A Toronto Public Library branch removed a poem by a celebrated Palestinian poet killed in an Israeli airstrike in December, following pressure from pro-Israel lobby group B’nai Brith Canada, a move that advocates are calling a clear example of anti-Palestinian racism.

News circulated on social media last week after B’nai Brith posted on X (formerly Twitter). The organization claimed the display presented “a biased and unbalanced anti-Israel perspective,” adding that the poem, If I Must Die, “glorifies martyrdom” and pressured the library to remove it from the display.  

B’nai Brith, which celebrated the poem’s removal, did not respond to Ricochet’s request for comment.

Willa Holt, communications coordinator for Independent Jewish Voices, calls the decision to remove the poem from a publicly-funded library “shameful.” 

“B’nai Brith values the state of Israel above all else, prioritizing a nationalist view of Jewishness that does not speak to me,” Holt said. 

“Palestinians should be represented in educational resources and to silence a prominent Palestinian – one who was murdered by the same regime B’nai Brith supports uncritically – is a cowardly and unjustifiable move during an ongoing genocide.”

Holt says B’nai Brith is doing more harm than good for Jewish Canadians by “conflating any anti-Zionist statement, and any critique of the Israel state, with antisemitism,” creating confusion and obscuring real instances of antisemitism. 

The poem by Refaat Alareer, originally published in 2011, was re-shared by the author on November 1, 2023, a month before he was killed by an Israeli airstrike in Shejaiya, along with his brother, sister and her four children. On April 26, an Israeli airstrike killed Alareer’s daughter, Shaima Alareer, her husband and their infant.  

TPL told Ricochet in an email that the poem was not removed from the display under pressure from an outside lobby group, but rather because the poem was not part of the library’s collection, states Linda Hazzan, library communications and programming director.

Hazzan did not provide further details and declined Ricochet’s request for an interview. 

It’s not clear what other materials were used in the display. Hazzan told Ricochet that the poem was printed out “from a non-TPL source.”

Hazzan added that the library was already in the process of reviewing the displayed material and maintains that the poem was neither removed because of pressure from any organization or individual nor to silence any voices.  

“There are allegations that TPL has censored its collections by removing these elements from the display based on pressure from a community group. This is inaccurate,” Hazzan states. 

While the poem is removed, the display is still up, which includes “varying viewpoints with material in our collections, as is the intent of our displays,” the statement added. 

Many view the removal of the poem as an attempt to silence Palestinian voices. 

Jamila Ewais, researcher at Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East Foundation, is one of them. She said that the poem “makes no direct mention of Israel and did not coincide with [current] clashes between Israel and Palestinians in Gaza.”

“The removal of the poem highlights concerns regarding Palestinian voices and their rights to express their human experiences. It implies that Palestinians are reduced to mere political issues without the entitlement to cultural expression or even the basic right to exist without facing labels of anti-Israel or antisemitic,” Ewais says.

She added that “writing about death should not automatically be equated with glorifying martyrdom; rather, it is a part of the human experience. To remove Palestinian narratives without valid reasons is a form of discrimination and racism.”

The CJPME has a list of incident reports highlighting anti-Palestinian racism, which includes people who have been suspended from work since October 13, 2023 for publicly voicing support or solidarity with Palestinians.

Censorship and Canadian law

Removing the poem from a publicly-funded space could be viewed as censorship, which infringes on the rights to freedom of expression under Canada’s Charter, according to Harini Sivalingam, director Equality Program at Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA). 

“Public libraries are public places and spaces where knowledge and education should prevail. Libraries have historically been places where freedom of expression and artistic and intellectual freedoms have thrived and flourished. These are the very public institutions that should cherish and promote free expression,” added Harini. 

This is not the first time that TPL has received criticism. 

In December 2023, the library hosted a panel featuring Norman Finkelstein, an author known for his criticism of Israel and his 2000 book, The Holocaust Industry, which garnered criticism for its claims that the Holocaust has been exploited as an “ideological weapon” to provide the Israeli state freedom from criticism. Finkelstein was born to Jewish parents who were Holocaust survivors. 

Finkelstein has recently gone further than criticism of the state of Israel with provocative statements that celebrate the Hamas attack on October 7. He called the attack as a “heroic resistance” akin to the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, and writes that “it warms every fiber of my soul.” He also said that if Hamas should be dismantled as a result of October 7, the Israeli government should be dismantled “10 times over.” 

At the time, B’nai Brith Canada and Toronto councillor James Pasternak called for the event to be shut down, but the library held firm, pointing to academic freedom. In a statement, the library told CTV that the “event is about academic freedom and all three panelists are writers, teachers or scholars who have had their research, conclusions and, yes, personal opinions challenged by administrators, donors, sponsors or students.”

The library also came under fire in 2019 for renting out space for a third-party event featuring author and activist, Meghan Murphy, who has spoken against transgender human rights. 

Despite intense pressure from Toronto’s LGBTQ+ community in the lead-up to the talk, the library refused to cancel the event. People were critical of the library’s decision and expressed that a public institution should not host someone who could incite violence through her speech. 

But, at the time, Cara Zwibel of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association argued that such rhetoric could be used to justify the restriction of other events in public spaces based on a particular group feeling unsafe or even uncomfortable. 

“A debate on the Israel-Palestine conflict, a panel on immigration policy, a discussion on Canada’s mistreatment of Indigenous communities – each of these topics may make a particular group feel unsafe and unwelcome. Each could be said to inspire some acts of violence. There are good reasons to give our public libraries a wide berth when it comes to protecting free expression and promoting intellectual freedom.”