You Can't Spell TDSB Without BDS

Last week, the Toronto District School Board held two virtual meetings that lasted seven hours each. In those 14 hours, trustees were set to vote on whether to receive a report on antisemitism in the county's biggest public school system—a report that offered 32 recommendations for confronting and mitigating antisemitism in public schools.

Once again, this was to vote on whether to receive the report. Not to enact all 32 recommendations, but simply to accept that it was done.

Why did it take 14 hours to discuss?

The meetings—which The CJN's education reporter, Mitchell Consky, attended—were bombarded by mostly anti-Zionist delegates who argued that the report should not consider anti-Zionism as a contemporary form of antisemitism. On the other hand, the community saw pro-Zionist activists slam the report for trying to shoehorn antisemitism into a "diversity, equity and inclusion" framework that create a hierarchy of victimhood. Consky joins Avi Finegold and Phoebe Maltz Bovy on Bonjour Chai to explain what went on in those titanic meetings and the shifting politics at play.

Credits

• Hosts: Avi Finegold and Phoebe Maltz Bovy (@BovyMaltz)
• Production team: Joe Fish (producer & editor), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music: Socalled

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