In recent days, a group called Toronto Palestinian Families has initiated a search for like-minded parents to make sure kids in Toronto District School Board schools are “physically, psychologically and emotionally safe” during the continuing Gaza conflict.
The TDSB has disavowed any responsibility for creating this although the school board is mentioned throughout its manifesto.
Board spokesman Ryan Bird, when contacted, said it was an “external group to the TDSB” and, as such, that the board was not in a position to comment.
Yet the ever-controversial Javier DaVila, who calls himself an anti-oppression educator and has been suspended four times by the board for his outrageous anti-Israel activities, is promoting this, along with someone who identifies as @iman_annab.
DaVila, whose Twitter feed is chock full of anti-Israel propaganda and rhetoric, has raised $64,000 to date to fight B’nai Brith for allegedly defaming him in 2021.
He brags online that his legal team is Dimitri Lascaris and Stephen Ellis, two well-known anti-Israel voices. Lascaris, in particular, has spent the past five months on social media posting anti-Israel propaganda.
He also blocked me on X and only allows like-minded individuals to contact him.
When I emailed DaVila for comment at the TDSB, I received an automated reply indicating he was on leave “until further notice.”
According to the manifesto, provided to True North by a Jewish teacher with the Toronto District School Board, the group is a “grassroots” organization of Palestinian families pushing for “safe and inclusive spaces” that are free from anti-Palestinian racism and other inequity in the school board.
As has become predictable with these “grassroots” groups, names are never provided.
They say they take an “intersectional and anti-oppressive lens” when it comes to all expressions of “faith, gender identity and sexual identity” – totally whitewashing the fact that Hamas and those who live in Gaza do not recognize gender identities or homosexuality.
It is actually laughable.
They also claim they’ve collaborated with Jewish families who stand in solidarity with Palestinians – no doubt meaning the self-loathing fringe Jewish groups who march alongside the hate fests in downtown Toronto.
The manifesto makes six demands of the TDSB, jointly with Toronto Jewish families, which are also not named.
Reading just like the DaVila resource manuals created in 2021 (which I exposed) it demands that anti-Palestinian racism be included in the Toronto school board’s equity policy and that training materials be developed on Palestinian human rights and anti-Palestinian racism.
The “grassroots group” of anonymous people also wants the board to “publicly affirm” that TDSB students and staff will not be punished for criticizing the state of Israel.
This is where I take the greatest exception.
Almost weekly, Toronto public school students have been given carte blanche to leave class and march on the streets screaming aggressive anti-Israel vitriol that includes calling for the eradication of the Jewish state.
Not that many of them know what the chant “From the River to the Sea, Palestine shall be free” actually means, which is a tremendous statement about the ignorance of TDSB’s (and other) students.
Another demand is to end collaborations with groups that “perpetuate anti-Palestinian racism” and target progressive Jewish voices (meaning the self-hating Jews).
In other words, Jewish advocacy groups should not be permitted, according to this manifesto, to push back against the Jew hatred.
Finally, the anonymous grassroots group has demanded that the TDSB reiterate the words of the Israel-hating UN and UNRWA about the alleged genocide in Gaza.
In other words, Jewish students be damned.
This is so utterly ridiculous, it should speak for itself.
However, let’s remember that this is likely being crafted by those who forever see themselves as victims and who have had virtual free rein in the city of Toronto and in TDSB schools to spew their anti-Israel vitriol.
Education director Colleen Russell-Rawlins and her cabal of DEI administrators have not put a stop to the hate and seem not to care, according to sources, about how uncomfortable Jewish students and teachers are feeling in the board.
As for the equity employee who is promoting this manifesto on X, DaVila has also been advocating for Pride Toronto to issue an anti-Israel statement.
That’s not all.
He’s filed a bizarre complaint with the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal that is to be heard on May 15.
In it he alleges that a particular administrator in the DEI field with the Toronto District School Board allegedly “leered” at him and that he was targeted for unwarranted disciplinary action in May 2018.
He also alleges that the board failed to complete its HR investigation for more than 15 months, among other things.
According to documents provided to True North, the human rights tribunal will hold a summary hearing in May on “whether the allegations should be dismissed as having no reasonable prospect of success.”
