Hundreds of people arrived at a Toronto neighborhood on Friday morning to show their support to a family whose children were victims of antisemitism on their way to school, according to Canadian media reports.
According to the reports, Adi Cohen - an Israeli mother of four who lives in Toronto - has reported to local authorities that her two older kids were victims of ongoing antisemitic harassment. On November 2023 Cohen’s son, 13, was surrounded by three other kids at school who were being physical with him, “pushing and shoving him, and saying they want to ‘do to him what Hamas did to Israel,” The Canadian Jewish News (CJN) cited Cohen.
However, after the incident was investigated by the Faywood Arts-Based Curriculum School (ward five) principal and the police, “they wanted us to know that ‘comments were made on both sides,’” and the aggressors were not punished, Cohen reported to CJN.
“They took the aggressors’ words for what happened without even asking and the aggressors denied everything that happened,” Canada’s National Post (NP) cited Cohen regarding the incident.
NP further reported that Cohen’s children were the subject of bullying at their school in incidents since before Hamas’ October 7 attack, though it has escalated since the attack. According to the NP, Cohen filed three police reports following the school’s failure to create an adequately safe environment for her kids.
The old saying is that it takes a village to raise a child, but it shouldn’t take a village to walk a child to school.
Toronto Sun
Walk of support
On Thursday, according to the Toronto Sun, when stones were thrown at Cohen’s young son as he was walking home, she asked for help from her community. Following the incident, Cohen spoke with other parents in the community, sharing with them her child’s antisemitic bullying experience.
The following day, “the young boy had an escort numbering in the hundreds,” the Sun reported.
According to NP’s report, before Friday’s support walk - organized by the community on WhatsApp - a flyer was made to call for people’s support. Importantly, the flyer stated that the gathering aims to support the child, and therefore there should be no megaphones or flags, as “this is about our children’s safety.”
Other than parents with their children from the school who attended the walk of support, Member of the House of Commons of Canada Kevin Vuong, Member of Provincial Parliament for York Centre Michael Kerzner, and Toronto City Councillor James Pasternak participated in the walk and showed their support of Cohen’s young children, according to their X, formerly Twitter, social media accounts.Simply being a Jewish child is now a safety risk in Canada. pic.twitter.com/LvUvca8u5u
— dahlia kurtz ✡︎ דליה קורץ (@DahliaKurtz) May 17, 2024
Voug spoke at the gathering, comparing Hamas’ invasion of Israel’s border on October 7 to Al’Qaeda’s terror attack on the US’s World Trade Center on 11 September 2001.
Kerzner posted on X regarding his participation at Friday’s walk of support for Cohen’s child, stating that antisemitism has no place at schools and that students should feel safe at all times.
Pasternak termed the gathering as a “coming together to fight bullying and antisemitism,” in a post on X, sharing a video of the gathering. He further stated in the post “The tools are there for the [Toronto District School Board] to keep all students safe.”Today I joined my #YorkCentre community in solidarity against anti-semitism in our schools, which is totally unacceptable. Every student must always feel safe.@UJAFederation @yallacommunity @CIJAinfo @PasternakTO @bnaibrithcanada pic.twitter.com/3GcdR2bX0l
— Michael Kerzner (@MPPKerzner) May 17, 2024
A great coming together to fight bullying and #antisemitism. The tools are there for the @tdsb to keep all students safe. https://t.co/DCegfTJm8H
— James Pasternak (@PasternakTO) May 17, 2024
The aftermath of the walk
Following the walk, Cohen shared with NP that the support was “very helpful,” and that she “believes that [my son] feels that he’s not alone,” which gave him “courage and strength to keep on standing up for himself and for others.”
Cohen further shared with NP that her family will return to Israel, however, she urged the school to “do something,” as “they’re doing literally nothing.”
The Toronto District School Board has yet to issue an official comment on this but a school official stressed that anti-bullying and anti-Semitism training has been deployed across the board, including at Faywood, The Sun reported.
Alexandra Lulka Rotman, ward five school trustee stated that she “was outraged and troubled to hear of this incident,” and has been in contact with the Cohen family as she began monitoring the situation, in an emailed response to CJN.
She further claimed to have “witnessed pervasive antisemitism in our school board, and I too have been its target.” She further stated that It is the school board’s duty to ensure student safety and that all students, “including Jewish and Zionist students,” are entitled to feel safe in their schools and classrooms.