Michal Cotler-Wunsh, Israel’s Special Envoy for Combatting Antisemitism was the keynote speaker at the event “United Against Antisemitism: Empowering Communities Through Education” put on by the Canadian Friends of the Hebrew University and the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs on September 25 at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights The event was sponsored by the Asper Foundation, the Aurthur v Mauro Centre and over twenty generous sponsors. The event attracted a capacity crowd of over 300 attendees filling the spacious Buhler Hall. It was hosted by Steve Kroft, National Vice-Chair for the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA). Cotler-Wunsch was joined by Deborah Lyons, Canada’s Special Envoy for Preserving Holocaust Remembrance and Combatting Antisemitism, and Gustavo Zentner, Vice President, Manitoba and Saskatchewan CIJA, for a “fire side chat,” answering questions posed by Kroft. Cotler-Wunsh set a serious tone with her impassioned presentation highlighting the urgency and danger of the present moment and issuing her clarion call, imploring “each and every one” of us not to look away but to engage in the fight against antisemitism because “each and every one of us can make a difference.”

Isha Khan, Executive director off the CMHR, welcomed the audience, pointing out the significance of gathering in the museum which is situated on sacred, traditional lands and has been a gathering place for millennia. She spoke of how “we gather in moments of reflection for dialogue and to build understanding.” “Sitting together, shoulder to shoulder,” we can reflect on “what it means to be better human beings to one another” and “how we can take action in our own lives.” With antisemitism on the rise, we “must combat hate in all forms,” uphold the principles of human rights, and “open our hearts”: “that’s the work we promote.”

Steve Kroft thanked the CMHR, the Arthur V. Mauro Centre, and the many communities represented at the event, including the Indigenous, Ukrainian, and Christian communities, who have become allies of Israel and Jews. He introduced a 7-minute video featuring two young women, Manoresha and Shira, who recount their experiences of antisemitism and tell how scholarships from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem transformed their lives and enabled them to fulfill their dreams. Kroft then gave a more detailed introduction to Cotler-Wunsh, Lyons, and Zentner.

Cotler-Wunsh’s keynote address was intense, powerful, and inspiring. She opened with a description of the horror of the October 7 massacre and declared: “For us in Israel, the story of October 7 hasn’t fully been told. We each have a story.” “We must bear witness.” The sirens that sounded in Tel Aviv at 6:30 a. m. this very morning are for Israelis “precisely how October 7 began” when over 7000 barbaric savages invaded Israel and murdered, raped, burned alive, and mutilated “everybody that came across their path,” “in ways we cannot imagine.” The atrocities committed, “too terrible to imagine,” are “war crimes, crimes against humanity,” and represent “a barbaric attack on civilization.” Two hundred and fifty-one Israelis were stolen and taken into captivity in the underground tunnels in Gaza, and this “constitutes a standing violation of international law” and another violation of human rights. This horrific attack should have resulted in “condemnation from around the world.” Instead, “the very same antisemitism that fueled the crimes fueled the responses”: silence, denial, and justification.

Cotler-Wunsh shared her “understanding of how we arrived in this moment," beginning in 1975 with a process to demonize, delegitimize, and apply double standards to Israel when the United Nations General Assembly labeled Zionism as a form of racism. She described the three blood libels that have emerged as antisemitism, “the ever-mutating virus,” morphed to suit the times: Israel is a racist state, Israel is an apartheid state, and, the “most Orwellian inversion” of all, Israel is a genocidal state. “Most devastating” for Cotler-Wunsh is “the labelling of the worldwide protests as pro-Palestinian.” If the protesters really cared about the people, they would call to free Gaza from Hamas, Lebanon from Hezbollah, Yemen from the Houthis. “If protesters were truly human rights activists committed to ‘Never Again,’ they would be protesting the genocide occurring right now in Sudan.” 

After October 7, Cotler-Wunsh believes “we understood more than ever the need for a Jewish state. For the first time, we could make good Golda Meir’s claim: ‘The world hates a Jew who hits back. The world loves us only when we are to be pitied.’” Cotler-Wunsh sees this as “an existential moment for all of us.” The meaning of racism, apartheid, and genocide has been co-opted. Without understanding the imperative of equal and consistent application of human rights laws, human rights itself is weaponized.

According to Cotler-Wunsh, the strain of antisemitism that pervades today, that has been “normalized,” and that is “especially pernicious,” is anti-Zionism. Now you don’t even have to be a Jew, you just have to believe in Israel’s right to exist. If antisemitism is to be combatted, “we must inoculate against all strains.”  To do this we are going to have to identify all forms which can be done using the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) definition of antisemitism. The “urgency you hear in my voice” is because of the existential nature of this moment. “We are in a ‘Never Again is Now moment.’’ “We don’t have the privilege of looking away.” “This is a moment of reckoning.” Cotler-Wunsh believes education is both “the key to safeguard” human rights for all, but it is also the danger if we educate what to think rather than how to think. 

Michal Cotler-Wunsh still has great hope “because of the diversity of the allies I have met in this room who know antisemitism is not a problem of the Jews but of the antisemites.” She concluded by reminding the audience that, as Eli Wiesel said, “the opposite of hate is not love, it’s indifference.” “None of us should be indifferent.” And what is “most important for her” in this fight against antisemitism is “to reach across real and perceived differences in this existential moment,” “knowing that each and every one of us can make a difference.”