When a Toronto café posted “No Zionists allowed,” and when Jewish college students at Canadian universities confronted discrimination, Brooke Goldstein didn’t write a press launch. She filed lawsuits, getting down to make Jew‑hatred legally pricey.
Goldstein is government director and founding father of The Lawfare Challenge, a corporation devoted to defending the rights of the Jewish individuals by way of authorized motion. It has pursued over 150 authorized actions in 14 nations, and with an 800-strong authorized community, offered over US$13 million price of professional bono authorized providers since 2010.
Amongst its Canadian victories is a December 2023 ruling towards Foodbenders, a now-closed Toronto restaurant, ordered to pay damages to tv character Shai Deluca for defaming him with antisemitic Instagram posts.
Ongoing circumstances embody efforts to guard Jewish college students, together with a proposed CAD$77-million McMaster College class motion and a $1-million go well with towards Toronto’s OCAD college, with companions together with Diamond & Diamond Legal professionals and RE-LAW LLP.
Goldstein, a Toronto native now in Miami, can be founding father of Finish Jew-Hatred, a civil rights group spanning 40 universities. Her forthcoming guide, Finish Jew Hatred: A Handbook for Mobilization , due in August, goals to indicate learn how to impact change by way of grassroots mobilization and authorized activism.
Dave Gordon spoke with Goldstein, a McGill graduate who earned her regulation diploma from Yeshiva College in New York, for Nationwide Submit.
What are you seeing throughout campuses that may not seem within the headlines?
A troubling radicalization of the scholar physique, with a giant problem of international funding. We’ve a case towards Carnegie Mellon College now, which is, I feel, the third largest recipient of funds from Qatar.
Qatar has been funding anti-Americanism, radicalizing the scholar physique. They’ve been funding DEI applications. When a faculty has these applications, hatred and discrimination towards Jewish college students rise.
You see the identical narratives on Canadian campuses of appeasement and justification of terrorism. It’s together with pro-Islamist narratives of October 7 rape denial, accusations of colonization, and the BDS motion.
We have to discover the supply of this radicalization. We’re seeing a systemic stage of indoctrination, hatred, and propaganda coming from the administration itself.
How are strains of protected speech crossed?
You’re free to carry up an indication saying, ‘I hate Jews, I really like Hamas.’ That’s protected speech, though it’s horrible and an indication of a failure of our academic system.
However if you block a scholar’s skill to enter right into a classroom, if you create a hostile atmosphere to the purpose the place Jewish or different minority college students are literally scared to go to class, when Jewish college students are singled out in school and picked on, that turns into motion.
College students had been locked up within the library, falsely imprisoned in Cooper Union with pro-Hamas protesters banging on the home windows, holding sticks and placards, and chanting genocidal slogans. That’s not free speech, that’s harassment. There’s a stage of negligence, perhaps intentional, of the college to manage the scholars.
College students are purposely concealing their identification and violating the scholar conduct code. Directors refuse to implement and apply the college’s code.
When a scholar is being handled in a different way, or denied providers, or subjected to a hostile atmosphere due to a protected class — that scholar’s faith, pores and skin color, race, ethnicity or nationwide identification — that’s discrimination.
What are you hoping for in your circumstances towards universities?
They’ll settle or be litigated. In the long run, what you need is a judgment by a court docket saying this behaviour is mistaken, and set a precedent, and say it’s illegal to deal with a scholar like this.
We need to hear that our plaintiff confronted anti-Jewish discrimination and disadvantaged her of her skill to interact as an equal participant in her studying atmosphere. When you set that precedent, different faculties should observe, or they too might be held liable and accountable.
Otherwise you settle the case, which generally is most well-liked. You possibly can attempt to repair the problems on the college.
At Cooper Union, we had a coverage that’s going to be carried out by the college, per the settlement settlement, that college students can not put on masks to hide their identification, they’ve to hold their scholar ID, and any posters should be authorised.
Most significantly, we bought the college to acknowledge that Zionism is an integral a part of Jewish identification, and there must be no anti-Zionist discrimination on campus — that’s akin to anti-Jewish discrimination.
There’s faculties that need to do the proper factor, and so they don’t know the way, and so they welcome the settlement settlement. Generally there’s faculties that don’t need to cooperate.
What do you need to see from Canada’s legislators?
The federal government wants to use the rule of regulation. You have got pro-terror, Islamist teams — some pushing up and down the streets, harassing native residents. The place’s regulation enforcement?
What are they doing to make sure that these teams aren’t illegally fundraising?
People who find themselves arrested at these pro-terror rallies, who’re engaged in lawlessness, it’s like a catch-and-release coverage. There’s no deterrence there.
You’re increasing EndJewHatred to Canada. What does your group try this isn’t already completed by current organizations?
I don’t assume anyone is engaged in any sort of significant floor work or mobilization.
I funded a examine on minority rights actions in North America; what we observed was there was a mixture of influence litigation and grassroots.
That’s the reason we’ve seen such change. It’s important to mobilize the neighborhood.
What’s occurred is these main massive field Jewish organizations have stated, ‘If you wish to battle antisemitism, write me a cheque, and I’ll do it for you.’ That’s not working. We don’t see the needle shifting.
However the metrics of influence litigation are actual.
Foodbenders was a beautiful instance. We filed the profitable lawsuit, but additionally, the neighborhood confirmed up and protested, and ultimately that restaurant shut down.
We need to mobilize the Jewish neighborhood and our allies to bodily interact in direct actions, protests, letter campaigns, displaying up at council conferences — to pressure the change we need to see.
In Ottawa, Canada, two very totally different protests passed off and revealed the stark divide within the battle towards extremism.
At one gathering, demonstrators waved Israeli flags alongside the Lion & Solar flag, the historic Iranian image now embraced by many who oppose the Islamic… pic.twitter.com/XVnzTG88Ex— Finish Jew Hatred (@EndJewHatred) March 5, 2026
How does the Jewish neighborhood collect extra allies?
I don’t assume our allies are far and few between. North Individuals need to reside in freedom. They need the rule of regulation to be utilized equally. They don’t need radicalization on their campuses. They don’t need to see terrorist teams fundraise inside our nation.
You’ll see a whole lot of panels, conferences, Zoom calls, and Insta lives, however ultimately, there must be a selected name to motion. That is what we do with our chapters.
The query is, what have we requested our allies to do? Have we requested them to indicate up on the protest with us? Have we requested them to face with us once we go to metropolis council? I don’t assume we now have. I don’t assume any main group is admittedly organizing sustained, efficient protests in Canada, the identical method that we’re doing in the USA.
What the allies want to know is that this isn’t a Jewish problem. We don’t want higher PR for Israel. We want pro-Judeo-Christian values PR. We want unfavorable campaigning towards radical Islam. We can’t be afraid to speak concerning the threats that face the Jewish neighborhood, face the remainder of the West equally. The message must be one in all shared values.
This interview was edited for brevity.
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