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Anti-Israel Groups Are Targeting Jewish Children’s Camps Now

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There has been a targeted antisemitic effort targeting synagogues and Jewish schools in North America since the October 7, 2023, terror attacks in Israel. Now in Canada, anti-Israel groups are targeting Jewish children’s camps, saying they “support a genocidal state.”

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The goal of this is to disrupt and end Jewish social life and Jewish culture in Canada and elsewhere.

It should be unacceptable.

While there are no Hamas camps in Canada, a nonprofit based in Vancouver turned out to be a front for a terrorist organization.

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Those camps don’t exist because Canada still classifies Hamas as a terrorist organization.

Where are all the Leftists who see Nazis all over the place? They’re pretty quiet right now.

Thankfully, the Ontario Camps Association has issued a statement condeming the letter.

Here’s some of what it said:

In recent days, the Ontario Camps Association (OCA) Board of Directors became aware of correspondence circulating online related to the current conflict in the Middle East. That correspondence contains statements and expressions that the Board finds deeply concerning and in certain characterizations and claims, we believe reflect rhetoric that is discriminatory and antisemitic in nature. The accusations, aimed at our Executive Director, members of the OCA team, and several member camps draw directly on stereotyped libels and tropes related to Israel, Zionism and Jewish people – including ‘genocide’ and ‘colonizers’, symbolic categories that are so often spread with specifically malicious intent.

Our understanding of this particular campaign, based on publicly available information, is that this correspondence forms part of a coordinated campaign directed at provincial camping associations in Ontario, Quebec, and Nova Scotia. The stated objective of that campaign is to pressure accreditation bodies to revoke or reconsider the standing of Jewish camps and to seek disciplinary action against staff. The campaign has been implemented through organized email actions targeting association boards. Campaigns such as these can be a dangerous expression of the singular demonization and wholesale attempt at the delegitimization of one minority group and have no place in camp culture or elsewhere. Campaigns of this nature are part of a widespread insidious attempt that seeks to:

  • Undermine the welfare and safety of Jewish children, including at camps
  • Undermine the legitimacy of the leadership of the OCA (and elsewhere), Jewish camp Administrators in Canada, and Canadian Jewish life in general
  • Apply a bigoted litmus test on which Jews are considered ‘acceptable’ based on an external and false paradigm;
  • Distract from and disparage a long history of meaningful Jewish contributions to Canadian, and Canadian camp life; and
  • Undermine the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism which was adopted by both the Government of Canada and the Government of Ontario.

OCA is a provincial standards and accreditation body. We do not adjudicate international geopolitical conflicts, nor do we evaluate member camps based on their religious or cultural identity. Our role is to support camps across this province through standards, accreditation, education, and community leadership, and to ensure that camps meet established standards for safety, governance, and quality of programming. That mandate remains unchanged.

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” If only our governments and civil society orgs had the courage to be this clear two years ago, we might not be where we are now,” Roberts wrote on X.

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