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Our list of featured speakers, presenters, panels and workshops is growing rapidly. We will be updating this page regularly.
Keynote Speakers
Dr. Peter Suedfeld
University of British Columbia
Keynote
Dr. Peter Suedfeld is a Holocaust survivor, Dean Emeritus of Graduate Studies and Professor Emeritus of Psychology at UBC, whose research has profoundly shaped our understanding of resilience, trauma, and adaptation. Born in Budapest, he survived the Holocaust in hiding before immigrating to North America, where he built a distinguished academic career.
His pioneering work in Holocaust studies explores survivor cognition, memory, and post-traumatic growth, challenging one-dimensional narratives of victimhood. Since October 7th, 2023, Dr. Suedfeld has dedicated himself to combating the resurgence of antisemitism, reinforcing his commitment to education and advocacy. Dr. Suedfeld’s research has informed Holocaust education, survivor testimony analysis, and the psychology of resilience, making him a leading voice in both academia and public discourse on the lasting impact of genocide.
Dr. David Hirsh
University of London (UK)
Keynote
David Hirsh is a Professor of Sociology at Goldsmiths, University of London (UK) and Academic Director of the London Centre for the study of Contemporary Antisemitism. He developed his PhD thesis, a sociology of international humanitarian law, into 'Law against Genocide', which won the Philip Abrams Prize for the best first book in sociology in 2003.
Hirsh was central in building the Engage network and website that led opposition to the proposal for an academic boycott of Israel and he was a leading critic of the ideas underpinning the Corbyn movement in the British Labour Party. He has been instrumental in shaping democratic, Jewish and scholarly responses to antisemitism.
He pioneered a sociological account of contemporary antizionism and its relationship to antisemitism, which was published in his 2018 book ‘Contemporary Left Antisemitism’.
He is now working to build the London Centre for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism, which is creating and nurturing networks of antisemitism scholarship, and the academic infrastructure that they need.
Dr. Charles A. Small
Cambridge University,
ISGAP Executive Director
Keynote
Charles Asher Small (DPhil, Oxon) is the Founding Director and President of the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP) and leads the ISGAP-Woolf Institute Fellowship Training Programme in Critical Antisemitism Studies at Cambridge University. He is also a Research Fellow at St. Edmund’s College, University of Cambridge.
Dr. Small is recognized internationally for his efforts to establish critical contemporary antisemitism studies as a formal academic discipline. He founded the ISGAP-Oxford Summer Institute, which has trained over 600 Scholars-in-Residence from more than 190 institutions worldwide. His expertise spans social theory, globalization, national identity, and various forms of racism, with a particular focus on antisemitism and its intersection with broader social issues.
He has convened academic seminars at top universities worldwide, including Yale, Harvard, Stanford, McGill, and the Sorbonne, and has served as a consultant and policy advisor across North America, Europe, Southern Africa, and the Middle East.
Featured Speakers
Dr. Cary Nelson
University of Illinois
Dr. Cary Nelson is Jubilee Professor of Liberal Arts & Sciences Emeritus at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a leading voice in the defense of academic freedom and the critical study of contemporary antisemitism. From 2006 to 2012, he served as President of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), where he championed shared governance, faculty rights, and ethical responsibility in higher education.
A prolific scholar, Dr. Nelson is the author or editor of 37 books, including several influential works examining the intersection of antisemitism, academic discourse, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. His most recent titles include Hate Speech and Academic Freedom: The Antisemitic Assault on Basic Principles (2024) and MINDLESS: What Happened to Universities (2025), which critically examine the erosion of academic standards and integrity in the face of politicized antisemitic rhetoric.
Dr. Nelson has long been a vocal critic of the misuse of academic freedom as a shield for antisemitic speech, and his scholarship explores how universities must navigate the line between open inquiry and hate speech. He has also written extensively on cultural studies, literary theory, and the politics of higher education, contributing to the ongoing conversation about the purpose and future of the university.
Dr. Matthias Becker
University of Cambridge
Dr. Matthias J. Becker is a linguist and media researcher specializing in antisemitism, hate speech, and online discourse. Currently based at the University of Cambridge, he leads the international research initiative Decoding Antisemitism—a project that integrates discourse analysis, cognitive linguistics, and AI to investigate both explicit and implicit antisemitic narratives in digital environments.
Author and editor of numerous studies—including Antisemitism in Reader Comments (Palgrave, 2021) and the open-access Decoding Antisemitism Lexicon (2024), a multi-author reference guide on antisemitic communication online—Dr. Becker is widely recognized for bridging disciplinary boundaries to reveal the dynamics and characteristics of online hate speech.
His recent research draws on data from Germany, France, the UK, and the US to trace how antisemitism evolves and spreads across mainstream social media platforms. With a particular focus on implicit forms of hate, he offers a nuanced understanding of the verbal and visual codes that shape antisemitic and other hateful discourse today—and how such communication might, and should, be addressed through comprehensive, interdisciplinary strategies.
As an advisor to institutions such as the U.S. State Department, the European Commission, Meta, and various educational networks, Dr. Becker’s work informs policy development, content moderation practices, and civil society initiatives.
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Dr. Ira Robinson
Concordia University
Ira Robinson is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Jewish Studies in the Department of Religions and Cultures at Concordia University, where he taught for 42 years. He received his B.A. at Johns Hopkins University, his B.H.L. at Baltimore Hebrew College, his M.A. at Columbia University and his Ph.D. in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University. He served as the Chair of the Department of Religion and Director of the Concordia University Institute for Canadian Jewish Studies.
Robinson has written, edited, and translated nineteen books and published over one hundred articles in journals such as Studies in Religion, Jewish Social Studies, American Jewish History, American Jewish Archives, Jewish Quarterly Review, Judaism, Modern Judaism, Canadian Ethnic Studies and Canadian Jewish Studies.
He is past president of the Canadian Society for Jewish Studies, the Association for Canadian Jewish Studies, and the Jewish Public Library of Montreal. He is the 2013 winner of the Louis Rosenberg Canadian Jewish Studies Distinguished Service Award from the Association for Canadian Jewish Studies.
Izabella Tabarovsky
Wilson Center, Washington DC
Izabella Tabarovsky is a scholar of Soviet antizionism and contemporary leftwing antisemitism. She is a Senior Advisor with the Wilson Center in Washington, DC; a senior fellow with the Z3 Institute for Jewish Priorities in Palo Alto, CA; and a research fellow with several prominent academic and policy centers, including the Zelikovitz Center for Jewish Studies at Carleton University; Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs; Comper Center for Contemporary Antisemitism at Haifa University; and the London Center for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism. She is a contributing writer at Tablet magazine. Her writings have appeared in Newsweek, Sapir, Quillette, The National Interest, Fathom, Forward, Jewish Telegraphic Agency, as well as several essay collections, including The Rebirth of Antisemitism in the 21st Century: From the Academic Boycott Campaign into the Mainstream (Rouedge); Mapping the New Left Antisemitism: The Fathom Essays (Routledge); Jewish Priorities: Sixty-Five Proposals for the Future of Our People (Wicked Son Press); and the upcoming October 7: A Vision of the World and Wars to Come (Academic Studies Press).
Yeshiva University
Dr. Shay Pilnik
The grandson of Holocaust survivors who immigrated to Israel from the USSR about a decade after the founding of the Jewish State, Dr. Pilnik is the Director of the Emil A. and Jenny Fish Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Yeshiva University. Prior to becoming the Fish Center's founding Director in 2020, he was the Executive Director of the Nathan and Esther Pelz Holocaust Education Resource Center (HERC) in Milwaukee from 2014 till 2020.
Dr. Pilnik earned his BA at Hebrew University of Jerusalem, majoring in Comparative Literature and Jewish Thought; his MA in Jewish Studies from McGill University and, in 2013, a Ph.D. from the Jewish Theological Seminary in the field of Modern Jewish Studies. His book, The Ravine of Memory: Babyn Yar between the Holocaust and the Great Patriotic War (Purdue University Press), was just released in January 2025.
Université du Québec à Montréal
Dr. Yolande Cohen
Dr. Yolande Cohen is a historian and professor at the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM), specializing in the history of youth movements, women's roles in Quebec society, and the experiences of Moroccan Jews. Her research has played a pivotal role in documenting the cultural and social dynamics of marginalized communities, particularly those of Sephardic Jewish heritage.
A Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and recipient of prestigious honors including the Knight of the National Order of Québec and the National Order of the Legion of Honour (France), Dr. Cohen's work bridges academic scholarship and public engagement. Her dedication to preserving Jewish history and addressing antisemitism continues to make her a leading voice in contemporary historical studies.
Featured Panel
Antisemitism in the EDI landscape of Canadian universities
Dr. Deidre Butler (Carleton University)
Dr. Cary Kogan (University of Ottawa)
Dr. Lilach Marom (Simon Fraser University)
Dr. Ania Switzer (University of British Columbia)
Equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) has become a leading framework for addressing social justice issues in Canadian higher education. In the wake of the Israel-Hamas conflict after October 7, 2023, antisemitic incidents have surged on campuses in Canada, the United States, and other Western countries. Although Jewish people make up only a small percentage of the Canadian population, they were targeted more than any other minority group. Jewish students and institutions have experienced physical violence, threats, harassment, and vandalism, with campuses being described as “ground zero” of this problem. Antisemitism is often excluded or minimally mentioned in the existing EDI frameworks. This panel will address questions about EDI policies and plans is to ensure equity, diversity, and inclusion for all historically, persistently or systematically marginalized (HPSM) groups. They will share about the ways current EDI policies and plans include (or exclude) antisemitism and Jewish identity and present findings from a policy analysis of EDI policies in Canadian universities.
Presenters
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Dr. Chaya Abrams
University of Colorado-Denver
Chaya M. Abrams, Ph.D. LPC LAC is an Associate Professor of Counseling in the Department of Counseling at the University of Colorado-Denver. She teaches graduate Counseling students and is a practicing Licensed Professional Counselor in the State of Colorado. Her research interests include institutional antisemitism, ancestral bonding, historical and transgenerational trauma, integration of sacred stories in treatment of collective trauma, and intergenerational health.
Her presentation will focus on Ancestral Bonding and Combatting Contemporary Antisemitism, specifically, the impact of Jewish historical trauma and it's affect on multiple generations. Other topics that will be discussed in this presentation are the historical evolution and persistence of antisemitism, integration of critical frameworks that inform psychological perspectives of modern antisemitism, and evidence-based recommendations for researchers, educators, clinicians, and policy makers on antisemitism prevention.
Carleton University
Dr. Deidre Butler
Deidre Butler, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Jewish Studies in the Religion program at Carleton University and Director of the Zelikovitz Centre for Jewish Studies. Butler is lead researcher of the Hear Our Voices project which centres oral history within the study of the Holocaust. Her research focuses on Jewish divorce in Canada and antisemitism on Canadian campuses. She is an ISGAP Fellow and is co-founder of (NECA).
University of Ottawa
Dr. Cary Kogan
Cary Kogan is full professor of clinical psychology at the University of Ottawa. His interdisciplinary research program spans the several topics including mental health classification, understanding the impact of racism on the mental health of people from the Black Canadian communities, and more recently, antisemitism in higher education. Prof. Kogan is also co-founder of the Network of Engaged Canadian Academics (NECA, neca-rdace.org). NECA is a non-partisan network of 400 Canadian faculty members on 45 University and College campuses. NECA’s mission is to protect academic freedom, promote scholarship on Judaism and Israel, and combat antisemitism.
Dr. Renan Levine
University of Toronto Scarborough
Renan Levine, PhD, is a political science professor at the University of Toronto Scarborough, specializing in American politics, research methods, and voting behavior. His research includes Israeli voting behavior, examining how political contexts and psychological factors influence electoral outcomes.
Dr. Levine earned his PhD from Duke University and completed his undergraduate studies at the University of Rochester. He has lived and studied in diverse cities worldwide, including Berlin, Dublin, Istanbul, Jerusalem, and Oxford. Passionate about applying academic insights to current events, his courses empower students to understand voter psychology, politicians' strategic decisions, and the institutional frameworks that shape political action.
Dr. Maor Shani
Osnabrück University
Dr. Maor Shani is a Social Psychology researcher at Osnabrück University, Germany, specializing in intergroup relations and antisemitism. His Ph.D. focused on fostering coexistence through encounters between Jews and Arabs in Israel. His current research examines the emotional dynamics of conflict, Jewish community’s resilience and coping with antisemitism, and interventions promoting reconciliation. He also investigates social network interventions to reduce polarization among adolescents and studies resilience and health-related quality of life in children with chronic illnesses. Shani’s work emphasizes understanding and addressing discrimination and its psychosocial impacts, particularly antisemitism, through innovative psychological and educational approaches.
Rutgers University
Dr. Kent D. Harber
Kent D. Harber, PhD is Professor of Psychology at Rutgers University at Newark. He received his doctorate from Stanford University (1995), completed postdoctoral training in health behavior at Washington University in Saint Louis, MO, worked for two years as a research scientist at American Institutes for Research in Palo Alto, CA. He researches antisemitism, how psycho-social resources affect perception, the effects of disclosure on judgment, and interracial feedback. Harber is chair of the Social Sciences Section of the Academic Engagement Network (AEN), an organization dedicated to combating antisemitism and anti-Israel biases on American college campuses.
Toronto Metropolitan University
Marsha Barber
Marsha Barber is a journalism professor and graduate program director at Toronto Metropolitan University (formerly Ryerson). She is a regular contributor to the Toronto Star. Earlier in her career, Marsha was a producer specializing in investigative documentaries for CBC's The National.
She is also an award-winning poet with four books in print including Kaddish for My Mother. Marsha’s research interests include media bias, gender issues and the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL).
University of Ottawa
Dr. Jonathan Calof
Jonathan Calof is the antisemitism advisor at the University of Ottawa. In this capacity he regularly briefs both the President and Provost. Jonathan is also a member of the Jewish Ottawa Federation’s Communication and Community Relations Committee as well as the Vice Chair of the Pearson Center for Progressive Policy where he chairs their Economy for Tomorrow series. Jonathan is a professor at the Telfer School of Management, University of Ottawa and a UNESCO Professor co-chair in anticipatory systems for innovation and new venture in which he focuses on using competitive intelligence and strategic foresight to help improve economic opportunities largely for entrepreneurs from disadvantaged regions and from marginalized groups. The Globe and Mail’s Report on Business, recently referred to him as “the eminence grise of Canadian competitive intelligence theorists” while the Jerusalem Post referred to him as “regarded worldwide as a competitive intelligence guru” . In recognition of his contribution through these activities Dr. Calof was recently presented with the King Charles III Coronation Medal.
Brock University
Dr. Rajiv Jhangiani
Dr. Rajiv Jhangiani is Vice Provost, Teaching and Learning at Brock University, where he also directs the Inclusive Education Research Lab and is affiliated with the Social Justice Research Institute. A leading advocate for open educational practices, he designed Canada’s first zero-textbook-cost degree programs and focuses on student-centered pedagogy and ethical educational technology.
He is the co-author of three open textbooks in psychology and the author or editor of Open: The Philosophy and Practices that are Revolutionizing Education and Science (2017) and Open at the Margins: Critical Perspectives on Open Education (2020). He also co-founded the Open Pedagogy Notebook with Dr. Robin DeRosa.
University of Toronto
Dr. Barry Pakes
Dr. Barry Pakes is a Public Health and Preventive Medicine (PHPM) physician specialist based at the University of Toronto where he is Program Director of the PHPM specialty training program, and Global Health Lead for the Faculty of Medicine. He was Medical Officer of Health of York Region during the COVID-19 Pandemic, and has served in senior public health leadership positions including as Deputy Chief MOH of Nunavut. He holds a BSc from McGill, MD and specialty training from UofT, Masters in Public Health from Harvard School of Public Health, and a PhD in Public Health from UofT.
Indiana University
Dr. Daniel Miehling
Daniel Miehling is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism at Indiana University Bloomington. His research focuses on digital antisemitism, political discourse, and the application of computational methods to online hate speech. He earned his Ph.D. in General Linguistics (summa cum laude) from the Technical University of Berlin, where he examined hate speech and conspiracy narratives on social media. Combining qualitative and quantitative approaches, his work bridges linguistics, social science, and digital media studies to understand the dynamics of user-generated content in highly polarized environments.
McMaster University
Dr. Ori Freiman
Dr. Ori Freiman is an ISGAP Post-Doctoral Fellow at McMaster University's Digital Society Lab and the Centre for International Governance Innovation's Digital Policy Hub. His research focuses on the intersection of technology, democracy, and social change, particularly Trust & Technology, Central Bank Digital Currency, and AI Policy.
He holds a Ph.D. in Science, Technology, and Society from Bar-Ilan University, Israel, where he examined the relationship between trust and technology. His previous fellowship at the University of Toronto's Ethics of AI Lab deepened his expertise in assessing the ethical implications of emerging technologies.
Committed to promoting democratic values and a more equitable society, Dr. Freiman’s work aims to inform policy, research, and strategy for the responsible implementation of emerging technologies.
Queens University
Dr. Michael Greenspan
Michael Greenspan is a professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Queen’s University, Kingston, Canada. His research investigates problems of computer vision and machine learning, with a focus on pose estimation. Dr. Greenspan has over 90 refereed publications, including five patents, and he has served on the technical and program committees of over 60 international conferences in the fields of computer vision and robotics. He is a member of the Queen’s Coalition Against Antisemitism (QCAAS), which he co-founded in the spring of 2024.
University of Guelph
Dr. Evren Altinkas
Dr. Evren Altinkas holds postgraduate degrees from King’s College London (2000) and Dokuz Eylul University (2011). From 2018 to 2022, he served as an Assistant Professor in the Department of History at the University of Guelph. Currently, he is an Adjunct Professor at the same institution, teaching part-time at several universities, including Wilfrid Laurier University and Trent University.
Dr. Altinkas’s research focuses on the History of the Middle East, Turkish History, Jews in Turkey, Intellectual History, and the transformation from the Ottoman Empire to the Modern Middle East and Turkey. He has published numerous academic articles and book chapters, making significant contributions to these areas of study.
Brock University
Perla Matusof
Perla Matusof is a doctoral researcher at Brock University, specializing in contemporary antisemitism in academic and institutional contexts. Her research integrates discourse analysis and psycholinguistic tools to differentiate between antisemitic rhetoric and legitimate critique, with particular attention to its impact on Jewish students and academics. Her academic background includes studies at Université Paris 8 and Brock University.
Perla is research fellow at the London Centre for Contemporary Antisemitism and an alumna of the ISGAP-Oxford Summer Institute. She is actively involved in educational and community initiatives addressing Holocaust memory, Jewish identity, and antisemitism in Canada.
Brock University
Dr. Fanny Dolansky
Dr. Fanny Dolansky is Associate Professor in the Department of Classics and Archaeology at Brock University, where she also serves as Graduate Program Director. She teaches courses in Latin language and literature and Roman social history. Her research primarily focuses on ancient Roman family life, childhood, and religious ritual. She has published on several key family festivals and ceremonies, education, childhood identity, and play, as well as studies on the Latin poet Ovid's Fasti. She is an executive member of the Brock Coalition Against Antisemitism (BCAA) and an active member of Congregation B'nai Israel in St. Catharines, where she serves on the Board of Directors and as gabbait.
University of Toronto
Dr. Dikla Yogev
Dr. Dikla Yogev is a sociologist currently holding a postdoctoral position at the University of Toronto. Her research has been published in peer-reviewed journals such as Journal of Trust Research, Policing & Society, and International Criminology, focusing on topics concerning religious communities, the police, and the state.
Dr. Yogev has been serving as the project manager for two federally funded research projects: “Workplace Democracy Project” led by Dr. Rafael Gomez (since 2023), and "Histories of Orthodoxies" led by Dr. Naomi Seidman (since 2024). Her current research is centered on community organization, social networks, and democracy, employing various methods including digital and computational techniques.
Dr. Yogev and colleagues are working on a publication series on antisemitism: campus, workplaces, medical, and k-12 settings. The first article, focusing on campus, was published in Experimental Criminology in 2024, and the second article is currently published as a preprint.
Dr. Isaac Nahón-Serfaty
University of Ottawa
Isaac Nahón-Serfaty (PhD, Université de Montréal) has been studying Islamist propaganda and radicalization for several years. In Strategic Communication and Deformative Transparency. Persuasion in politics, propaganda and public health (Routledge, 2019), he explores the representations of the grotesque in propaganda and terrorism. His paper
Understanding Grotesque Transparency as a Strategy for Fundamentalist Radicalization: Implications for Social Marketing Theory and Practice (Social Marketing Quarterly, 2022) is focused on the practical implications of such propaganda. He has also been studying the
challenges to academic freedom. He is a member of the Scholars at Risk (SAR) chapter at the University of Ottawa and the Coalition for Academic Freedom in the America (CAFA). His platform Critical éducation Critique is a multilingual site to discuss issues related to academic freedom. He is Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Ottawa (Canada).
Dr. Emily Caruso Parnell
Laurentian University
Dr. Emily Caruso Parnell is Assistant Professor in the School of Education at Laurentian University, where she teaches in both English and French. She completed her Doctorate in Distance Education at Athabasca University in 2024. A former school administrator, she led elementary and secondary virtual schools during the COVID-19 pandemic, following 15 years as a classroom teacher and curriculum consultant in Ontario’s public, private, and independent schools, with active involvement in equity work.
Emily has served as board president of Shaar Hashomayim Synagogue in Sudbury for over a decade, guiding its evolution toward egalitarian practice rooted in tradition. She has revitalized Jewish life in Sudbury, engaged in interfaith initiatives, and was featured on the Canadian Jewish News podcast Yehupetzville with journalist Ralph Benmergui.
York Region District School Board
Aneta Fishman
Aneta Fishman is an experienced educator with a passion for advancing student achievement and racial equity in Ontario. With 29 years in education, including 18 as a school administrator, she has demonstrated leadership in fostering inclusive environments and promoting equity, diversity, and human rights. She has led School Improvement Planning related to the Dismantling Anti-Black Racism Strategy, Early Literacy, and mathematics, collaborating with staff and community partners to support underserved students and raise achievement. In previous regional roles as Human Rights Principal and Equity Education Principal, she spearheaded initiatives in professional development on Accessibility, Unconscious Bias, Antisemitism, Anti-Black Racism, Islamophobia, and Classism, alongside policy reform.
Aneta has also contributed to Holocaust education through training at Yad Vashem’s International School for Holocaust Studies in Jerusalem. Most recently, she helped develop an online course on antisemitism with the Ontario Principals' Council.
Algoma University
Dr. Leslie Yaffa
Dr. Leslie Yaffa is a social work educator, therapist, and community development specialist with over two decades of experience supporting children, adolescents, and families. She is currently the BSW Coordinator and Faculty Member at Algoma University’s Brampton campus and maintains a private clinical practice.
Dr. Yaffa holds a BA in Sociology from York University, an MSW from Wilfrid Laurier University, and an EdD in Children, Youth, and Human Services from Nova Southeastern University. Her doctoral work focused on evaluating services for children and youth in Kingston, Jamaica, where she also taught and conducted applied research.
She is the founder of the Jahmeyka Project and the Walk Good Foundation, both of which are dedicated to translating research into cost-effective, community-based programs for youth across Jamaica and the Caribbean. Dr. Yaffa’s work bridges clinical practice, education, and international development with a focus on equity, resilience, and culturally informed care.
Canadian Antisemitism Education Foundation
Annette Poizner
Annette Poizner, MSW, RSW, Ed.D., is a clinical social worker in private practice and author, as well as the lead researcher/author of "Exclusion, Isolation and Rejection: Emerging Anecdotal Reports of Jews Studying Social Work, Preliminary Findings," published in 2022 in the Journal of Contemporary Antisemitism. She has been working to address antisemitism in the field of Social Work under the auspices of the Canadian Antisemitism Education Foundation.
ISGAP, Stanford, University of Chicago
Zahava Feldstein
Zahava Feldstein is a rabbi's daughter, a reformed anti-Zionist, and s scholar of campus antisemitism. She earned a BA in American Studies from Scripps College (Claremont, CA); a MA in Divinity from the University of Chicago; and a MA in Education from Stanford University. Zahava was a PhD student at Stanford in Education & Jewish Studies, studying the California ethnic studies mandate for public schools and antisemitic ideological frameworks on the academic left, before leaving in response to rampant and pervasive antisemitic harassment and bullying by her ethnic studies-adjacent classmates and professors.
University of Ottawa
Danna Strauss
Dana Strauss is a clinical psychology doctoral student working with Dr. Cary Kogan at the University of Ottawa. She has published research articles on the intersection of racism, mental health, and psychedelics. For example, she published an article titled, Research Abuses Against People of Colour and Other Vulnerable Groups in Early Psychedelic Research, and was leading follow-up study to better understand the community impact of these abuses. However, after the October 7th 2023 attack, she felt it necessary to change her focus to antisemitism. She is currently researching the mental health impacts of faculty experiences of antisemitism on Canadian campuses.
Megan Hollinger
University of Ottawa
Megan Hollinger is a doctoral candidate in Religious Studies at the University of Ottawa, researching strategies to combat antisemitism in Canada through intergroup contact and bridge-building initiatives. Her research focuses on Ottawa, Victoria, and Montreal, examining methods to enhance resilience against antisemitism. She teaches about the Holocaust at Carleton University and antisemitism and Canadian Jewry at the University of Ottawa. A Scholar-In-Residence from the ISGAP Oxford Summer Institute, Megan contributes to their research collective, mapping contemporary antisemitism. She was also an Ian Stewart Graduate Fellow at the University of Victoria’s Centre for Studies in Religion and Society and serves as Treasurer and Membership Chair of the Association for Canadian Jewish Studies.
Jessica Taylor Charland
OISE University of Toronto
Jessica Taylor Charland is a PhD student in the department of Curriculum, Teaching and Learning at OISE with an interest in how teachers’ cultural identities influence their pedagogy and classroom practices. She has been a teacher educator for the last decade helping preservice teachers learn about literacy instruction, infusing her knowledge of multimodal literacies and social justice advocacy into her practice. She is the proud mom of two kids, an avid reader, and art enthusiast.
University of Guelph
Talia Rockman
Talia Rockman is a second-year MA student in Sociology at the University of Guelph. Her current research examines how neoliberal policies have affected the labor conditions, well-being, and collective action capabilities of hospital-employed registered practical nurses, from the pandemic to the present.
Talia's research interests are expanding towards exploring the experiences of Jewish postgraduate students in the diaspora. She intends to pursue a PhD focused on how these students have navigated campus culture since October 7, 2023, and how this environment has influenced their opportunities for peer and faculty mentorship.
York University
Dr. Judith Cohen
Dr. Judith R. Cohen is an ethnomusicologist and consultant specializing in Judeo-Spanish (Ladino), Yiddish, medieval, and folk music from Spain, Portugal, France, French Canada, and the Balkans. She has been a Contract Faculty and Adjunct Graduate Faculty member at York University’s Music Department since 2001 and collaborates with institutions such as the University of Haifa, Carleton University, and Concordia University.
Her work increasingly addresses the intersection of antisemitism, academic freedom, and cultural boycotts. Following the events of October 7, 2023, she has faced significant challenges as a scholar and performing artist, including demands to exclude Jewish music from concerts and confrontations over anti-Zionist rhetoric within academic societies. Dr. Cohen’s commitment to scholarly integrity, artistic expression, and cultural understanding continues to guide her contributions to the study of Jewish musical traditions and contemporary antisemitism.
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