Anil Kishen, the Dean of Dentistry at the University of Toronto, is on leave because of two images that he used in dentistry lecture slides.  One image, used to demonstrate “strangulation theory,” shows a figure whose face is painted with the colors of the Palestinian flag constricted by a rope and by what appears to be the Israeli flag. Another image, used to illustrate immunity, shows a hooked-nosed person who resembles classic antisemitic caricatures floating in a pool of money.  On the level of first impressions, Dean Kishen’s case stands as a reminder of how low the apparent compulsion to demonize Jews can lead a person who otherwise seems to have been successful in advancing their career.  How can someone who is seemingly so competent make such an obvious error?  Does the demonization of Israel and of “Jewish money” behave at times like an addiction that compels people under its spell to make destructive and self-destructive decisions that are at odds with their own intelligence and career savvy?

The ideological realities of the anti-Israel echo-chamber that has formed in some academic settings may be inferred from the message that B’nai Brith Canada published on X about Dean Kishen:

“Antisemitism and antizionism have permeated into all corners of academia in this country. We are living in a Canada where a senior academic, the dean of a dental faculty, feels emboldened enough to sabotage a lecture on strangulation theory and dental pulp with vitriolic and offensive imagery. There is no excuse for the conduct of Dean Anil Kishen during a lecture at U of T’s Faculty of Dentistry. B’nai Brith Canada is reaching out to the University’s leadership to demand accountability and action. We will not allow tenure and academic freedom to excuse and justify this egregious abuse of authority. Our students deserve better and we will not rest until our campuses are safe and welcoming spaces conducive of the success of all.”

https://x.com/bnaibrithcanada/status/2027058472798277992

The Canadian Jewish News (CJN) provides the following response from the University of Toronto:

“Trevor Young, vice-president and provost at UofT, confirmed in a statement sent to The CJN that the university has launched an investigation into the incident. ‘The Dean reports that he used these images without appreciating the antisemitic and discriminatory meanings, and their negative impact on Jewish colleagues and students and the broader learning environment,’ Young wrote. ‘He has removed the images from his course materials and has apologized directly to his class and the broader Faculty. He has also committed to exercising greater diligence in reviewing course materials to support an inclusive and respectful learning environment for all, and to improving his understanding and awareness of antisemitism and other forms of discrimination.’

Young added that the university will not be commenting further.”

https://thecjn.ca/news/dean-of-u-of-t-dentistry-faculty-takes-leave-after-antisemitic-imagery-found-in-lecture-slides/

This statement raises the question of whether Vice-president and Provost Young seriously believes that Dean Kishen did not know “the antisemitic and discriminatory meanings, and their negative impact on Jewish colleagues and students and the broader learning environment.”  Why is Vice-president and Provost Young choosing to repeat a claim from Dean Kishen that is so highly suspect of being inaccurate?

Honest Reporting Canada shared the apologetic communication by Dean Kishen that might be the message to the Faculty of Dentistry that Vice-president and Provost Young says Dean Kishen has made (excerpts from that message are also in the CJN article above):

https://x.com/HonestRepCanada/status/2027149425425211487

Assuming that what was shared by Honest Reporting Canada was indeed written by Dean Kishen, his message is worth reading because of the thought-provoking transition between the first three sentences of the message, which I find challenging to believe, and the remaining sentences, which seem designed to reassure the readers that Dean Kishen may be trusted to create a welcoming and inclusive academic environment for Jews.  The awkward transition in the message underscores the need to relate to Dean Kishen’s words not only on the level of intuitive good faith and the desire to trust, but also on a level that seeks to understand whether there is an ideology that might explain his rhetorical moves.  Here is the message from Dean Kishen that Honest Reporting shared:

“Last night I became aware that the two cartoon images that I included in a recent lecture contained discriminatory imagery.  I selected these images as visual analogies for two concepts.  I was not trying to make any political statements with these images.  I say this not as an excuse for this mistake.  I recognize that this has caused a great deal of harm, and I am deeply sorry.

I am going on leave immediately, pending the outcome of an investigation of this matter.  I am committed to participating fully in this process, and to doing all I can to foster an inclusive and respectful learning environment at the Faculty of Dentistry.

As soon as this matter was brought to my attention, I removed the images from the online material and directly contacted students in the class to acknowledge the issue, apologize unreservedly, and affirm that I will be more thoughtful in selecting images for my courses in the future.

I condemn antisemitism and discrimination in all their forms.  I am also committed to improving my own understanding and awareness of antisemitism and other forms of discrimination, including how they may present themselves in the learning environment.  I will work to repair the damage that my actions have caused.

Please know that I am deeply sorry for the pain that this has caused for my students, the Faculty, and the broader community.

Like a dental drill that hollows out a tooth, Dean Kishen’s message created noise in my head—but without the promise of an ultimate relief of pain.  The rotten tooth might have been sprayed with water, but it is still rotten.

The first three sentences of Dean Kishen’s statement bring to mind the question “lying through his teeth?”

“Last night I became aware that the two cartoon images that I included in a recent lecture contained discriminatory imagery.  I selected these images as visual analogies for two concepts.  I was not trying to make any political statements with these images.”

From Dean Kishen’s description, the appearance of anti-Israel and antisemitic images in dentistry slides comes across as an outcome that could have happened to anybody in the process of adding images to their slides without bad intentions, and the idea that these images are offensive comes across as an eye-opening discovery rather than a well-known social reality.

To believe these words, I would need to hear an explanation that does not otherwise spontaneously and convincingly come to my mind.  The most forgiving explanation I can think of is that someone else had prepared the slides for Dean Kishen and that Dean Kishen was too distracted to notice the images, but while I can imagine that someone else might have prepared the slides, it is exceptionally hard to believe that images of such inflammatory nature would have gone unnoticed by the presenter.  Also, Dean Kishen does say, “I selected” and is not attempting to provide an explanation that involves another activist influencing him.

As it stands, these three sentences stick out like a sore thumb in what otherwise seems designed to come across as a compassionate apology because they create a smoke screen about what Dean Kishen’s ideological commitments might be.

According to a CTV News article, “JMAO [Jewish Medical Association of Ontario] President Lisa Salaman [I believe the correct spelling is Salamon] said while a student came forward to complain this year, the organization discovered that Kishen has been giving the same lecture for several years, but students in previous years did not complain because they felt concerns around antisemitism would not be taken seriously and were afraid that a complaint might draw reprisal.”

https://www.ctvnews.ca/toronto/article/u-of-ts-dean-of-dentistry-on-leave-pending-investigation-into-racist-images-used-in-lecture/

The CJN article above also reports Salamon’s perspective:

“Lisa Salamon, president of the Jewish Medical Association of Ontario (JMAO), said Jewish dentistry students sought her support after noticing one of the images in lecture materials.

She said she reviewed course materials from both 2025 and 2026 and believes at least one of the images appeared previously. ‘This lecture had been occurring for many years,’ she said, noting that a 2025 slide deck she saw carried ‘a date mark of 2022,’ and that a dentist told her they recalled the image from earlier in their training.  She said the previous silence reflects a broader pattern.  ‘There have been a lot of other antisemitic incidents that happened within the dental school over the last few years, and every time they brought it forward, it went nowhere,’ she said.

‘Sometimes they were told they were unprofessional. They were totally ignored. They weren’t handled well.’  Salamon said there needs to be ‘urgent antisemitism and anti-Zionism training for all university administrators and leaders.’”

This background information raises questions about where Dean Kishen’s thinking might have been during these “several years.”  Did he live in oblivion about the demonization of Israel and of “Jewish money”—or was he actively contributing to cultivating it?

The classical definition of tragedy describes the fall of a noble person from a high position due to a tragic flaw.  As I try to engage with Dean Kishen’s words on his own terms, he comes across as a kind of Oedipus, the king who was dedicated to finding the source of the “pollution” in Thebes—not realizing until close to the end of the play that the source of the “pollution” was his own deeds of killing a man whom he did not know to be his biological father and marrying a woman whom he did not know was his biological mother.  From his self-description, Dean Kishen emerges as a noble man dedicated to fighting “discrimination in all its forms” but only recently realizing that he himself inadvertently engaged in discrimination.  His leave correspondingly comes across as the decision of a noble and principled man (somewhat like Oedipus’s self-punishment) rather as something that might have been forced upon him following advocacy by “the Jews.”  But how accurate is Dean Kishen’s apparent narrative?

Back from mythology to the ideological reality of the demonization of Israel and “Jewish money:”

When I try to engage with Dean Kishen’s message from the point of view of the ideology that seeks the destruction of Israel and the erosion of liberty, two possibilities come to my mind.

The first possibility is that Dean Kishen’s apology would be a disappointment in the eyes of more radical anti-Israel idealogues, who would tend to regard Dean Kishen as a “fair weather” activist who chickens out as soon as he experiences a consequence.  In other words, I wonder if more radical anti-Israel activists might have perhaps preferred Dean Kishen to not apologize but to proudly declare that Israel and the Jewish money that they claim support it are so evil that it is necessary to take risk and use one’s privilege to call out that evil in every possible opportunity—including a dentistry lecture.

But there is an even more insidious possibility: that rather than being a disappointment to more radical idealogues, Dean Kishen’s apology is in fact ideologically consistent and would be considered to be a smart strategic move by Israel haters who have the patience to wait for even “better” times than the ones they currently experience.  In this context, deceit might be a legitimate means to an end.  This is what I imagine, by way of speculation: Prior to the scandal about him erupting, Dean Kishen might have been reassured by an echo chamber that anti-Israel hate is not antisemitic but is rather the only possible position that any ethical human being can hold.  If one is convinced that one’s anti-Israel worldview is synonymous with morality itself, then one can also become convinced that using a dentistry lecture to remind students of self-evident truths about Israel’s evil is indeed a moral act rather than a discriminatory act of bullying.  Within this worldview, any “moral” Jew must indeed agree that Israel is evil and that “Jewish money” is used to commit evil, so consequently Jews who do not subjugate themselves to anti-Israel ideology (which are likely the majority of Jews) are conceptualized as not being worthy of protection against discrimination.  On the contrary, anything discriminatory that happens to “Zionist” Jews should be conceptualized as the consequence of their own lack of moral integrity.

One of the mistakes that should be avoided is the tendency to respond to the demonization of Israel with a patronizing, infantilizing attitude that regards anti-Israel activism as similar to the behavior of children who are testing their boundaries but who will ultimately grow to learn more moderation.  Anti-Israel activism should be taken more seriously as an ideology that follows a set of principles.  The question then becomes whether deceit might be one of these principles, and whether this principle might be used to explain Dean Kishen’s claim that he did not know the images were problematic.  One of the core principles of Israel-focused Jew hate might be that it is okay to subject Jews who do not subjugate themselves to anti-Israel ideologies to discriminatory behavior as long as one can get away with it.  But if one finds oneself in a situation in which one’s career may be on the line, then issuing a (confusing) apology is a justifiable means to the end of maintaining one’s career.  The hope might then become that the rejection is only a temporary setback and that with patience and perseverance, one will live to see the day in which Jewish evil may be spoken about freely in the classroom as indisputable fact.  This is the speculation that comes to my mind when I try to make sense of Dean Kishen’s message.

If Dean Kishen had indeed been influenced by an ideology that encouraged him to dehumanize Jews who do not subjugate themselves to anti-Israel hate, then the freshness of “last night I became aware” makes more sense because what he “became aware” of might be that, contrary to expectation, the vilification of Jews is, after all, still regarded as discrimination in certain educational contexts.  And I imagine that as an ambitious person, Dean Kishen had to adjust to that unfortunate turn of events that challenged his ideas about what he previously thought he could get away with.  His apology might be consistent with an apparent ideology according to which the demonization of Isreal and of “Jewish money” is regarded as morally courageous and necessary, but if one finds oneself in an unfortunate situation in which figures of authority regard that bullying as unacceptable, it might be permissible to deny that one knew what one was doing in order to minimize the damage to one’s career.

Dean Kishen’s promise that he will “work to repair the damage that [his] actions have caused” also raises questions.  The harm done by antisemitic and anti-Israel discrimination is not a damaged tooth, and Dean Kishen is not in a position to express confidence that he has what it takes to repair it.  As Dr. David Jacobs observed, “whatever the motivation of the professor, the end result is that Jewish students feel unwelcome in a class that was meant to teach a subject completely unrelated to the professor’s activism.”

https://x.com/HonestRepCanada/status/2027020832468242892

Dean Kishen notes that he is “committed to improving [his] own understanding and awareness of antisemitism and other forms of discrimination, including how they may present themselves in the learning environment.”  “Present themselves” figures the discrimination, not Dean Kishen himself, as the active agent.  Discrimination does not have the energy to “present itself” on lecture slides unless some designer brings “discrimination” there.  Jew hate should be understood as a phenomenon subject to free choice.  It should not be figured as a natural occurrence that “presents itself” as a fact of reality to contend with.

The tendency to pair antisemitism with something “more universal” is another characteristic rhetorical move by people who might not want to take full moral responsibility for bullying Jews.  They thus might try to signal that there is a broader context that must be considered, and in which the Jews themselves are guilty parties.  I am not sure why an apology for antisemitism needs to be grander in scope, referring to “antisemitism and discrimination in all their forms.”  Discrimination in all its forms is wrong.  But Dean Kishen is accused of discrimination against Jews.  He is not accused of “discrimination in all its forms.”  Are there other identifiable groups against whom Dean Kishen had discriminated and was put on leave as a result?  Unless Dean Kishen has abused other groups, his apology should have been about the demonization of Israel and the Jews.

Unfortunately, in the context in which Dean Kishen made it, the reference to “discrimination in all its forms” might be a dog whistle, falsely insinuating the straw-person argument that the Jews are self-centered, petty, vindictive and care only about themselves, while he himself cares about “discrimination in all its forms,” including the discriminatory attitudes of which Jews who love Israel might be implicitly accused.  There is a concerning possibility that by invoking “discrimination in all its forms” in this context, Dean Kishen is attempting to assert control and shift his position from that of a person accused of discriminating against Jews to that of a person who can provide superior insight and guidance about what is wrong with (Jewish?) people who fail to care about discrimination “in all its forms.”

The devil is in the details, and it is noteworthy that a Dean who acknowledges that his actions have “caused a great deal of harm” and is “going on leave immediately, pending the outcome of an investigation of this matter” is nevertheless making a reference to future courses when he says, “As soon as this matter was brought to my attention, I removed the images from the online material and directly contacted students in the class to acknowledge the issue, apologize unreservedly, and affirm that I will be more thoughtful in selecting images for my courses in the future.”  Why does the Dean who ostensibly understands the seriousness of what he has done feel the confidence to refer to “[his] courses in the future?”  Does he feel hopeful that his leave will turn out, after all, to be no more than a paid holiday?  And does he believe that all he has to do is say some words and then be “more thoughtful in selecting images” in the future?  Is his response to antisemitism essentially cosmetic?  For example, can he be trusted to not be discriminatory when accepting Jews as students or faculty into Dentistry?

Is Dean Kishen counting on the Jews to be nice, polite victims who beam with delight as they receive apologies, reassuring themselves that there is indeed goodness in the world after all?

In Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, Alexey Alexandrovitch, Anna’s husband, feels relief once he knows that his wife had been cheating on him because at that point he can thus stop wondering.  He compares the sensation of having knowledge to tooth ache being instantly relieved by the pulling out of the infected tooth:

“His wife’s words, confirming his worst suspicions, had sent a cruel pang to the heart of Alexey Alexandrovitch. That pang was intensified by the strange feeling of physical pity for her set up by her tears. But when he was all alone in the carriage Alexey Alexandrovitch, to his surprise and delight, felt complete relief both from this pity and from the doubts and agonies of jealousy. He experienced the sensations of a man who has had a tooth out after suffering long from toothache. After a fearful agony and a sense of something huge, bigger than the head itself, being torn out of his jaw, the sufferer, hardly able to believe in his own good luck, feels all at once that what has so long poisoned his existence and enchained his attention, exists no longer, and that he can live and think again, and take interest in other things besides his tooth. This feeling Alexey Alexandrovitch was experiencing. The agony had been strange and terrible, but now it was over; he felt that he could live again and think of something other than his wife.” (Part 3, Chapter 13).

Anna’s rational husband is naïve to think that there can be a decisive resolution to matters of the human heart.  However, there is truth in the idea that knowing for sure is better than wondering.  One of the problems with Dean Kishen’s apology is that it leaves one with “doubts and agonies” about whether the demonization that “poison[s] [our] existence” is in fact genuinely understood and rejected.  For that reason, an apology from Dean Kishen will be more meaningful if he provides an accurate explanation of how the discriminatory images ended up on his slides and also rejects the hateful ideology that has apparently encouraged him to put them there.  If Dean Kishen does not explain his ideological error but simply says that he at some point “became aware” that one cannot put certain images on dentistry slides, then one might forever wonder about the sincerity of his remorse and also about how Jewish applicants who wish to enter his Faculty might fare.

I am in favor of allowing human beings to genuinely reform without losing their jobs.  But a person who might be facing the reputational equivalent of a tooth extraction should be encouraged to understand that if he wants to save that tooth, it is not enough to promise to do a better job brushing it; what is needed is the educational equivalent of a root canal. If Dean Kishen’s apology is accepted at face value, then a model of “enjoy now; make an apology salad later” is at risk of being normalized when it comes to the bullying of Jewish people who do not subjugate themselves to anti-Israel ideologies.

And there is also a risk, as others have noted, that if persons with anti-Israel ideologies are put in charge of decision making, Jewish people who do not subjugate themselves to anti-Israel ideologies will increasingly be on the receiving end of letters such as “we had many excellent applicants, unfortunately. . .” so that academic environments, especially in graduate and faculty levels, will become increasingly free of burdensome “Zionist” complaints.

If Dean Kishen honestly regrets what he persuaded himself or was persuaded by others to do and can genuinely situate his choices within the living history of antisemitism, then he can become a positive leader in educating people about the harm done by antisemitism—including the self-destructive harm that those who demonize Israel and “Jewish money” might inflict upon themselves.

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)