Presentation to Human Rights Committee of City of Winnipeg by Diane Zack

March 27, 2023

Good afternoon. My name is Diane Zack. I am a life-long Winnipegger and I’ve been a teacher for 35 years. I will be speaking against the adoption of the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism and will explain why. But before that, I would like to tell you more about myself, so you can better understand how I came to this conclusion. 

I am Jewish. Although I attended Winnipeg public schools in the North End where I grew up, I also went after regular school hours to Jewish parochial school for many years when I was young. I attended Jewish summer camp where we sang the Israeli national anthem alongside O Canada. In my youth, I was active in Jewish youth organizations and went to the YMHA, the Jewish version of the YMCA, every week. In many ways, I had a typical Winnipeg Jewish upbringing. This included the little blue box that we would put coins into for the Jewish National Fund to grow trees in Israel. To know more about this tradition, you can watch Canadian playwright and filmmaker Jason Sherman’s 2021 documentary,  My Tree, in which he makes the journey to Israel to find the tree that was planted in his name at the time of his Bar Mitzvah when he turned 13. 

I went to Machray School on Mountain Avenue for Kindergarden to Grade 6. We had one teacher we all knew was an anti-Semite so that became an awareness raiser of anti-Semitism at a young age. In that class, probably half the class were Jewish children. On our own, by the time we were 9 or 10 years old, my circle of girlfriends began learning about the Holocaust and reading adult books on the sly. Exodus by Leon Uris and others. Machray School was probably about 50% Jewish in those years, the 1950’s, yet we all gathered every day in the wide hallways in December to sing Christmas carols. This was before the time of inclusivity in the public schools. But, at the time, we, or at least some of us, accepted this; we knew we were ‘the other’ and the mainstream celebrated Christmas and did not recognize our holiday of Chanukah and that was just the way it was. The positive outcome was that I personally loved the Christmas carols, and do to this day. I know all the words, have my favourites, etc. We learned to glide or hum over the name of Jesus Christ when we sang the religious ones. While Christmas at school was acceptable to most of us, Easter was not. Some kids taunted us that we had killed Christ and this was difficult to manage at a young age.

Why would I dwell on my early years as an introduction to speaking about the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism? To show that I have identified as a Jewish person my whole life, and that it has always been an important part of who I am. But also that I grew up in the North End on Mountain Avenue with friends of other ethnicities that were prevalent at the time in my neighbourhood – mostly Ukrainian, Polish and German. There were a few Metis. We all played together.  At St. John’s Tech, where I went for Grades 7-12 in the 1960’s, the student body was heavy with Jewish and Ukrainian students, plus Polish, Hungarian, German, and others, and we all got along pretty well together. It was a great school and we were proud of it. At the time, there were only a few Indigenous students; the large influx of Indigenous families into the city had not happened yet, for many reasons. They were also looking for better opportunities for jobs, for education, for a future for their children. Any anti-Semitism we Jewish students experienced in those years paled in comparison to the discrimination and racism experienced by Indigenous youth in later years. And still does as we all know. 

It is a bit ludicrous that I feel I have to establish my Jewish credentials in order to defend my position in opposition to the adoption of the IHRA definition, which in fact is a position predicated by my criticism of Israel’s actions against the Palestinian people. Let me now explain this part of my history.

As I entered my teenage years, my awareness of Israel and Palestine began to change. I started to learn more about the origins of the state of Israel and most importantly, about the Palestinian people whom I had no knowledge of at all in my younger years. It was partly because I was Jewish that this became so important to me.  I had become knowledgeable about the experience of the Jewish people in the Holocaust, as I mentioned earlier, and felt it deeply. I read everything I could get my hands on about the Holocaust and still do. But the questions began forming in my mind, “After the Jewish people suffered and lost so much, how could Israel, the Jewish homeland, turn around and uproot and attack the Palestinian people?  How could Israel have been built on the basis of the destruction of Palestinian villages and homes? And the questions only grew as the years passed. How could Israel carry out the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza? How could Israel, which claims to be a great democracy,  become an apartheid state that officially discriminates against Palestinians and other Arab citizens? What is their definition of democracy?

So I began speaking out against the actions of the Israeli government in my early 20’s and have continued to do so since then, now for more than 50 years. In the early 1970s, there were not many of us Winnipeg Jews openly speaking out against the actions of the government of Israel and against Zionism. It was a very difficult scene. We were targeted and called many names like self-hating Jews or traitors. A friend of my mother’s whom I had known my whole life yelled at me in the street. One Jewish staff member at one of the public schools I worked in spread the false rumour that I had converted to Judaism because a real Jew would never speak out against Israel.  In social circles, other Jews who had become social activists and defenders of justice and equality on every other front, became silent when the topic of Israel came up as it was too difficult for them to take a stand against Israel’s actions and feel that they were still part of the tight Winnipeg Jewish community. It was very difficult to be objective. The mainstream Jewish community was united in support for Israel come hell or high water, regardless of what was actually going on in Israel. They were not at all interested in any discussion or dialogue about the situation. In my opinion, people had blinders on and were not willing to look at the reality.

The situation has changed somewhat. There are more of us Jews now in opposition to Israeli apartheid and the continued occupation of Palestine. There are more not only in Winnipeg, but all around North America, including rabbis. Many prominent Jewish writers, professors, and others have taken an open stand in support of the Palestinian people’s struggles. There are an increasing number of Jewish Israeli peace activists who oppose the actions of their own government towards Palestinians and are seeking a true peace.

I continue to be active in the Jewish community. I am a member of two Jewish organizations, the United Jewish People’s Order (UJPO) which has been around since 1945, and Independent Jewish Voices (IJV). I am a supporter of Jewish Child and Family Service. I attend Winnipeg Jewish Theatre. I value my Jewish heritage and am very proud to be Jewish. I honour my family ancestors, my grandparents who came from four different countries escaping pogroms in the early part of the 20th century. I am always trying to learn more of their history.

I have opposed anti-Semitism all my life, as well as all forms of racism. On this all of us presenters on both sides of the IHRA definition can agree. So why not support the IHRA definition? Are we not all opposed to anti-Semitism? Others have spoken about the definition in more detail this afternoon and others will speak about it after my presentation as well.  In a nutshell, it slips in points that include criticisms of Israel as being instances of anti-semitism. This is the problem with the definition. These points in the definition have been used to condemn those opposing Israel’s actions against Palestine, on various campuses and communities across Canada.  This is unacceptable. If taking a just stand in support of the Palestinian people’s struggle and against the occupation are to be labelled as anti-Semitic actions, and included in the statistics as instances of anti-Semitism, this is a terrible consequence of the IHRA definition.  If the Human Rights Committee of City Council supports this definition, you would be contributing to the suppression of voices supporting the Palestinian people’s struggles for equality and justice and for the right of return to their homes. 

This struggle is not ancient history. It is in our own lifetime. We must have the right to speak out against injustice wherever it occurs, including in Israel, without the fear of being called anti-Semites. This would be a terrible injustice.