Victoria University is a federated college of the University of Toronto. The school was founded in 1836 by the Wesleyan Methodist Church of Canada as a nonsectarian literary institution. From 1841 to 1890,Victoria operated as an independent degree-granting university,before federating with the University of Toronto in 1890,relocating from Cobourg to Toronto.
Mahmoud Abbas,also known by the kunya Abu Mazen,is a Palestinian politician who has been serving as the president of the State of Palestine and the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) since 2005. He has been the chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) since 2004,PNA president since January 2005,and State of Palestine president since May 2005. Abbas is also a member of the Fatah party and was elected chairman in 2009.
Yehuda Bauer was a Czech-born Israeli historian and scholar of the Holocaust. He was a professor of Holocaust studies at the Avraham Harman Institute of Contemporary Jewry at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Ghazi-Walid Falah is a Bedouin Israeli Palestinian-Canadian geographer,who was a tenured professor at the University of Akron,Ohio. He is an expert on political,social and urban geography of the Middle East and the Arab World,with special emphasis on Israel. He has published over 45 articles in 23 peer-reviewed journals,and he has given papers at conferences. He is author and co-editor of five books and monographs,including Geographies of Muslim Women,co-edited with Caroline Nagel. He also has co-authored articles with colleagues,David Newman and Colin Flint,with whom he has conducted joint research.
The Canadian Arab Federation (CAF) was formed in 1967 to represent the interests of Arab Canadians with respect to the formulation of public policy in Canada. It presently consists of over 40 member organizations.
Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW) is an annual series of university lectures and rallies held in February or March. According to the organization,"the aim of IAW is to educate people about the nature of Israel as an apartheid system and to build Boycott,Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaigns as part of a growing global BDS movement." Since IAW began in Toronto in 2005,it has spread to at least 55 cities,including locations in Australia,Austria,Brazil,Botswana,Canada,France,Germany,India,Italy,Japan,Jordan,South Korea,Malaysia,Mexico,Norway,Palestine,South Africa,the United Kingdom,and the United States.
Disinvestment from Israel is a campaign that aims to use disinvestment to pressure the government of Israel to put "an end to the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories captured during the 1967 military campaign." The disinvestment campaign is related to other economic and political boycotts of Israel.
Antisemitism in Canada is the manifestation of hatred,hostility,harm,prejudice or discrimination against the Canadian Jewish people or Judaism as a religious,ethnic or racial group. Some of the first Jewish settlers in Canada arrived in Montreal in the 1760s,among them was Aaron Hart who is considered the father of Canadian Jewry. His son Ezekiel Hart experience one of the first well documented cases of antisemitism in Canada. Hart was repeatedly stopped from taking his seat in the Quebec legislature due to his Jewish faith,as members claimed he could not take the oath of office,which included the phrase "on the true faith of a Christian".
The Ontario division of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) has supported the Boycott,Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel since 2006. Their stance has encountered opposition from the Canadian Jewish Congress and parts of the press but also widespread support from university professors,Independent Jewish Voices,Palestine House,Canadian Arab Federation and labour unions. In 2009 the CUPE Ontario university workers' committee proposed to extend the campaign to boycott any joint work with Israeli institutions that carry out military research. That resolution became the focus of extensive controversy and was modified in response to pressure from the CUPE national president;the amended version was brought before the CUPE Ontario conference in May 2009 and passed with a 2/3 majority.
Eric Sheppard is a British and American geographer,and Professor of Economic geography at UCLA.
Boycott,Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) is a nonviolent Palestinian-led movement promoting boycotts,divestments,and economic sanctions against Israel. Its objective is to pressure Israel to meet what the BDS movement describes as Israel's obligations under international law,defined as withdrawal from the occupied territories,removal of the separation barrier in the West Bank,full equality for Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel,and "respecting,protecting,and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties". The movement is organized and coordinated by the Palestinian BDS National Committee.
Gordon Leslie Clark,FBA FAcSS is an Australian economic geographer,academic,and consultant. He is former Executive Director of the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment,University of Oxford (2013-2018) with cross appointments in the Saïd Business School and the School of Geography and the Environment. Clark's latest work focuses on the geographical structure and performance of financial markets and organisations. He wrote and co-wrote multiple books in these subjects,including The Geography of Finance,Sovereign Wealth Funds,and Institutional Investors in Global Markets.
Boycotts of Israel are the refusal and calls to refusal of having commercial or social dealings with Israel in order to influence Israel's practices and policies by means of using economic pressure. The specific objective of Israel boycotts varies;the Boycott,Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement calls for boycotts of Israel "until it meets its obligations under international law",and the purpose of the Arab League's boycott of Israel was to prevent Arab states and others from contributing to Israel's economy. Israeli officials have characterized the BDS movement as antisemitic.
The current campaign for an academic boycott of Israel was launched in April 2004 by the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) as part of the Boycott,Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign. The campaign calls for BDS activities against Israel to put international pressure on Israel,in this case against Israeli academic institutions,all of which are said by PACBI to be implicated in the perpetuation of Israeli occupation,in order to achieve BDS goals. Since then,proposals for academic boycotts of particular Israeli universities and academics have been made by academics and organisations in Palestine,the United States,the United Kingdom,and other countries. The goal of the proposed academic boycotts is to isolate Israel in order to force a change in Israel's policies towards the Palestinians,which proponents argue are discriminatory and oppressive,including oppressing the academic freedom of Palestinians.
Students Supporting Israel is a Zionist international student activist movement that supports Israel as a Jewish and democratic nation-state. "SSI mission is to be a clear and confident pro-Israel voice,and to support students in grassroots activism". As of June 2024,SSI has more than 130 chapters across campuses in the United States,Canada,and Argentina. SSI was founded in 2012 in Minnesota,in March of 2014 Indiana University and DePaul University students registered SSI chapters on their campuses turning SSI to a national movement. The first university to open an SSI club in Canada was the Toronto Metropolitan University on April of 2014. By October of 2014 and the new fall semester,SSI was approved as a 501c3 non-profit organization and operated on 27 campuses. From October 2023 until the end of the 2023/4 academic year,more than 50 schools started an SSI club on their campus. SSI national offices are in Minneapolis. The founders of the organizations are Ilan Sinelnikov,Valeria Chazin,and Naor Bitton.
Reactions to Boycott,Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) refer to the views of international actors on the BDS movement.
Rhonda L. Lenton is a Canadian academic administrator and professor. She became the 8th and current president and vice-chancellor of York University in Toronto,Canada,upon succeeding Mamdouh Shoukri on July 1,2017 for a five-year term. She previously served as Dean of Atkinson College and later as York's Vice President Academic and Provost. Prior to her role in academic administration,Lenton was a Professor of Sociology. During her research career,Lenton led randomized public telephone surveys of social issues such as Internet dating,sexual assaults,and continues to examine Judaism in Canada.
Doris Leanna Bergen is a Canadian academic and Holocaust historian. She is the Chancellor Rose and Ray Wolfe Professor of Holocaust Studies at the University of Toronto,the only endowed chair in Canada in Holocaust history. Bergen is also a member of the Academic Advisory Committee of the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 2018.
Ran Hirschl is a political scientist and comparative legal scholar. He is the David R. Cameron Distinguished Professor of Law and Politics at the University of Toronto. Previously,he held the Canada Research Chair in Constitutionalism,Democracy and Development at the University of Toronto. He is the author of several major books and over one hundred and fifty articles on constitutional law and its intersection with comparative politics and society. In 2014,he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. In 2021,he was awarded the Stein Rokkan Prize for Comparative Social Science Research for his book City,State:Constitutionalism and the Megacity.
