful of counter-protesters (in favour of the guide) looked on, Jewish Defence League (JDL) head Meir Weinstein said after they exposed that the manual had links to articles about radical Islam — one in particular from the Islamophobic Research and Documentation Project (IRDP) that compared Zionism to Nazi-like atrocities — TDSB officials agreed to remove them.
“That chapter provides incitement and is extremely disturbing,” he said, calling for the entire guidebook to be trashed.
Weinstein said the guide also features speakers which call for an Intifada in North America.
The online guide, which cost $6,000 to design and produce, according to TDSB spokesman Ryan Bird, has not been “distributed within the system.”
Bird assured me Wednesday the electronic copy is being “updated” to remove the offensive link.
He said the cast of teachers identified in the manual worked “during evenings, weekend and during the summer” to produce the guide — including equity and anti-oppression superintendent Jeewan Chanicka, who was one of the organizers of Sunday’s Rally against White Supremacy.
(According to Bird, many TDSB staff members have causes, organizations and social justice issues they “invest their personal time in” and Chanicka was not at the rally as a TDSB representative).
Counter-protester Andrea Vasquez-Jimenez, co-chairman of the LAEN, Latinx, Afro-Latin-American, Abya Yala Education Network, said they definitely support both Jewish and Muslim heritages — that they are not “mutually exclusive.”
She said there’s lots of collaboration between Jewish and Muslim organizations here in Toronto.
“We’re just trying to show it’s not one or another ... the TDSB is not anti-Semitic,” she said, noting they’re putting together their own resource guide in honour of Latin-American history month next April for teachers and youth.
Avi Benlolo, CEO of the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Centre (FWSC), issued a statement Wednesday saying that following in-depth conversations, school board officials agreed not just to remove the link to anti-Semitic material but continue to review the guidebook to ensure compliance with the TDSB’s principles of equity.
Benlolo said in his statement that FWSC is launching its own resource guide for Jewish Heritage Month in May (that can be used by school boards across Canada.)