A Canary’s Song: Antisemitism in Our “Free and Democratic Society”
About this Event
Purchase your ticket for the in-person full day conference or sign-up for the Student pricing is available with valid student ID, required at entry.
See below for conference agenda.
----
In this one-day conference of distinguished scholars and experts inhistory, politics, law, human rights, law enforcement, and, of course,specifically in the nature and history of antisemitism and antizionism, we will strive forunderstanding rather than for activism, and for moral clarity rather thanmoralizing.
History has shown that a society’s attitude towards the Jewish people—regardless of whether Jews actually live there—discloses something important about the nature, character and vitality of that society’s public morality and civic culture, and about its socio-economic well-being and political stability.
Contempt for a society’s Jewish population foretells a wider moral decay and threatens the foundations of liberal democracy itself. In the current moment—in the aftermath of Bondi Beach, Washington, DC. and Amsterdam, and against a backdrop of increasing numbers of recent attacks on Jewish institutions, Jewish homes and Jewish individuals in Canada—Canadian civil society is facing a dark reckoning. One must begin not with combatting this scourge but with understanding it in all of its manifestations.
Chair: Peter L. Biro
Special Features: Fireside Chat between Ambassador (ret.) Deborah E. Lipstadt, Ph.D. Distinguished University Professor Emory University and Ambassador (ret.) Deborah Lyons – Closing Address from The Honourable Irwin Cotler, PC, OC, OQ.
----
Welcome: Melanie Woodin (President, University of Toronto), and Rabbi Steven Wernick (Senior Rabbi, Beth Tzedec Congregation)
----
Setting the Stage: The virtuous Jew-hatred that undercuts liberal democratic civic culture
- Peter L. Biro (Founder, Section 1, Senior Fellow, Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights and The Aristotle Foundation For Public Policy)
----
Panel: The Contemporary face of Jew-Hatred: Antizionism as Transmutation of Antisemitism AND/OR as distinct Hatred.
- Dr. Naya Lekht (Co-founder of Stop Antizionism, an educational organization dedicated to identifying, defining, and confronting antizionism as the "third era of Jew-hatred." She is also a Research Fellow at the Institute for Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP) and a regular contributor to JNS and the Jerusalem Post.)
- Adam Louis-Klein (Anthropologist, Founder, Movement Against Antizionism – MAAZ, Fellow at Z3 Institute and at London Centre for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism)
- Casey Babb (Senior Fellow, MacDonald Laurier Institute, Fellow, Institute for National Security Studies, Adjunct Prof, Norman Paterson School of International Affairs)
- Moderated by Wodek Szemberg
----
Panel: Civil liberties, Hate, Incitement & Lawfare
- Mark Sandler (One of Canada’s foremost criminal defence lawyers, and cofounder and Chair, Alliance of Canadians Combatting Antisemitism)
- Alan Kessel (Former Assistant Deputy Minister Legal Affairs and Legal Adviser, Government of Canada—Global Affairs Canada; Senior Fellow, Macdonald Laurier Institute)
- Michael Geist (O.Ont., Professor of Law, University of Ottawa, Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law.)
- Moderated by Patrick Brethour
----
Lunchtime talk: Antisemitism – the term that will lead to destruction of the West with Raheel Raza
----
Keynote Event: What the current Jew-hatred tells us about the state of our democracy. Fireside Chat between Deborah Lipstadt and Deborah Lyons.
- Ambassador (ret.) Deborah E. Lipstadt, Ph.D. Distinguished University Professor Emory University
- Ambassador (ret.) Deborah Lyons (former Canadian Special Envoy for Preserving Holocaust Remembrance and Combatting Antisemitism, and Special Representative of the Secretary-General of the UN for Afghanistan)
----
Panel: Antisemitism in our institutions in Healthcare, in Government, in the University, in Law Enforcement
- Pekka Sinervo (U of T Particle Physicist, former Dean of Arts and Science, President, Council of Reform Judaism, Chair, World Union for Progressive Judaism, Head of Association of Jewish Faculty and Staff, U of T)
- Ayelet Kuper (Professor, Faculty of Medicine, U of T, Associate Director, the Wilson Centre, Institute for Health Policy, Management and Evaluation, Rhodes Scholar, Senior Fellow, Massey College)
- Cary Kogan (Professor, Clinical Psychology, University of Ottawa, President, Network of Engaged Canadian Academics
(NECA) - Hank Idsinga (Inspector (ret.) Toronto Police Services, Head of Homicide, and author – reflecting on antisemitism in law enforcement
- Moderated by Rabbi Yael Splansky
----
The Last Word: The Hon. Irwin Cotler (Founder and Chair of the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights, Former Justice Minister and Attorney General, Canada, Human Rights)
For media accreditation, contact [email protected].
Where is it happening?
Event Location & Nearby Stays:
CAD 55.00 to CAD 95.00
