Muslim Association promises 'Jew-free' incident will not recur at future youth events

The Muslim Association of Canada has released an update following an incident that occurred during its convention in Toronto in May when the phrase “Jew free” was shown on a word-cloud screen of submissions during a seminar session.

“First, MAC wishes to re-iterate that this phrase is offensive and hurtful to Jewish Canadians, to Muslim Canadians, and to anyone committed to a pluralistic society,” MAC says in the August 12 statement , adding that it “is unequivocally against Islamic teachings.”

This kind of “offensive and discriminatory” statement has “no place in the Muslim community, and MAC unequivocally states that the submission of this word was unacceptable and does not represent its values, the values taught at our Convention, or the values of Muslims.”

In June 30 submission to National Post , Sharaf Sharafeldin, president of strategy at the Muslim Association of Canada, stated that during the three-day conference that attracted thousands of Muslim-Canadians, speakers and attendees examined “faith-rooted life” in Canada. The incident involving the “jew-free” phrase occurred during a youth session and was “a public, anonymous audience-participation exercise” that produced a word cloud image, when asked what kind of community they wanted. It has since been widely circulated.

There were 50 entries visible in the word cloud, wrote Sharafeldin. But the facilitator did not notice the “jew-free” entry.

The August 12 update follows an “internal investigation” into the incident.

“MAC regrets that this phrase appeared at our Convention, even briefly and even though it originated from an anonymous, bad-faith submission with no connection to the youth or the discussion taking place in the session.” The organization did not explain what it meant by bad faith.

MAC states that the person who posted the antisemitic phrase could not be identified since all postings during the word-cloud exercise were anonymous.

Despite this, states MAC, “the incident was preventable. Controls available within the third-party application used to run the word-cloud exercise were not in place at the time and should have been used to screen submissions before public display.”

Going forward, MAC says it “is committed to ensuring that these controls are used.”

Meanwhile, facilitators of youth sessions are to receive training “to ensure any attempt to express hate during a live session is identified and addressed at the moment.”

• Terry Newman: Youth at Toronto Muslim convention express desire for 'Jew free' community
• Counterpoint: The Muslim Association of Canada's recent conference was about faith and community

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