By: Neda Pirouzmand
One of the key issues that the MSU points out in the “Health and Wellness” policy paper is that referrals from the Student Wellness Centre are not tailored to the needs of students.
The MSU suggests that the SWC neglects to account for how students will reach community referrals or how much it will cost them.
The policy paper brings forward a number of recommendations to combat these issues, proposing the SWC connect with MSU peer support services to provide support for McMaster’s diverse student population.
The MSU also recommends that the SWC offer harm reduction services and feedback opportunities to students.
The policy paper also includes recommendations for other university stakeholders, suggesting that professors and teaching assistants be required to undergo mental health first aid training.
According to this policy paper, McMaster off-campus resource centre resources are underused by students. The OCRC has not posted on Facebook since April 2017.
Another issue is that demand is overtaking supply in the student housing market. The quantity and quality of available housing opportunities is on the decline.
In light of these issues, the MSU recommends the city of Hamilton to proceed with its proposed investment of $347,463 to hire three full-time employees for a two-year rental licensing pilot project beginning in 2019 to annually inspect buildings in Hamilton.
The MSU also suggests that McMaster seek more public-private partnerships to improve the supply of nearby student housing.
This policy paper first notes that McMaster has a ten year plan to make its campus “car free,” which would reduce accessibility by moving the HSR bus stop from University and Sterling Street to the McMaster Go bus station.
According to the paper, another accessibility concern lies in the fact that most McMaster professors neither consider nor actively incorporate strategies and recommendations outlined in McMaster’s accessibility resources.
The paper also points out that learning materials are often inequitable and the university has significant work to do when it comes to promoting and implementing accessible pedagogy.
The MSU puts forward a number of recommendations to improve the university’s accessibility practices.
The paper argues that all professors teaching in rooms fitted for podcasting should post podcasts and use accessible formats for supplementary class material.
In addition, the paper suggests that intramurals reduce their pre-playoff participation requirement from 50 to 30 per cent, as students with disabilities may not be able to make all games.
According to the paper, student accessibility services should have an open catalogue for student notes, where students in need would not be limited to resources from one student.
The dominant issue highlighted in this policy paper is the fact that faculty staff and many student groups do not receive mandatory anti-oppressive practices training.
In addition, according to the paper, McMaster Security Services has been involved in the excessive carding and racial profiling of students.
Another issue concerns the fact that there exists no record-keeping system of student demographics in relation to enrollment and dropout rates by faculty.
Students are also largely unaware of the McMaster Religious, Spiritual, and Indigenous Observances policy.
Some recommendations in the paper call for McMaster to explore alternative enrollment application streams for underrepresented groups.
The paper also suggests that applicants looking for research funding from Mcmaster identify how their research will appeal to or account for marginalized populations.
According to the paper, McMaster should mandate equity and diversity requirements for all undergrads.
Chairs of hiring committees, security staff, teaching assistants and faculty members should undergo mandatory AOP training.
Another recommendation calls for the EIO to investigate carding and racial profiling trends centered around McMaster Security Services.
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By: Lina Assi & Yara Shoufani
Each year, Israeli Apartheid Week takes place across more than 150 universities and cities. IAW aims to raise awareness about Israel’s ongoing settler-colonial project and apartheid policies over the Palestinian people.
IAW’s goal is to tell the world of the Palestinian struggle, one which is so often erased in mainstream media. Apartheid is a system of racial segregation. In Israel, this includes military control over the West Bank, two distinct identification systems, separate roads for Israelis and Palestinians and military checkpoints which only Palestinians are subjected to. These restrictions on movement have impeded access to health and education. Palestinian houses are demolished for “Israeli only” settlements, and an apartheid wall — eight times the size of the Berlin Wall — separates Palestinians not only from Israelis, from the world and from one another. Israel’s system of settler-colonialism and apartheid has dismantled Palestine into fragmented pieces of land, destroying the Palestinian economy and social structures.
Israeli Apartheid Week brings the occupation onto campus, so to speak. It aims to show students that there is no Israeli-Palestinian “conflict” because the word implies that the two sides are equal. There is instead an occupied and an occupier; an illegal, inhumane, brutal, military occupation.
There is no Israeli-Palestinian “conflict” because the word implies that the two sides are equal.
On March 15 at 6:30 p.m. we are hosting Eran Efrati and Maya Wind for a free lecture. Eran is an ex-Israeli soldier, and Maya is an Israeli peace activist whose refusal to join the military led to her imprisonment in Israel. We hope the stories of Eran and Maya will show McMaster students that Israel’s occupation is not only being resisted against by Palestinians, but by small groups within Israeli society as well.
We will also be recreating apartheid on the BSB lawn through displays of the apartheid wall, settlements, roads, prisons and even the blockaded Gaza Strip. We hope this display will show students that there is no such thing as neutrality in the face of injustice.
Both Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights and McMaster Muslims for Peace and Justice will be tabling in MUSC to talk to students about Israel and Palestinian resistance movements, such as Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions. This educational week is one that is endorsed by many Hamilton movements and student clubs, including Independent Jewish Voices, McMaster Muslim Students Association, McMaster Womanists, McMaster Indigenous Student Community Alliance, United in Colour, Hamilton Coalition to Stop the War, CUPE 3906, Young Communist League and McMaster Middle Eastern Student Society.
The diversity of these clubs reminds us that Israeli Apartheid Week is about more than the relationship between Israelis and Palestinians. It’s part of a movement of students who stand for peace and justice, and against colonization, occupation, racism and violence.
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By: Mindy Chapman
I believe that the Palestinian people have the right to self-determination. I also believe that the Jewish people have the right to self-determination. As a Jewish woman living in diaspora, I feel a deep connection to my historic homeland, Israel. During my one visit there, I experienced the magic of Jerusalem and of praying in the same places my people have been praying for thousands of years. I experienced the intense feelings of belonging, homecoming and spiritual and religious freedom. During my lifetime in Canada, I’ve experienced the yearning and longing, not just for the people of Israel, but for the physical land, soil and trees as well. These powerful feelings affirm not only my own connection to the land, but my understanding of the connection that Palestinian people feel to the land as well. I recognize the existence of another group of people that might feel the exact same way that I do.
Sustainable, long lasting peace is an attainable goal. However, it will only be achieved through coexistence, mutual respect and shared understanding. Learning to love one another as human beings, and to understand and respect one another’s stories and perspectives, is the first step to living side by side and amongst one another in peace.
I have often been told that it is wrong to divide the world into simplified categories like “us” and “them.” I’ve learned that there is an “us” and “them.” There are Jews and Muslims, Arabs and Israelis, who seek to further the divide between us, and there are those who strive to build a better future for the children of Israel and Palestine.
In Israel, efforts that strive to create a shared society from the top down, as well as the bottom up, are well underway. Government initiatives that require the teaching of Arabic in Jewish schools are helping create broad societal changes by providing Israeli children with the tools to communicate effectively with their Palestinian counterparts. Organizations such as Hand in Hand and PeacePlayers are making real changes on the community level. Both organizations run programming that connect Israeli and Palestinian youth through a shared experience. Hand in Hand does this through multicultural schooling and PeacePlayers through after school recreation activities.
There is an “us” and “them.” There are Jews and Muslims, Arabs and Israelis, who seek to further the divide between us, and there are those who strive to build a better future.
In order to promote these incredible initiatives and advocate for the building of a shared community, Israel on Campus is running our first Coexistence Week. By bringing attention to the organizations that are creating positive change in Israeli society, we hope to encourage the innovation and support for similar initiatives. We can no longer allow hateful rhetoric and closed-mindedness to further the divide between us. It is time to work together, learn from one another and build the shared society we want to live in: founded on diversity and coexistence, abounding with peace.
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If you aren’t Jewish you may have missed an exciting development in the world of McMaster Jewish cuisine last semester: sandwiches.
Now, for around three dollars, you too can own a certified Kosher sandwich from La Piazza. McMaster’s Jewish community posted “sandwich selfies” in celebration – mind you, as a group of people that have holidays in the name of dairy products, trees, and the arrival of Friday, it is safe to say we are generally willing to celebrate most things. Yet, as I told people of the incredible bracha (blessing) that was kosher cream cheese and salmon on white, I was met with considerable confusion from my non-Jewish friends. The most disturbing question I received was “why would you condone the Kosher butchering of animals when the methods are so cruel?”
Here is the most important thing you need to know: food is personal. Last year, the Danish government banned Kosher and Halal slaughter. European law states that animals must be stunned before slaughter, but grants exemptions based on religious grounds. Jewish and Muslim laws have strict regulations surrounding Kosher and Halal slaughter that does not allow for the stunning of animals.
Your first thought might be that not stunning an animal is inhumane and must be outlawed, but to single out Kosher and Halal slaughter for cruelty in the world of meat production is foolish. Firstly, methods of stunning are not necessarily painless. They can include electric shocks, gassing, or a bolt to the skull. Occasionally the animal is not properly stunned (the bolt misses the brain, the voltage is not high enough), and is in pain until it dies. Jewish law very strictly prohibits causing unnecessary suffering to animals, with the exemption of the slaughter itself, which must be done as swiftly as possible and render the animal unconscious almost immediately.
This is not to say that the killing of animals for food — kosher, halal, or otherwise — is painless and without its faults. However, if you honestly care for the welfare of the animals that end up on your dinner plate, then you would care about their holistic quality of life, not just the moment before their death. You would campaign for better living conditions and feed in factory farms. You would care for different animals equally; as much for the chicken that makes Friday’s mazo ball soup, as you would the giraffe that a Danish zoo fed to a Lion — for entertainment purposes — the same year they banned kosher slaughter.
To single out Kosher and Halal slaughter for cruelty in the world of meat production is foolish
Despite that one Jewish friend you know who loves their bacon, for many Jews keeping kosher is not optional. The same goes for Halal. To label Halal slaughter as inhumane reflects the Islamophobic belief that Islam cares less about the sanctity of life. To restrict Kosher food is to isolate and drive away Jewish families from their communities. In attacking our food supply, you are saying to us “we do not want you to live here.” It is not a campaign for animal rights; it is thinly veiled anti-Semitism and Islamophobia.
So what does the supply of sandwiches at McMaster have to do with it? The short answer is: keep ‘em coming. Our university has done some amazing things to accommodate Jewish and Muslim students. I know that if I face discrimination on campus that I can go to HRES (Human Rights and Equity Services) for help, or that if I need a quiet place to pray I can go to the basement of Thode. I feel safe openly identifying as Jewish both in the community and the classroom, which is no mean feat. To make students feel welcome, food should be right alongside institutional policy. To give us as many meal options on campus sends the message that the University wants us to feel comfortable living and studying here. I’m loving the sandwiches and can’t wait to see what comes next. Who knew egg salad could taste so good?
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I have completely different feelings towards the holidays than my father. It has never bothered him when someone wishes him a Merry Christmas. “I’m not offended if someone wishes me happy birthday when it isn’t my birthday,” he used to tell me, “What harm can extra good will do?”
I, on the other hand, despise December. Every sprig of mistletoe, every nativity scene and every adorned tree drives me up the wall. As one of the few Jewish students at my high school I ran a campaign to get music other than Christmas carols played over the PA system in the mornings. When someone asks me what I’m doing for Christmas I will reply — at times, coldly — that I do not celebrate. Although on principle I haven’t seen any movies starring the Grinch, I’ve been told that my attitude is comparable.
I fully recognize that I am biased, but you should understand that my resentment is not unfounded. While other kids my age associated Christmas with gift from Santa, I was left wondering why he hadn’t also visited my house. As a child of European and Israeli parents, the promised eight days of gifts for Jewish children was not a reality for me. This isn’t to say that I now feel hard done by it; I had more than enough toys to keep me busy growing up, but it meant that I wondered what I had done wrong to receive the proverbial lump of coal. Presuming that it was a lack of chimney, my mother explained the truth to me when she found me trying to make a tree out of cardboard and a green magic marker. Finding out that I was different from other kids in something that is often portrayed as a ubiquitous experience hit hard.
I relate to, and feel sorry for, the fictional Anthony Goldstein, the only Jewish character in the Harry Potter books, who would have most likely felt as alienated as I did when watching all the witches and wizards around him celebrate a holiday that easily took up one or two whole chapters of each book. I feel even sorrier for all of the Jewish kids, myself included, who weren’t able to picture themselves at Hogwarts as a result. I can suspend disbelief in allowing for charms and hippogriffs, but being Jewish is such a large part of my identity that I can’t envision my magical self as being anything but.
Anthony, much like myself, would have had a lot of experience being looked to as the token representative of Hanukah, or as it has often been described to me, “Jewish Christmas.” Every time a Hanukah song was played at an assembly — inevitable the hateful and nonsensical “dreidel dreidel” — people would look to me as if to say “is this what your religion looks like? Have we made you feel included yet?” The truth is that I feel no connection to the Hanukah songs often played by Gentiles. To start, none of my holiday tunes growing up were in English, and if you made a dreidel out of clay, I guarantee you that it would break. If you are going to include a token Jewish song, please at least just do it justice. This type of clumsy attempt at inclusion tends to just make me feel worse.
Perhaps even more upsetting to me than hearing “Jewish” songs I don’t know is knowing the Christmas ones a little too well. You can only live in Canada for so long before you absorb Christmas knowledge, and for me growing up, that was carols. It never ceases to disturb me that I know more tunes about the birth of Jesus than I do about the victory of the Maccabees. I feel extreme guilt over being more assimilated than not, but there is little that I can do about it. Every time I get “Silent Night” or “Deck the Halls” stuck in my head it is a reminder that this holiday does not belong to me, but that I can’t help but be involved in it whether I want to be or not.
Thus this December I have a simple request: please stop assuming that Christmas is a universal experience. Any holiday with “Christ” in its name is nowhere near secular enough for the entire population to be celebrating. Please stop tokenizing our holiday in half-hearted attempts at inclusion, because as the kids who know the truth about Santa long before you do, we hold more power than you’d like to believe.
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By: Lina Assi
Boycotts Divestment and Sanctions was introduced to our campus last March at the General Assembly, and has been a contentious topic on campus. This debate has led to several misconceptions amongst the McMaster student body. One of the main criticisms has been that BDS targets our fellow Jewish students, and it has been mislabeled as anti-Semitic. This begs the question, if a movement that promotes ethical purchasing is unjust, aggressive and bigoted, how was it adopted in a vote that included more than 600 McMaster students at last year’s General Assembly?
In short, the BDS movement is not a discriminatory policy. It does not target McMaster students of Jewish faith, nor does the BDS movement seek to dismantle the state of Israel. The main objective of the BDS movement is to hold Israel accountable for its infringement of international law that seeks to provide indigenous Palestinian communities with their basic human rights. The lack of knowledge regarding the BDS movement has led to the derailment of tackling the main issue of illegal Israeli settlements in the Palestinian Territories.
BDS was supported by many student groups and non-government organizations, including the Hamilton Chapter of Jewish Voices for Peace. Last year, students in support of Palestinian human rights organized initiatives on campus that involved Jewish and Israeli speakers that addressed the infringement of human rights by Israel.
One of the main catchphrases of the student groups promoting Palestinian rights on campus is “we don’t want your anti-Semitism!” An organization of students on campus that seek to bring justice to one ethnic group and injustice to another would be counterintuitive and quite frankly, hypocritical. Students that support BDS legislation on our campus did so to speak out against injustice to the indigenous Palestinian population and, I assure you, would do so again for any injustice we witness today. The BDS legislation on our campus strictly addresses corporations that are profiting from the illegal settlements in the Palestinian Territories, settlements that have displaced thousands of people and caused harm to the Palestinian communities on several levels.
As a McMaster student, I invite you to take it upon yourself to pass judgment on this movement only once you have done your research about what BDS legislation on our campus means. It is an initiative that seeks to promote justice in accordance with our values at McMaster. To pass a snap judgement does not do justice to any party involved in this complex issue.
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