The Defying Hatred Project

The Defying Hatred Project

Dr. Jordan Stanger-Ross, Department of History, University of Victoria

The Defying Hatred Project was a project of the Faculty of Social Sciences and Faculty of Humanities at the University of Victoria.

Rabbi Victor Reinstein visited Victoria in 2020 as a guest of the Defying Hatred Project at the University of Victoria. The project collaborated with Congregation Emanu-El to explore the local Jewish community’s responses to acts of hate and expressions of anti-Semitism and racism. Led by myself and fellow-historian Lynne Marks, political scientist Matt James, Germanic and Slavic Studies professor Helga Thorson, and Victoria Shoah Project member Frances Grunberg, the project was dedicated to critically examining the history and current possibilities of defying hatred in Victoria.

When I met Rabbi Reinstein in Boston in the summer of 2019, I discovered (as many had before me) the warmth and depth of his reflections on these topics. This story, I felt, had to be told back home, in Victoria.

Funds from the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada made the visit possible.