McGill Students’ Anti-Zionist Nightmare Semester
The AGSEM, Discrimination, Antisemitism, and Anti-Zionism in Hiring Practices at McGill University
By Bonnie K. Goodman, BA, MLIS
In October, I attended the Center for Jewish and Israel Affairs’ “Antisemitism: Face it or Fight it” conference in Ottawa. Happening barely two weeks after Hamas attacked Israel, it was a unifying experience. Professionally and personally, it was a high point for me as I met the great Irwin Cotler and was able to speak to him about my history of antisemitism and anti-Zionism at McGill. I got to meet Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. However, it was disheartening to hear about the incidents and attacks at other Canadian universities. It was also surprising to hear that professors and others knew about the history I wrote and its reach and impact.
I have a BA in history and art history and a Master’s in Library and Information Studies from McGill. Then, I did graduate work as part of the MA in Judaic studies with a thesis at Concordia University; finances partially derailed my academic career pursuit. I have recently done graduate work in Jewish Education at the Melton Centre of Jewish Education of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. I spent most of my career as an editor, journalist, and academic writer; sometimes, doing what you love and are passionate about does not necessarily equate to riches. Instead, I built a body and respect from historians in the field. I have authored several self-published book-length histories and a viral article on early American history that had 100,000 views. My most popular work now is my controversial and timely manuscript “A Constant Battle: McGill University’s Complicated History of Antisemitism and Now anti-Zionism.”
My writings have been popular. My profile has consistently been in the top two percent of all writers on the scholarly social media site Academia.edu, and this writing is in the top 1 percent. I have nearly 15,000 views on academia.edu, another over 14,000 on ResearchGate and 200,000 views on Medium for my writings. My essays and research have been used as high school teaching materials, cited, and referenced by college students and professors at some of the top universities. However, not having a doctorate is a roadblock to publishing, especially my book-length histories. While some in the field respect me for my work, others cannot look beyond not having the degree.
After my mother died in the fall of 2022, I had a difficult time getting an appropriate full-time position; I was trying to get a job in the school day school system as a teacher. Despite my qualifications, I thought that a practical solution would be to pursue a graduate degree in education. I applied for McGill’s MA in Jewish Education. When I was accepted to my program, I was promised I could have a TA position in the fall semester. Conveniently, after I registered, I was shut out. Not satisfied with the education program’s courses and direction and concerned about the number of courses I had to take outside of Jewish studies, especially since many in the Faculty of Education support the Palestinians, my advisor thought it better to change my focus to Jewish studies.
However, for me, it was an incredible learning experience that upset my professors at McGill; what had been a good relationship became strained because of my activism and participation in the conference and subsequent articles about my experience there.
Here is an excerpt of what I wrote enthusiastically to my advisor only to be have cold water thrown on me.
I was working on a response with the most important point about Kaplan’s book….
My endgame for studying Kaplan is to link it to the research I have already been doing on civil religion, Woocher, and Liebman. That is what I would love to write a thesis about.
I will probably not attend the awards ceremony; after what happened in Israel, I am surprised that the ceremony is continuing to be held. I was chosen for the student subsidy to attend the CIJA antisemitism conference, but I am not sure about going there either after everything.
I want to discuss my direction in the program….. I know mentioning doctoral studies is usually frowned upon, but I should mention it if I want to apply. I first thought the teaching degree was the direction to go, but with anything at the master’s level, I am being shut out of every TA or grader position; my experience and previous writings have been entirely overlooked in the hiring process. I need more funding sources, or else I wouldn’t even be able to complete any master’s program. I applied for over 20 graduate student positions at the university and was shut out of all of them. I am being treated as a newly minted master’s student fresh from an undergraduate degree. If I were in a doctoral program, I could do what I love and have enough funding opportunities to continue doing so….
Since the attack, I have been writing an article that I have been posting in the Times of Israel, my most recent about the anti-Zionist response in Montreal. I wrote about SPHR before Provost/Vice Principal Manfredi sent out his letter. I heard there is a petition at the university by Jewish professors about the university’s reaction. Do you know about it? Could you share it with me? It will help with my writing.
My advisor responded by telling me I should not be doing anything else but focusing on my school work and doing what my professors said, with a veiled threat about my winter funding.
“I appreciate that your mind is always working on multiple things. But, I’ll be honest: if you don’t start concentrating on the tasks that your profs give you, in the form that they’ve given them to you, you will not fulfill the requirements of your degree.”
He wrote me “Graduate degrees are a partnership between profs and students. I’ve come your way — with funding.”
My advisor acted like one scholarship; no teaching assistantship, research assistantship, or stipend was enough for anyone to survive.
My professor’s condescension made me uncomfortable, reluctant, and scared to approach and discuss my concerns because of their reactions when I first tried speaking with them. He backed off when I mentioned making an issue about it and involving Hillel and CIJA. After the October 7 attacks, with the rising tensions on campus and pro-Palestinian rallies, I became more stressed about going to the campus, especially with my profile, photo online, and increased readership for my history of antisemitism and anti-Zionism at McGill. Just recently, anti-Israel articles quoted my writing on Zionism and McGill; one was the Palestinian chronicle that included some radicals on their masthead. A writer likes to be cited, but these articles I do not want them to know me or my names associated with them.
My increased profile, and as an older student, I did not have the peer group students mentioned they used as safety nets. However, even with an accommodation letter from the Office of Student Success and Accessibility and a doctor’s letter about my anxiety about going to campus, there were some extensions but no mention of accommodations for attending the class. The condescension and passive aggressiveness I experienced with my professor was something I had never experienced before; my professor dropped mid-semester of taking a reading course because I submitted an essay, using the excuse I was not listening to his rules when there was no firm syllabus, and it was a reading course.
This fall, I wrote an article about the position of Jewish studies in the campus debate. One scholar I cited summed up my experience at McGill. Jarrod Tanny, an associate professor and Charles and Hannah Block Distinguished Scholar in Jewish History at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington, and the founder of the Jewish Studies Zionist Network, just published an article criticizing a Jewish studies professor. Tanny’s article entitled, “Silence of the Lambs: Dissecting the Failure of Jewish Studies Programs” claims, “Whenever events in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict heat up and the academy singles out Israel, Jewish studies faculty either remain silent or publicly side with the anti-Zionists, much as they did in May 2021.”[1]
[1] https://jewishjournal.com/commentary/opinion/362642/silence-of-the-lambs-dissecting-the-failure-of-jewish-studies-programs/
Bonnie K. Goodman, BA, MLIS, is a historian, librarian, journalist, and artist. She has done graduate work in Jewish Education at the Melton Centre of Jewish Education of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and in Jewish Studies at McGill University. She has a BA in History and Art History and a Masters in Library and Information Studies from McGill. She has done graduate work in Jewish history at Concordia University as part of the MA in Judaic Studies, where she focused Medieval and Modern Judaism. Her research area is North American Jewish history, and her thesis was entitled “Unconditional Loyalty to the Cause: Southern Whiteness, Jewish Women, and Antisemitism, 1860–1913.” Ms. Goodman has been researching and writing about antisemitism in North American Jewish History, and she has reported on the current antisemitic climate and anti-Zionism on campus for over fifteen years. She is the author of “A Constant Battle: McGill University’s Complicated History of Antisemitism and Now anti-Zionism.”
Ms. Goodman is also the author “Silver Boom! The Rise and Decline of Leadville, Colorado as the United States Silver Capital, 1860–1896,” and “The Mysterious Prince of the Confederacy: Judah P. Benjamin and the Jewish Goal of Whiteness in the South,” among others. She contributed the overviews and chronologies to the “History of American Presidential Elections, 1789–2008,” edited by Gil Troy, Arthur M. Schlesinger, and Fred L. Israel (2012). She is the former Features Editor at the History News Network and reporter at Examiner.com, where she covered politics, universities, religion, and news. She currently blogs at Medium, where she was a top writer in history, and regularly writes on “On This Day in History (#OTD in #History)” Feature. Her scholarly articles can be found on Academia.edu.
