Jewish student group calls on TMU to discipline incoming interim dean over anti-Israel social posts

Hillel Ontario is calling on Toronto Metropolitan University to investigate Maher El-Masri, a recently appointed interim associate dean, because the group says he has “repeatedly engaged with and spread extreme, antisemitic, and deeply polarizing content on his social media account.” Hillel Ontario, a Jewish student organization with a presence on nine campuses across the province, including TMU, sent an action alert last Thursday alongside several screenshots of social media posts from an account Hillel says belongs to El-Masri. The X account is under El-Masri’s name and the biography describes the user as the “son of (a) Nakba survivor,” referring to Palestinian refugees from the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. The account states that the user is in Ontario, has a Palestinian flag for its profile picture and a background quote claiming “humanity is failing the Palestine test.” One message Hillel highlighted from the account concerned a post about Noa Marciano, an Israeli intelligence soldier abducted by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023, during its invasion of Israel. Marciano later died in captivity. “This is what is so scary about people like her,” the TMU professor wrote beneath a graduation photo of Marciano, which claimed she was killed in an Israeli airstrike. “They look so normal and innocent, but they hide monstrous killers in their sick, brainwashed minds.” Marciano’s friend, Ori Megidish — another hostage rescued by Israeli forces in late October 2023 — said she was killed by a doctor in al-Shifa hospital. Her parents said the same thing in subsequent interviews. “I hate everyone who directly or indirectly caused this indignity to the most honorable and most dignified people on Earth,” an undated post flagged by Hillel reads alongside broken heart emojis, an apparent reference to the conflict in Gaza. In December 2023, El-Masri was interviewed by CBC for a story about his brother, who he said was killed by Israeli forces in Gaza while searching for food. El-Masri has continued to post about the conflict on the X account, which remains open to the public. “Israel is a baby killer state. It always has been,” he wrote on June 6, a day after the Hillel notice. Some of his posts compare Israel to Nazi Germany, a comparison deemed antisemitic by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA). On May 7, 2025, El-Masri commented on a photo of a proposed humanitarian zone in Gaza. “The irony of history: The last time such a concentration camp was erected, it was by the Nazis!” El-Masri returns to the point repeatedly throughout his social media feed. “How could a people who have endured the worst human persecution in the holocaust carry this deep hate and inflict unimaginable pain on a nother (sic) people who, in fact, had nothing to do with the holocaust!!!!” he wrote last June. “When the victims of the holocaust call for a holocaust,” El-Masri wrote in early May 2025. He has also downplayed the role of Hamas in the conflict on several occasions. “This is NOT a war against Hamas. This is a genocidal war against the very existence of the Palestinian people,” he wrote in August 2024. In May 2025, he argued that “‘Hamas’ is the zionists’ code word to dehumanize the Palestinian people.” National Post reached out to El-Masri for comment but the professor responded with an email ordering the Post not to contact him anymore. He described the allegations around the content of his social media account as a “smear campaign.” Liat Schwartz, a Jewish TMU student in the same department as El-Masri, called his online statements alarming, “especially since I’m openly Jewish.” Schwartz, the president of a pro-Israel group on campus, called on university leaders to protect “the well-being of Jewish and Israeli students,” saying El-Masri’s presence “makes me feel profoundly unsafe and unheard within my own faculty.” Hillel Ontario called on TMU to rescind El-Masri’s appointment as interim dean. “TMU’s decision to promote Dr. El-Masri, despite his extensive history of promoting antisemitic and extremist content, is egregious,” Jay Solomon, the group’s chief advancement officer, told the Post in a written statement. “Those in leadership positions must be held to the absolute highest standard, and ensure that all students — including Jews and Israelis — feel supported. This appointment sends exactly the opposite message. TMU must act swiftly in removing El-Masri and alter their process to ensure this doesn’t happen again.” University spokesperson Jessica Leach underscored the personal impact the ongoing conflict was having on members of the university community but said that El-Masiri’s “posts do not reflect the position of the university.” “The posts are his personal views as a faculty member, with no mention of or affiliation with TMU. The university is reviewing this matter,” she said in a written statement encouraging university members “to be respectful, collegial, and empathetic.” Leach initially challenged Hillel’s press release, claiming the organization was mistaken and El-Masiri was not a dean. When asked if El-Masiri had ever held the position of dean, interim or otherwise, Leach wrote the Post that he had not. Her response was contradicted by Hillel, who shared with the Post an email sent in early June apparently from the Faculty of Community Services dean announcing El-Masiri’s appointment. “Dr. El-Masri has a demonstrated track record of excellence in teaching, research and service, and he is widely respected for his enormous engagement with health care systems in Toronto, across Ontario, and even globally,” the email says. TMU later followed up with a statement confirming that El-Masri has been appointed an assistant dean, but he has not yet assumed the post. “His appointment as interim-acting Assistant Dean is not effective until July 1. Until that time, Dr. El-Masri is the director of the school of nursing, a faculty-level position. Directors within faculties, such as Dr. El-Masri’s position, are not administrators. They are full members of the Toronto Metropolitan Faculty Association (TFA),” the statement says. El-Masri is scheduled to be the convocation speaker for the Faculty of Community Services graduation event on June 18. Steven Tissenbaum, a recently retired TMU business professor, said the university’s failure to properly deal with allegations of antisemitism has coloured life at the downtown Toronto campus since the October 7 massacre. He called the administration’s failure to discipline dozens of law students who signed a letter defending “all forms of Palestinian resistance” days after the Hamas atrocities “the real defining moment” for him. “Jewish professors at large recognize that TMU is not a place to be,” Tissenbaum told the Post, explaining this realization is spreading to Jewish students and families as well. Two other academics from TMU reiterated Tissenbaum’s point but wished to remain anonymous because they are still actively teaching at TMU. “I am writing to let you know that it is worse for faculty and staff,” one tenured academic, who wished to remain anonymous, wrote the Post after an earlier story chronicling the harassment Schwartz and other Jewish students experienced on campus was published. “Faculty who are demonstrably Jewish have been attacked, harassed, and threatened, and some have even resigned.” Tissenbaum taught at TMU for nearly three decades and said the university has grown increasingly insensitive to the concerns of Jewish academics and students. He was particularly alarmed by the university’s faculty association passing a motion in May recognizing anti-Palestinian racism (a new term which advocates for the dismantling of the IHRA working definition of antisemitism) at a time of increased Jew hatred. “The undercurrents of antisemitism have been there,” he said, recalling a time in the nineties when someone drew a swastika on his desk. When he raised the incident during a university diversity and equity session, Tissenbaum says he “was ghosted” and that no one responded to his concerns. “It’s always been there, but what’s happened since October 7 is that it provided a spark for people to be outwardly aggressive with their antisemitism.” Tissenbaum decided to retire early from TMU. He stepped away in August 2024. “I retired primarily due to the increased antisemitism being experienced on campus due to the lack of administrative support from the president down,” he wrote the Post. Although Tissenbaum said he did not feel physically threatened on campus, he believes the treatment Jewish students have endured in recent years is not conducive to a healthy learning atmosphere. The entrepreneurship professor sees TMU’s troubles since the October 7 terrorist attacks as part of a broader national malaise. “What’s happening in TMU is a microcosm of what’s happening everywhere else. Canada is not a safe place,” he said. “TMU is not a safe place for Jewish students. It’s not a future.”

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