What is behind the push to have Ontario school boards adopt policies to combat anti-Palestinian racism? And why has it prompted an outcry of concern from many families of Jewish students, from Jewish school staff and from some Jewish human rights groups?

The Ontario government recently put more than half a dozen school boards, including in Toronto and Ottawa, under the supervision by the ministry of education. This has effectively halted official school board discussions on the issue there – for now, but the debate over anti-Palestinian racism policies, or APR for short, isn't over: it's just moved out of the spotlight.

For weeks, our Mitchell Consky, The Canadian Jewish News’s Local Journalism Initiative reporter, has been digging into why the campaign for school boards to adopt APR policies has become such a flashpoint, what's at stake for Jewish and Israeli families, and also for Palestinian ones, and their allies.

His story was published last week. His investigation also uncovered evidence that the Canadian government has been funding APR advocates who strongly oppose Canada’s widely-accepted definition of antisemitism known as the IHRA Definition, even as the APR groups accuse this framework of causing anti-Palestinian racism.

On today's episode of The CJN's North Star podcast, Consky joins host Ellin Bessner to tell us more about his reporting, what APR is, and how the clash is playing out on the ground and in the schools.

Related stories:

• Read Mitch Consky’s investigative story about the controversy over the campaign to have school boards in Ontario adopt anti-Palestinian racism policies, in The CJN .
• Hear Mitch Consky evaluate why some Jewish teachers and even a Jewish school board trustee were accused of anti-Palestinian racism, on The CJN’s North Star podcast from June 2025.
• Learn more about why this Jewish advocacy group for parents warned that identity politics are feeling antisemitism in Ontario schools, in The CJN .

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner ( @ebessner )
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer), Alicia Richler (editorial director)
• Music: Bret Higgins

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