‘We are going to fight back’: Windsor Jews rally against UWindsor’s concession to pro-Palestinian students

The CJN Daily with Ellin Bessner

The head of Windsor’s Jewish community, Stephen Cheifetz, is calling in the big guns to fight back “significantly” against the University of Windsor, which agreed last week to accept a list of demands by its pro-Palestinian tent encampment protesters. In exchange, the protesters agreed to take down their two-month-old tent city peacefully. The July 11 deal is being described by Jewish groups and even by the Windsor encampment students themselves as the most far-reaching victory to date by campus protesters in Canada. It covers a request to divest from any Israel-related investments, to boycott Israeli universities, bring in more Palestinian students and scholars in light of what the UN deems a “scholasticide” when Israel bombed Palestinian schools where Hamas operatives were thought to be hiding. While the university itself insists it isn’t taking sides in the current Middle East conflict, school officials agreed to condemn what it terms “the illegal occupation of Palestine” and called for an immediate ceasefire. On today’s episode of The CJN Daily, we unpack the deal with law school graduate Sydney Greenspoon, as well as lawyer and former UWindsor law professor Stephen Cheifetz, who is now head of the Windsor Jewish Federation.

What we talked about:

• Read the July 11, 2024 agreement between the University of Windsor and its pro-Palestinian encampment protesters, as well as the second agreement made with the UWSA, the student council.
• Learn why The University of Windsor has a history of anti-Israel activity, in this 2015 article in The CJN archives.
• Read The CJN story about the deal signed in May between Ontario Tech University and its encampment students, which agreed to bring in more Palestinian students to study and to publish any investments in military firms that are involved in the violence in Gaza.

**Credits: **

The CJN Daily is written and hosted by Ellin Bessner (@ebessner on Twitter). Zachary Kauffman is the producer. Michael Fraiman is the executive producer. Our theme music is by Dov Beck-Levine. We’re a member of The CJN Podcast Network. To subscribe to this podcast, please watch this video. Donate to The CJN and receive a charitable tax receipt by clicking here. Hear why The CJN is important to me.