The Ties That Bind — UofT’s Relationships with Israeli Institutions

by Sparrows for Palestine Collective

Context

As the 2024/25 academic year begins, the University of Toronto (UofT) welcomes new students and celebrates new beginnings. Yet, almost a year into the televised genocide, ecocide, epistemicide and urbicide of the Palestinian People, much of the ties that bind UofT to Israeli institutions that are actively involved in apartheid and genocide have remained the same (on the broader issue of Israeli academia’s “active complicity in Israel’s settler-colonial project”, see Maya Wind’s book Towers of Ivory and Steel).

As members of UofT, we created an archive of the relationships between UofT and Israeli institutions. By documenting what turns out to be a rich array of historical connections, this archive makes understandable UofT’s ongoing refusal to divest and cut ties from Israeli institutions, including those that contribute to the war industry and are located on illegally occupied territories. The archive, which was gathered in the context of OccupyUofT’s encampment, was made available to the public in May 2024. Responding to increased demands for the content of this document to be more easily accessible and shareable, we decided to share it via a public-facing post.

To access The Ties that Bind, click here.

As you shall see the data is listed chronologically. Except for a few entries coming from insider sources wishing to remain anonymous, our information is publicly sourced and is (or at least was at the time of our research) found on the Internet, that is most often on social media and in institutional publications and websites. All references are clearly listed or embedded. This timeline is a work-in-progress, meaning that new entries will be added as/if they become known to us. To date, the timeline is 29 pages, single-spaced, long.

Apart from one entry dating to 2003, our earliest evidence starts in the early 2010s, shortly before Meric Gertler was appointed President of UofT (when he was Dean of Arts and Science). The archive as a whole documents a growing array of close connections between UofT, Israeli state representatives, and Israeli institutions, including the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Technion — Israel Institute of Technology, and Tel Aviv University.

As we compiled the archive, we were struck by what appears to be a correlation between the Presidency of Meric Gertler and the exponential growth of UofT’s ties with Israeli institutions.

We were also struck by the sheer number of institutional ties that are publicly documented (and often proactively advertised), as well as by the large sums of money involved. Lastly, the timeline poses the question of the role of Zionist donors in the development of institutional ties between UofT and Israeli institutions. This topic is beyond the mandate of our archive, and, as such, we shall not expand on it here (on the culture of donors at UofT, see notably here and here).

The Ties That Bind shows how close ties between UofT and Israel were established around the time the Israel Innovation Authority was formed to initiate, and develop, partnerships with Canadian counterparts at the provincial and federal level, as well as with stakeholders in the private sector. Available data also reveals increased collaborative partnerships between a widening range of UofT units and several Israeli institutions over this period.

More important, and of concern, is UofT’s recent focus and increased funding of projects in fields that are more generally known to have direct consequences for research on (diseased, maimed) bodies, cyber-surveillance systems, the military-industrial complex, and population control. These fields include “Technology and Innovation” (entrepreneurship, forensic science, cybersecurity and AI) as well as STEM subjects (e.g. engineering, medicine, biomedicine, bio-imaging). In addition to these, collaborations between the Munk School and Israeli institutions include projects on “public policy”, “market” and “cybersecurity” initiatives (that is on mechanisms of social and economic control, neoliberal modes of extraction, and, more broadly, geopolitical power).

Apart from those involving the Munk School, partnerships in the Social Sciences and Humanities are very few and of much lower monetary value, and they pertain essentially to archaeological projects tied to UofT’s “Archaeology of Israel” (on the crucial role archaeology, and more broadly Biblical Studies, play in the Zionist project, see here and here).

Following the initial sharing of Ties that Bind, other UofT folks created “Sites of Complicity, Sites of Resistance: A map of UofT’s ties with Israeli institutions supporting occupation and genocide, and sites of resistance on UofT’s campus”. This map, which notably locates all the St George Campus units involved in partnerships with Israeli institutions listed in the archive, can be accessed here: https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/91125619cf8549ae82b9737865c0b90c

Some highlights

(see The Ties That Bind for details and relevant quotes and links)

• 2011, Dean of UofT Arts and Science Meric Gertler delivered the Arie Shachar memorial lecture and a seminar on urban studies at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
• 2013, Israel’s Consul General in Toronto attended the installation of Meric Gertler as new President of UofT.
• 2013, Janice Stein (Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy) — who participated in events organized by The Jewish National Fund, a former charity that supports Israeli army bases and the colonization of Palestinian land — was named President Gertler’s senior presidential advisor on “international initiatives”.
• 2015, President Gertler traveled to Tel Aviv, Haifa, and Jerusalem to meet with senior Israeli representatives and alumni.
• 2016, UofT delegates (Janice Stein, Judith Wolfson, Lynn Wilson) accompanied Premiere Kathleen Wynne on a business mission to Israel.
• 2017, Ontario Centres of Excellence: Ontario-Israel Research Network Program — MAGNET (OIRNP-MAGNET) Call for Proposals.
• 2018, Ontario-Israel Smart Mobility Call for Proposals Phase.
• 2019, Munk School students present to the Israeli Ministry of Innovation in Israel.
• 2019, UofT launches PRiME, a precision medicine initiative and (in 2021) acknowledges a global partnership with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (“Global Perspectives in Precision Medicine”).
• 2020, Israel Innovation Authority recognized a collaborative project with UTM Forensic Science.
• 2020, UofT and Hebrew University of Jerusalem launch research and innovation partnership.
• ​​2021, UofT’s Precise Medicine Initiative (PRiME) Connaught Global Challenge Series: Symposium with The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
• 2022, President Gertler hosts a President’s reception and gives a presentation in Tel Aviv.
• 2023, Munk School Director Peter Loewen meets with Israel’s Consul General in Toronto.
• 2023, Technion and UofT’s Temerty Centre for Artificial Intelligence Research and Education in Medicine initiate AI solutions in the field of medicine with researchers from the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology.
• 2024, UofT International “Middle East & North Africa” features the Hebrew University of Jerusalem as one of two “Partnership Highlights.”
• 2024, Collaborative Quantum Research at UofT and Technion — Israel Institute for Technology.
• 2024/25, UofT Learning Abroad advertises student exchange with Tel Aviv University, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology and Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Sparrows for Palestine Collective gathers UofT members who care about our institution being true to its claim that it stands out through “its comprehensive excellence, diversity, and commitment to equity and accessibility” by respecting international law and, therefore, ending its complicity in the apartheid and genocide of the Palestinian People.

Image “Sparrows of Palestine by J.Smit”, from st-takla.org