Kosher food becomes a BDS flashpoint at Toronto college

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After an outcry and a rebuke from the University of Toronto president, the student union at a satellite campus modified a proposed ban on kosher foods in any way affiliated with Israel, but a campus Jewish campus group said the change made matters worse.

The board of directors of the University of Toronto Scarborough Campus Student Union convened for an emergency meeting Dec. 1 to address the outcry after a Nov. 24 resolution affirming the union’s boycott, divestment and sanctions policy regarding Israel placed restrictions on kosher food distribution.

The emergency meeting removed from the earlier pro-BDS resolution a passage that said: “Efforts should be made to source kosher food from organizations that do not normalize Israeli apartheid, however recognizing the limited availability of this necessity then exemptions can be made if no alternatives are available.”

The revision came after condemnations by Jewish students on campus, the university leadership and Canadian Jewish organizations. B’nai B’rith Canada said the original resolution would have “effectively shut down Jewish life” on the campus because the union “controls clubs funding, room booking and many other aspects of student life at the Scarborough Campus.”

Meric Gertler, the university president, said that the original resolution was inconsistent with the university’s “core values of freedom of speech and inclusion.”

A Jewish student campus group, UTSC Jewish Student Life said the revision made matters worse because the pro-BDS resolution retains a passage that says the union will “refrain from engaging with organizations, services, or participating in events that further normalize Israeli apartheid.”

Jewish Student Life said this requirement could conceivably apply to kosher food providers that have anything to do with Israel — and there was no longer an exemption for kosher food, however restrictive that exemption was.

“With the new motion there is still a ban on affiliation or even interaction with organizations that ‘normalize Israeli apartheid,’- and this still includes food providers who identify as Zionists as do the vast majority of Canadian Jews,” Jewish Student Life said on its Facebook page. “Now, however, there is no opportunity for an exemption.”