On June 28, University of Ottawa president Jacques Frémont announced the appointment of CHES director Artur Wilczynski as Special Advisor on Antisemitism. Artur spoke with Sheila Hurtig Robertson about his new role and its importance in addressing the challenges Jewish students, faculty, and staff are facing.
Being named Special Advisor is quite an honour. Well, it’s an interesting role, and it’s challenging. Right? When Jacques Frémont asked me to consider it, I asked folks from the Jewish community, from Hillel*, students, and professors whether they thought I could be helpful. And I concluded that at least I could give it a try.
There are two considerations: one is the expectation the Jewish community has that having a person in this role is going to make a huge difference in their lived experience. The challenge is to try to meet that expectation. The other is that I don’t want to be used as a token by the university. My objective is to make sure I can actually do things to help mitigate the situation Jewish faculty, students, staff, and the broader Jewish community face in confronting antisemitism at the University of Ottawa.
What are the necessary steps to even begin to address the issue? The first thing I’ve been doing is listening. I’ve had meetings, online and in person, with Jewish students and faculty. Their experiences are similar yet distinct. The challenges students face are particular in terms of their experiences, such as the power differential with professors, their relationships with their fellow students, and the overall campus environment. Jewish faculty have also been telling about the challenges they face from their colleagues and from certain students who have, at times, been particularly difficult, and a university administration that has, from their perspective, not always been responsive or even sympathetic to their concerns. From a faculty and staff perspective, there’s a duty of care in making sure the university creates an environment that’s free of harassment and intimidation.
So, I am listening to that lived experience, understanding it, and then working with various university institutions to try to address the specific barriers that people are facing. I’ve also met with personnel who are responsible for security on campus because that’s been clearly identified as a concern. I’ve met with the administration responsible for developing relevant policies and practices and have been assured that I will be able to vet them and provide feedback. People are anxious about the return to school in the fall and I will do my best to provide the right kind of environment for people to share their experiences and for me to pass this on to the administration which is responsible for enacting measures that mitigate the risks. There has been inconsistent application of current policies so more nice words on paper do nothing if the lived experience of people who are trying to seek redress for the harm is not addressed. There needs to be consequence and a real emphasis on accountability when individuals violate the policies and practices of the university.
What prepared you to assume this role and handle the obvious risks that are part of it? I’ve already been called all kinds of things online. “A genocidal baby killer.” “An agent of the State of Israel inside the administration.” I’ve faced threats because I’m an outspoken Zionist Jew and a gay man, but I’ve spent lots of years in security and intelligence, so I have a good sense of when the risk is manageable and when it’s not. I know how the systems work and who I need to talk to if I feel the risk is getting too high. I’m not shy; I say what I think, and I feel a profound personal obligation, given my family background, to speak out. I am perfectly comfortable using my skills, my knowledge, and my temperament to advocate, at times forcefully, for the needs of the community.
How much did your parent’s experience as Holocaust survivors drive your involvement in these issues? A lot. I was born in Poland in the mid-sixties and in the late sixties there was an antisemitic campaign against the remnants of the Jewish community there, only about 30,000, many of whom were Communists, which is why they stayed. This campaign caused my parents to seek refuge. We had two choices: Canada or Israel. We came to Canada, and they did their best to create a positive and happy life for me. I owed it to them to be an advocate for all things around equity and inclusion because it affected us personally multiple times. It would have been impossible for me not to work on these issues.
Your mandate focuses on antisemitism. Is there an equivalent position regarding Islamophobia or anti-Arab racism? Within the university there is an office for equity, diversity, and inclusion and a human rights office, and part of the challenge is that both of those institutions have been perceived by members of our community as not particularly sympathetic or engaging. Too often, there has been a denial that what they’re experiencing is antisemitic, or trying to rationalize it, or encountering an infinite bureaucratic loop with no solution. So, the need for a focal point for the Jewish community that would specifically address antisemitism was recognized. It needs to be dealt with. It shouldn’t be, “If the Jews have one [special advisor], others should, too.”
As classes resume, what is the focus of your work? Through September and October, meeting with students and faculty, meeting with folks from protective services, who are developing a new strategy that includes figuring who and how to consult to make sure that the policies and practices address the risks that are out there. I have spoken with them about the specific concerns of the Jewish community, students, and faculty and how they should engage with those cohorts to ensure that the challenges are addressed.
I’ve got a voice and when I provide feedback, my expectation is that the university will be able to act on it, and if not, I’ll need a clear explanation as to why not.
What is your top priority? The safety issue. Because they fear the consequences, many community members feel it is necessary to hide their Jewish identity on campus for fear of harassment, intimidation, or violence, and that I find absolutely shocking. Their physical security and well-being on campus is the priority. People need to know that I am there as an advocate for them and for the systemic change that is required to make the university more responsive to the challenges the Jewish community faces.
If this goes the way you hope, might other institutions follow suit? I hope so. It’s a matter of understanding what the challenges are. Too often we have been excluded from efforts to address discrimination and promote inclusion and equity within institutions. The perception is that Jews are privileged and white and therefore don’t require measures to address the experiences we face. And that’s wrong! Institutions have failed us, and if they want to address the specific nature of the harms we experience, they need to listen to us. And if a Special Advisor can candidly and directly speak to those experiences and propose measures to address the exclusion and vulnerability, that’s worthwhile. I will be happy to share my experiences and my perspective, but my objective is to mitigate the harms that are currently happening to members of our community on campus. It’s not a hermetically sealed environment; the hate and incitement to violence affects the broader Jewish community as well, and I must be able to explain that to the university.
At least the university has recognized that there is a problem. Yes, and that’s awesome. The question now is whether their response is proportionate to manage the risk that has been identified. I don’t want to be a token; that would make it worse. Senior public servants (and I was one) give advice all the time, and it’s not always taken. And that’s okay. What’s important is to provide the advice, the evidence, and hope that the decisions rendered reflect that evidence.
People’s expectations are high, but I’m not going to fix antisemitism on campus. It’s too big a challenge and it’s unrealistic to think that the avalanche of bigotry our community has faced is recent months is going to be fixed by me. I hope I’ll be able to at least shine a light on the most egregious areas and suggest where fixes are possible.
Do you agree that the current antisemitism came as a shock? It caught us off-guard because we thought we had made so much progress – and we have. We lived through a golden age in the diaspora, 70 years from the Shoah to the past five years or so, and that created a false sense of security. I am deeply worried about our younger folks, who grew up in this environment of comfort and privilege and well-being and don’t understand the historic precariousness of our community and don’t know our history. We are in for a rough ride and, as a community, we must gird ourselves for the next difficult years.
*Hillel Ottawa’s mission is to enrich the lives of Jewish students so that they may enrich the Jewish people and the world.