Event Description
Antisemitism in Canada has risen sharply since October 2023. Some of it is unmistakable, the kind the law has long known how to name. But a growing share reaches Jews without naming them. Canadian equality law has long recognized discrimination that hides behind neutral language, whether it falls on women, on racialized communities, or on religious minorities. Does that doctrine reach here, and where does it run out? Where does political criticism end and unlawful harm begin, and who gets to decide? This panel brings together three contributors to the forthcoming volume Emerging Issues in Antisemitism and Canadian Law (Sari Graben, ed., currently under review at an academic press) to ask where the law's tools work and where they fall short. It also asks who is drawing the line in practice: platforms and the regulators trying to govern them, universities and the external reviewers they appoint, and the tribunals to which complaints eventually come. An evening for lawyers, scholars, students, and anyone trying to understand the gap between what Jewish Canadians are experiencing and what Canadian law is prepared to recognize.
A reception with light refreshments will follow the panel
Presented by the Peter A. Allard School of Law, Jewish Law Students’ Association and Jewish Academic Alliance of BC. Funded by the EDI Research Funds 2026.
RSVP deadline: Thursday, October 15 at 11:59pm.
Panellists
Sari Graben, Professor, Lincoln Alexander School of Law, Toronto Metropolitan University; editor, Emerging Issues in Antisemitism and Canadian Law
Dr. Graben currently serves as the Associate Dean Research and Graduate Studies. In this role she provides strategic research leadership to support development of capacity and excellence in achievement of the Faculty’s research goals, and leads the application for a graduate program at Lincoln Alexander School of Law. Dr. Graben has also launched and directs the Lincoln Alexander Law Professional Development Program, designed to serve practicing lawyers and other professionals across a range of communities.
Michael Geist, Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law, University of Ottawa
Dr. Michael Geist is the Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law, a Faculty member at the Centre for Law, Technology and Society, and a Full Professor in the Faculty of Law, Common Law Section at the University of Ottawa.
Dr. Michael Geist regularly appears in the Globe and Mail. He is the editor of several monthly technology law publications and the author of a popular blog on Internet and intellectual property law issues. He serves on many boards, including Internet Archive Canada, and the EFF Advisory Board.
Toby Goldbach, Assistant Professor, Peter A. Allard School of Law
Toby Goldbach joined Peter A. Allard School of Law in 2017 following a two-year teaching fellowship at Cornell University Law School. Dr. Goldbach was a UBC Green College Leading Scholar (2018-2020) and is co-chair of the Law and Society Association Collaborative Research Network on Innovations in Judging.
Dr. Goldbach holds a JD and an LLM specializing in Dispute Resolution from Osgoode Hall Law School. She earned her doctorate from Cornell Law School, where she was a Rudolf B. Schlesinger Research Fellow and a Visiting Scholar at the Cegla Center for Interdisciplinary Research of the Law at Tel Aviv University Buchmann Faculty of Law.
Moderator
Erez Aloni, Professor, Peter A. Allard School of Law
Dr. Erez Aloni is Professor at the Peter A. Allard School of Law, where he teaches contracts, family law, and law and sexuality. He holds an LL.M. and S.J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania Law School, and was earlier a Fellow at the Center for Reproductive Rights and Columbia Law School and an Assistant Professor at Whittier Law School in California. His research examines the law of family and intimacy and the distributive effects of regulating marriage, cohabitation, and surrogacy. He is Faculty Co-Editor of the Canadian Journal of Family Law, Contributing Editor in the Equality Section of Jotwell, and has served on the Executive Council of the International Society of Family Law. He received the Killam Faculty Research Fellowship in 2023 and the George Curtis Memorial Award for teaching in 2021. He has written op-eds for the LA Times, The Guardian, The Globe and Mail, and The Vancouver Sun, and is a frequent source of expert commentary in the media. He has taught as a visiting professor at Reichman University, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Tel Aviv University, and National Taiwan University.
- Allard School of Law
- Student Organization
- General Public
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- Alumni
- Faculty
- Graduate Students
- JD
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- Research Talks
