In this REDI Leader spotlight, we speak with Drs. Annalee Yassi and Jerry Spiegel, professors at the School of Population and Public Health.
Tell us about your background.
The two of us (together >50 years) grew up as “baby boomers” in Montreal as members of the Ashkenazi Jewish community. Like many in our cohort, we were children or grandchildren of those who fled pogroms in Eastern Europe around the turn of the 20th century and had family who were murdered in the Holocaust. Growing up, we were occasionally subjected to antisemitism, starting, for Annalee, at age 6 when her friends informed her that their teacher forbade them to play with her as Jews killed Christ. In response to antisemitism, we each increasingly identified with those in the Jewish community seeking internationalist anti-racist responses to hatred and bigotry – Never Again for ANYONE. This orientation stimulated our driving interest in social justice which not only influenced our activism in anti-colonial/anti-imperialist movements but our academic interests in health equity. We engaged in struggles against colonialism (anti-Viet Nam war), apartheid (South Africa), racism (especially against immigrants and refugees), sexism (early days of feminist activism) and other forms of discrimination – joining movements and providing support however we could. We both were undergrads at McGill, where Jerry also obtained an MA with a focus on world systems; Annalee went into medicine (McMaster) then specialized in Public Health and also Occupational Medicine (Toronto/Manitoba); Jerry pursued further graduate studies, obtaining a PhD in population health (Toronto/Manitoba). In our academic lives, we have worked with Indigenous communities in Canada (Ontario, Manitoba and BC) as well as in Latin America (mostly Ecuador), learning from other epistemologies. We worked extensively in Cuba to support health equity in a country struggling against imperialism, and, as co-directors of a World Health Organization collaborating centre in environmental health since 2006, we continue to work with colleagues in the global south, especially across southern Africa (South Africa, Malawi, Mozambique, Eswatini, and beyond.)
What motivates you to engage in REDI work?
What particularly motivates us to engage in REDI work is what is happening globally; rising fascism and dispossession, in a backdrop of the existential threat of climate change, are wielding brutal humanitarian disasters while the world watches and seems powerless to intervene. Our engaging in REDI-related work at UBC over the last 24 years thus comes both from concern about local injustices – especially towards Indigenous populations, but also our passion for global issues, which we see as driving the structural racism we see worldwide. In more recent years, an experience of what we felt was antisemitism added to our resolve to do REDI work at UBC, and to work to counter the mistaken view that all Jews share (or should share) common political ideologies and values. This misconception affects our own REDI work but also interferes with effective strategies for change. Our belief that one cannot be an effective teacher or researcher on global health without addressing historical and ongoing systemic prejudices and structural racism is what motivates our REDI work.
What are some challenges you’ve faced in your REDI work, and how have you overcome them?
The biggest challenge we have faced is how to address the cleansed ethnonationalist vocabulary which is laden with obfuscating conflations that evoke historical guilt and serves to curtail critical thought and debate. Worldwide, as well as here in Canada, dedicated staff and even tenured faculty are being fired or demoted for daring to even utter words deemed verboten in certain contexts — settler-colonialism, occupation, apartheid, racism, among others. Even calling for an end to killing children and health workers, or for abiding by international law, can result in doxing, intimidation and humiliation. While Canada is beginning to come to grips with its genocidal past with respect to the Indigenous peoples of Turtle Island, there is a strong, albeit sometimes subtle, prohibition in applying similarly needed critical analysis in other settings. The conflation of Judaism and Zionism – or more specifically, antisemitism with criticism of Israel – is especially a major challenge for us, with attacks not only from the supremacist right but also the misguided left. Care and empathy seem to have fallen by the wayside, amidst grief and trauma – alas sometimes itself weaponized to justify more violence. We have overcome this challenge by staying engaged in addressing the legacy of apartheid and colonialism globally as well as locally. We feel especially honoured to have been able to participate in a Jewish Faculty Network subcommittee working with UBC’s AVP Equity and Inclusion to ensure that the diversity of Jewish voices is reflected in the approach to combatting antisemitism within an EDI framework – alongside anti-Arab, anti-Muslim, and anti-Palestinian racism – promoting open respectful discussion. This is a focus of our passion right now, and a main way we are working at UBC to overcome the challenge at hand.
What role do you see yourselves playing in improving REDI in population and public health?
The role we see ourselves playing in improving REDI in population and public health is through framing questions that challenge existing power relationships, while always ensuring that these sometimes-uncomfortable discussions are pursued respectfully. We are also proud of the work we have been doing with SPPH undergraduate, graduate and post-graduate students on issues related to global issues, and particularly related to Israel-Palestine where we see a role for us in raising the level of awareness of historical and contextual knowledge. We will also, of course, continue our teaching of the overall principles that guide respectful global health work anywhere, and we will continue the decades-long collaborative research we are conducting with colleagues from the global south to use state-of-the-art technology and knowledge to address some of the legacies of the historical and ongoing injustices globally.
The REDI Leader feature is a space that highlights diverse voices of those leading educational reforms, research projects, and/or workplace initiatives at SPPH with the aim to foster a respectful, equitable, diverse, and inclusive environment. The perspectives shared are those of the individual(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of UBC, SPPH or any of its constituent units.