U of T professor says ‘powerful Zionist’ remarks not antisemitic as human rights case nears

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The president of the University of Toronto Faculty Association (UTFA) has defended her controversial comments from four years ago after she was accused of antisemitism in a case that is proceeding before the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario (HRTO).

In a June 2021 webinar, Terezia Zoric denounced “an entitled powerful Zionist minority” after the university decided to pull Valentina Azarova’s appointment as director of the law school’s International Human Rights Program due to visa issues. Supporters of Azarova, a staunch critic of Israel, had accused U of T of bowing to external pressure and dismissed an independent investigation by retired Supreme Court Justice Thomas Cromwell that found no wrongdoing.

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Zoric made her comments during a webinar titled “What the hell happened at the University of Toronto Law School?”

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In November 2021, nine academics at U of T filed human rights complaints over her comments.

Zoric dabbled in “one of the worst antisemitic tropes that historically have been levelled at the Jewish people, implying that Jews are part of a secret and powerful cabal that control the banks, the media and the world in general,” says the original filing obtained by National Post.

“While she substituted the word ‘Zionists’ for ‘Jews,’ the dog whistle for Jew-hatred and resentment is nonetheless clearly evidenced. By substituting the word ‘Jew’ with ‘Zionist’ in her remarks, President Zoric has given licence to make reference to stereotypes and slurs against broad swaths of Jewish Canadians.”

Zoric’s latest filing asked the human rights tribunal to dismiss the case, but she was unsuccessful. This triggered a round of mediation that broke down in mid-2023. Jillian Siskind, a lawyer representing the plaintiffs, petitioned the court for an expedited hearing date, but has yet to receive confirmation of when the proceedings will begin.

Zoric’s controversial comments came near the end of the 2021 webinar.

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“There was nothing short of unending harassment and psychological warfare where those of us who were supportive of the principles at stake at the heart of the censure experienced horrible backlash by an entitled powerful Zionist minority that felt any criticism” of the independent review “could be met with accusations of antisemitism,” Zoric said, according to a video of the event that is still live on YouTube.

Heidi Matthews, a law professor at York University who has since called the Oct. 7 atrocities committed by Hamas legitimate “resistance,” thanked Zoric for her commentary.

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David Soberman, a Rotman business school marketing professor and one of the plaintiffs, told National Post that Zoric’s comments were “extremely hurtful to many faculty members who she represents.”

“This sort of indirect reference to a powerful ‘hidden’ minority is precisely the sort of message that was used to encourage antisemitism from the 19th century onwards. It was epitomized in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” a debunked text which promoted the idea of a global Jewish conspiracy, Soberman said in an email to the Post.

Zoric, who is also an associate professor at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto, has argued that her comments were misconstrued.

“In the context of the discussion, ‘minority was not referring to Jews as a minority group, but rather to a very small group in UTFA council; ‘entitled’ and ‘powerful’ referred to a sense of arrogance and disrespect for the democratic process that Terezia and many other council members felt to be informing the behaviour and tactics of that group,” says documents from Zoric’s response to the rights tribunal, which were obtained by the Post.

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“The word ‘Zionist’ was not a synonym for Jewish…. Terezia avoided conflating Judaism or Jewishness with support of the actions of the State of Israel and used the word ‘Zionist’ according to its normal usage — as a description of a political persuasion.”

Soberman dismissed Zoric’s explanation. Her comments are inexcusable and would be deemed “offensive to anyone who knows anything about history and the evolution of antisemitism in modern times,” he wrote.

“Her arguments to explain or justify her comments are anything but convincing. She knew exactly what she was doing. She is very smart and has a certain political orientation,” Soberman said. “The replacement of the word ‘Jew’ with Zionist in her comments is standard fare for people who use double entendres and hidden messages as dog whistles for people who support antisemitic viewpoints.”

Neither UTFA nor Zoric responded to the Post’s requests for comment in time for publication.

It took Zoric over four months, until late October 2021, to release a public statement apologizing “for using a phrase that evoked a negative trope.”

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“I now better recognize how such tropes can tap into and reinforce harmful stereotypes about the Jewish community,” she said at the time.

Critics rejected her apology.

The human rights complaints also allege that under Zoric’s leadership, UTFA has disregarded issues facing Jewish faculty members.

The HRTO, which has been chronically backlogged since the pandemic, took nine months to accept jurisdiction of the case.

Zoric’s defence argued that the incident should be seen against “the internal tension within UTFA Council at the time,” and particularly “a minority of UTFA Council members who were persistently derailing important discussions.” By “purporting to speak on behalf of all Jewish UTFA members, they attempted, without success, to have UTFA adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism, and wanted UTFA to oppose the (Canadian Association of University Teachers) CAUT censure.”

The IHRA is a non-governmental organization that developed a non-legally binding “working definition of antisemitism” that has been adopted by dozens of countries, including Canada, Israel and the United States. The definition says that “rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism” can be “directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.”

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CAUT had urged its members not to associate themselves with U of T in response to the failure to hire Azarova.

During the intervening years, as Zoric successfully ran for re-election, two dozen Jewish faculty members came to her defence in a statement dismissing “chorus of malicious attacks on Terezia’s character, accusing her of antisemitism.” Several of the signatories are supporters of the current U of T encampment.

One signatory, Alejandro Paz, a faculty spokesman for the anti-Israel encampment, told the Post that antisemitism was not an issue at the encampment despite chants of “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” “All Zionists are racists,” and graffiti calling for Jews to “go back to Europe” and “Glory to All Martyrs.”

The lawyer representing the academics who filed the complaints against Zoric said the case is even more relevant amid the anti-Israel encampments on campuses across Canada.

“I think this case is very important in shaping how Ontario’s human right law creates antisemitism because it deals directly with the use of the word ‘Zionist’ and how it is often used in an anti-semitic manner,” Siskind told the Post in an email. “In this case, that word was used to refer to Jewish faculty and staff by using an anti-semitic trope, but using the word ‘Zionist’ instead of ‘Jew.’ This issue is all the more important in today’s current political situation at U of T and university campuses across the continent where the term ‘Zionist’ is being used to refer to Jews in threatening and discriminatory ways.” 

Morris Moscovitch, one of the plaintiffs and a psychology professor at U of T, agreed and told the Post that Zoric’s use of “Zionists” amounted to a dog-whistle for “Jew” and that her views were “a harbinger of the kind of antisemitism we now see on campus.”

Louis Florence, now a retired business professor from U of T Mississauga said, “I think they have helped pave the way. They have contributed to the current climate on the UT campus.”

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