Last Tuesday, I had the pleasure of attending the launch of La’ad Canada’s Who Are the Jews? travelling exhibit, along with city councillor James Pasternak, La’ad Canada’s director of advocacy Sam Eskenasi, and representatives of Hasbara Canada. We joined Bruno Pileggi and others at the headquarters of the Toronto Catholic District School Board in the neighbouring riding of Willowdale for the launch of this new exhibit.

The Jewish people have been around for millennia. Unfortunately, anti-Semitic incidents have also happened throughout history, and they’ve recently been on the rise again, including, sadly, here in Ontario and Toronto. In 2018, La’ad Canada commissioned a survey of Canadians to gauge their understanding of Jews and Judaism. The results unfortunately revealed that Canadians have little knowledge about the Jewish people and, more concerningly, that much of the information people thought they knew about the Jews was either false or based on anti-Semitic tropes.

When the cause of anti-Semitism is misinformation, or no information at all, the solution begins with gaining knowledge, and that is an understanding of who the Jews are. Exhibition visitors here will learn about where they come from, who they are, their connections to the land of Israel and how anti-Semitism differs from other forms of racism. Also, visitors can “ask a Jew anything” and they will answer the question. Someone is on hand to do that.

The exhibit is funded through our Anti-Racism and Anti-Hate Grant Program. It’s a perfect example of how education will fix racism and anti-Semitism. I encourage all school boards to adopt this exhibit and have it go through their schools.