Members of the Montreal chapter of Independent Jewish Voices (IJV) travelled to Ottawa to protest a conference against antisemitism.

IJV protesters say this conference is equating antisemitism to anti-Zionism, which they believe normalizes the genocide of Palestinians and Israel's occupation of Palestine.

‘Antisemitism: Face It, Fight It’ is the first large-scale conference hosted by the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA). It invites Canada’s Jewish community to address and fight antisemitism. It was hosted in the Shaw Centre in Ottawa on Oct. 16 and 17.

IJV protesters sitting at the entrance of the Shaw Centre were threatened with being arrested multiple times, but they were not arrested.

When asked for a comment on IJV’s statement on this conference, CIJA associate director Henry Lovgren told CUTV, “There’s no question that a strong connection to Israel is central to global Jewish identity. However, the singular motivation behind convening this gathering is to combat antisemitism.” 

"As its name reflects, Antisemitism: Face It, Fight It, is the first-ever, wide-scale convening of the Jewish community from across Canada for a conference to face, fight, and push back against the single-most important challenge we confront today: antisemitism," he said.

Lovgren added that the conference’s sessions focuses on how to define and identify antisemitism, hate crimes, social media literacy and more.

"The actions of the Israeli government oppressing the Palestinian people with bombs, cutting off electricity and water, bombing their hospitals and the occupation, just breed antisemitism," said IJV member Scott Weinstein. "They're not protecting us, it's a very hypocritical concept of what's going on at this conference. It's really about Israel."