Jewish Student Government Member Ordered To Cancel Israel Trip Or Resign
MONTREAL (JTA)—A Jewish student leader at McGill University in Montreal is fighting efforts to oust her from the student union for accepting a trip to Israel and the Palestinian Authority.
Jocelyn Wright, a member of the Student Society of McGill University’s legislative council and board of directors, said she is “outraged and disgusted” by an SSMU call for her to resign Thursday for agreeing to the trip sponsored by Hillel.
She is refusing to resign or quit the trip, despite the threat of impeachment upon return.
The trip, called “Face to Face,” leaves at the end of the month and includes visiting Palestinian areas of the West Bank.
“As a Jew, my connection to Israel is one core aspect of my identity, and I hoped that the trip would help met experience Israel through a new lens,” Wright explained in a post on Facebook.
She called the effort to have her resign, “anti-Semitic.”
“The SSMU president singled me out and actively encouraged others to attack me,” she said in the post, adding that a non-Jewish councillor also planning to be on the trip has not received the same treatment.
The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs’ Rabbi Reuben Poupko said in a statement: “[W]e are once again witnessing misuse of the student government platform to exclude a Jewish student. The SSMU’s persistent abuse of power and displays of hostility toward Jewish and pro-Israel students are clearly not representative of McGill’s mainstream student population.
“We call on McGill students to reclaim the SSMU from the ideological fringes and rebuild an open, tolerant and inclusive campus
environment,” he said.
In 2017, the SSMU failed in an effort to impeach a Jewish councillor for being pro-Israel and an ex-SSMU member tweeted to “punch a Zionist.”
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and the protests on college campuses.
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
