York Region School Board Incident Shows Need for Holocaust Education

July 10, 2001

For Immediate Release

Toronto… (July 10, 2001) The League for Human Rights of B’nai Brith Canada is disturbed by the attempt to disrupt a York Region District School Board Meeting last night in order to promote misinformation and misguided and historical inaccuracies. What started as an in-house problem has escalated into blatant lobbying to erode Holocaust education in York Region.

A member of the York Region’s Race Relations Advisory Committee, Bader Abu Zahra, was accused of antisemitism recently for distributing a review of a book titled Holocaust Industry, Reflections of the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering, which promotes the idea of a Jewish conspiracy to gain power and financial gain by exploiting the Holocaust. An e-mail was widely distributed yesterday discussing the need to come to the aid of a "Palestinian brother", Zahra, at a YRDBE Board Meeting although the issue was not on the agenda.

Zahra, along with his supporters, are trying to mislead the public into thinking that the York Region school curriculum teaches the Holocaust while ignoring other historical tragedies. “Holocaust education, in this and most school boards, has always been in the context of anti-racist education and it is dishonest to try to make the public believe that it hasn’t” stated Toni Silberman, Chair of the League for Human Rights, Ontario Region. “Trotting out Finkelstein’s review in this context is a deliberate attempt to vilify a specific group and promote hateful canards against, and defile the memory of, people who suffered unspeakable horrors. The use of the word ‘Holocaust’ to describe other tragedies is an effort to minimize the effect and the unique historical position of the attempted genocide of Jews in the Second World War.”

The League is concerned about the message being sent to students and teachers when a member of the Board’s own Race Relations Advisory Committee promulgates and disseminates these views. This incident illustrates the need to continue rigorous efforts to insure that every school board is diligent in insuring the Human Rights of all members of society are respected and upheld. The League, as part of its long involvement in the development of public education and anti-discrimination, anti-racist and Holocaust curricula, is finalizing its latest review of how the Holocaust is being taught in all levels of education across Canada.

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B’nai Brith has been active since 1875 as the country’s senior advocacy and volunteer agency.

For more information, please contact:
Amelia Golden, League for Human Rights - (416) 633-6224, ext. 130, (416)802-2163 (cell)