About 150 pro-Israel supporters turned up at the scene of the months-long anti-Semitic UofT encampment — finally cleared in July — to tell the university’s administrators they’ve done a terrible job of containing Jew hatred on campus.
The star of the rally was Shai Davidai, the Columbia professor who has spent the last year fighting Jew hatred on his NYC campus.
He was in town Monday night and Tuesday to share ideas on how to deal with rampant Jew hatred on our campuses and on our streets.
Davidai, an Israeli, was banned temporarily from the Columbia campus last week for allegedly “harassing” college officials in a video calling out their failure to address hateful counter protests during an Oct. 7 memorial to the atrocities of the year before.
At UofT Monday, he called out the pro-Hamas and pro-Hezbollah students who have masked up and are afraid to show their faces lest mommy and daddy who are paying their tuition would see what they’re doing with their money.
“For the past year these pro-Hamas supporters and their professors have made the university uninhabitable for Jews,” Davidai said.
”We are here to say, ‘No More.’”
Davidai said the rally was also in response to news of a UofT professor publishing her course synopsis, saying Zionists were banned from her space.
That professor is Sumayyia Kassamali and she wrote this for her “Rethinking Diaspora” course.
“That’s an admonishment on the university for not finding the right professors,” Davidai said. ”We are here to show them what Zionism really means.”
When I contacted the university about this blatant anti-Semitism, a spokesman said the Zionism reference was removed but due to privacy issues, nothing more could be said.
The spokesman, who didn’t provide a name, said the course is at the graduate level and not required (I’m not sure why that matters.)
Davidai said he is at the university to oppose its administration.
”I am a loud Zionist, I am a proud Zionist and I am an unapologetic Zionist… I have nothing to apologize for,” he said, as he told the crowd not to pay attention to the “moral narcissists” who were trying to disrupt the rally.
The usual masked suspects turned up to try to harass and film the rally participants. Activist and former CBC journalist Samaria Mohyeddin tried to get in participants’ faces with her videographer.
Mohyeddin was recently listed in a report from the Israeli Ministry for Diaspora Affairs and Combatting Anti-Semitic as an “influencer” who “promotes anti-Ziknoist and anti-Semitic content” on her various platforms.
Davidai said the future of the Jewish state, Jews in the Diaspora and the future of democracy all over the world is at stake.
“Do we stand with morality or do we stand with evil?” Davidai said.
”Do we stand with democracy or do we stand with the terrorists and their supporters?”
Esther Bakinka, who helped create Canadian Women Against Anti-Semitism, begged everyone to be on the “right side of history” and not let the Hamasniks take over Canada.
Eynat Katz, a grandchild of Holocaust survivors, said everyone who has come to her for help this year wants to remain anonymous.
“Our biggest problem is fear,” she said.
“Stand up…use your face, use your voice!”
