The Ontario Camps Association says it is confronting a “coordinated campaign” to revoke the standing of Jewish summer camps, amid what it described as discriminatory and antisemitic rhetoric.
Organized by Just Peace Advocates, the Ontario Palestinian Rights Associations and other advocacy groups, it identifies “at least 17 overnight summer camps throughout Canada that support the State of Israel in some way.”
In a letter to members, the OCA board of directors said it recently became aware of correspondence online that included language it found “deeply concerning, and in certain characterizations and claims, we believe reflect rhetoric that is discriminatory and antisemitic in nature.”
The groups wrote that “these camps are not problematic because they encourage connection to Jewish identity. Rather, they pose a problem because they encourage support for a genocidal, settler-colonial state,” pointing to camps celebrating Israeli Independence Day, which they called “a celebration of the nakba, naksa and ongoing genocide.”
They also targeted OCA’s executive director, Joy Levy, calling her “a Zionist who publicly supports Israel, its military and promotes anti-Palestinian racism.” They highlight the fact that she has brought Israeli staff to camps in Canada, which is common for many Jewish camps.
OCA stated that the groups’ accusations “draw directly on stereotyped libels and tropes related to Israel, Zionism and Jewish people, including ‘genocide’ and ‘colonizers,’ symbolic categories that are so often spread with specifically malicious intent.”
According to the board, the campaign appears aimed at camping associations in Ontario, Quebec and Nova Scotia, to prod accreditation bodies to “revoke or reconsider the standing of Jewish camps and to seek disciplinary action against staff.”
The letter stated that “campaigns such as these can be a dangerous expression of the singular demonization and wholesale attempt at the delegitimization of one minority group and have no place in camp culture or elsewhere.”
The board acknowledged that “Jewish camps and Jewish community members across Ontario are functioning in a heightened security environment,” adding that “antisemitism is not abstract. It has a real human and operational impact.”
It also said it is reviewing the situation, strengthening governance protocols and engaging with partners, including B’nai Brith Canada.
The Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver said in a public statement, “Let us be clear: Targeting Jewish camps, and by extension, Jewish children and staff, is not advocacy. It is intimidation.”
It added that “we will not allow political intimidation campaigns to disrupt or endanger spaces dedicated to children.”
The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs described the effort as “a coordinated fringe campaign targeting Jewish summer camps across Canada” and said it is “the latest example in a long campaign to erase Jewish participation in Canadian cultural life.”
CIJA urged governments “to condemn and resist these dangerous attempts to normalize exclusion of Jewish Canadians.”
