The Canadian Medical Association Appears To Be Institutionally Antisemitic
I'm not sure what else to conclude
As antisemitism skyrockets and rages the world over - including for Canada’s medical community - worse than silence has come from the Canadian Medical Association (CMA). I will explain what I mean by worse than silence in a moment, but first, a far from exhaustive recounting on what the CMA’s silence has ignored these past 4 weeks:
Gasoline and antisemitic messages were found in a clinical area of the Ottawa hospital
A prominent Jewish Ob/Gyn in Montreal saw a fake Facebook page created where his home address was shared along with fake inflammatory islamophobic statements from him (not linking as the fake page with his doxxing is still up).
A Jewish physician working at Toronto’s Trillium Health Network received an antisemitic death threat
Medical students in various schools including at least Western, McGill, the University of Ottawa, are facing formal investigations for inciting hatred against their Jewish classmates including one who posted, “Now we understand why trees and stones will have to speak” in reference to the Hamas charter that states, “The stones and trees will say, 'O Muslim, O servant of God, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him'“, and one who mocked his Israeli and Jewish classmates among many other posts.
Multiple physicians took to social media to deny accounts of Hamas’ atrocities including one who was suspended in Toronto.
BC Green party Candidate, pediatric cardiologist Sanjiv Ghandi, was comfortable liking a tweet likening Dr. Bonnie Henry to Dr. Mengele
A Montreal synagogue and a Montreal Jewish community centre were firebombed
Police are posted outside perhaps all Jewish day schools but certainly at least outside those in BC, Ontario, Alberta, and Quebec.
Ottawa’s largest Jewish day school has faced at least one bomb threat and its students on multiple days have been keep inside during recess for their safety.
An arrest was made following death threats made to an Ottawa rabbi
Jewish owned businesses in Toronto faced calls for their boycott, libel of their owners, and staged antisemitic social media stunts.
Swastikas and other incitements of antisemitic hate are hoisted and tolerated if not welcomed at large weekly anti-Israel rallies taking place in all of Canada’s major cities which regularly justify the mass slaughter of Jews as resistance.
Across the country, Jewish medical students and faculty are creating Whatsapp, Facebook, and in person support groups for one another. The meeting I attended heard Jewish University of Ottawa medical students stating they did not feel like any care was being made to ensure a safe learning environment for them, and that in every discussion they’ve had with non-Jewish faculty and student groups, their concerns have been minimized.
Meanwhile, at Jewish dinner tables across the country, discussions abound about whether our mezuzahs are safe to be left hanging, our stars of david are safe to remain visible, on the many people we once thought were friends and allies but now know better, and on whether our fears are existential or just devastating.
Though statements from Universities, hospitals and medical associations condemning the largest mass slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust on October 7th were eventually released, many of these statements only came about after pressure from Jewish physicians and students when they saw none were forthcoming (Jewish medical students, in response to silence, even drafted an open letter asking for same on October 10th). Of those that were eventually released many were vague failing to mention victim or perpetrator (like this one from the University of Toronto) and where often among those that did moral relativism between barbaric terror and Israel’s response were a feature.
It took the CMA 8 days to publish their statement.
One might think that given the unprecedented explosion of antisemitism in Canada, the CMA would want to speak out plainly against it, both consequent to that being the moral thing to do, but also to show support to its Jewish members. But so far as mentioned, all we’ve heard is worse that silence.
Worse than silence because the CMA hasn’t just stayed silent. No. Instead the CMA contributed to the hate faced by Jewish Canadians and Jewish CMA members. And not just once.
First the CMA and its President Dr. Kathleen Ross both independently promoted the Al-Ahli hospital antisemitic blood libel that led to the burning of synagogues, the scuttling of diplomacy, and global rioting. And while many outlets and organizations also spread this blood libel, unlike them the CMA and Dr. Ross did so after evidence proving Israel had not bombed the Al-Ahli hospital had been released and confirmed.
Unsurprisingly, many people reached out to ask for those tweets’ immediate retractions and corrections. Many more hours later, Dr. Ross deleted hers (the CMA left theirs up - more on that in a moment) leading me to my tweet here
The CMA’s President, in response to my tweet above, rather than engaging me, blocked me on Twitter (for more on this and background on blood libels in general you can click here) and soon thereafter with a strawman fallacy explained how she was the victim in all of this in a tweet that quoted and amplified the CMA’s still posted blood libel
Given the CMA’s still posted blood libel, more Jewish physicians wrote to various members of the CMA’s leadership with their concerns only to be ignored for over a week. We received responses only after this post calling out that silence was sent to every single member of the CMA’s board of directors.
It took an additional day for the CMA’s blood libel promoting tweet to be deleted, and for a vague “apology for any harm it might have caused”to be provided. Not provided were any explanation of what that harm was, who was harmed, and what remedies are being undertaken to ensure it doesn’t happen again.
It then came to light that one of the CMA’s board members also trafficked in antisemitic blood libels (plural), spread conspiracy theories about them, defended the eliminationist chant “From the River to the Sea”, and equated Zionism (the simple belief that Jews are a people deserving of self-determination in their own land) with genocide.
With respect to the board member, the CMA has been aware of his postings at least since November 2nd when I wrote about them, but as of today he’s still on their masthead and certainly no statements have been publicly issued even to weakly say that he doesn’t speak for the CMA despite being their board member.
To be clear, I have no doubt that the CMA has non-antisemitic board members and staff. That said, it’s difficult for me, with not only silence from the CMA on the explosion of antisemitism that’s left Jewish medical students and staff feeling unsafe and unsupported and the Jewish community as a whole terrified, but also with the CMA’s own contributions to those feelings, to conclude anything other than the CMA is itself an institutionally antisemitic organization.