When I was growing up in the USSR, Jewishness was a source of anxiety and fear. Not that it wasn’t obvious in my case, but, like many other Jewish kids, I was admonished to never bring up any Jewish topics in mixed company. That is, when I was old enough to know who I was.
I didn’t realize until I was six at which point my cousin, three years older than me and whose parents already gave her the talk, decided to share the news. I have no memory of my response, but the cousin swears I said “no, I’m Russian!” I suppose I was within the range of typical reactions, though tears was perhaps the most common.
The United States is not at the point when we’d have to shelter kids from their heritage, but considering the direction of educational institutions, Jewish American parents need a plan. Increasingly often, schools and libraries target very young kids with an antizionist agenda that is at odds with both honest a historical narrative and the values of Jewish families.
You and me might find The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) to be a milquetoast group that over the last few decades served the interests of the Democrat Party rather than the community it’s supposed to champion. In all fairness, the NGO did begin to rediscover its voice in the aftermath of Simchat Torah Massacre in October 2023 — and apparently it’s too much for the woke establishment.
The policymaking body of the National Education Association (NEA), the largest trade union in the U.S., has voted to cut ties with the ADL. It approved New Business Item 39, resolving:
NEA will not use, endorse, or publicize any materials from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), such as its curricular materials or its statistics. NEA will not participate in ADL programs or publicize ADL professional development offerings.
The National Review explained that the decision is still pending approval by the executive committee. The disagreements reflect rudimentary differences of worldview and perhaps will be difficult to resolve:
The committee explained its decision by saying, “Despite its reputation as a civil rights organization, the ADL is not the social justice educational partner it claims to be.”
In recent decades, Palestinianism emerged as intersectional social justice bingo champions. It supersedes every cause despite ostensible ideological incongruity. For instance, it trumps gender issues, as made notorious by organizations like Queers for Palestine that support antizionist causes despite Israel being the sole state in the region sympathetic to gay liberation. Feminists bowed over to some of the most misogynist social arrangements known to history when they selected Linda Saussure to lead the #MeToo movement. Curiously, we never hear about self-identified Palestinians calling the cops on George Floyd. Probably for the same reason we never hear about the Arab slave trade — Palestinianism is woker than race.
Zionists don’t stand a chance against this kind of clout. In the intersectional universe, Jews are hyper-white and priveleged. The Jewish state is a colonial entity the eradication of which is a normal proposition. It is no surprise that educational institutions are joining Tic-Tok and other social media platforms promoting lies and libels.
Intersectionality is just a framework, but the NEA’s goals are pushed by their personnel and for them it can be personal:
The vote comes after the ADL previously accused Merrie Najimy, former president of the Massachusetts Teachers Association, and other members of the MTA of giving a presentation on Israel and Palestine that amounted to “glorifying terrorists.” The MTA is an affiliate of the NEA.
“Why would we partner with an organization that does us harm?” Najimy asked ahead of the NEA vote.
By her own admission, Najimy grew up “angry” at “Islamophobia” in Hollywood and lack of representation of Arabs in textbooks. She found the American response to 9/11 “draconian” and got into politics to promote her sectarian agenda. No way she’s going to cede any ground.
And while this type of person gets to define educational policies, “Jewish teachers who spoke up for the ADL were reportedly met with boos and jeers.” Citizen journalists from Accuracy in the Media produced an undercover interview with one of the attendees who complained that “Inclusion, Diversity, Equality, Justice, Access, and everything” are all empty words when you are Jewish, continuing “All the people that said they would hide you in an attic, they all disappeared on October 8th.” He said that he took off his Star of David and hides his Jewishness from his coworkers “because it means that I won’t have trust.”
American libraries appear to be headed in the same direction. Examples of antizionism for tots in spaces ostensibly dedicated to collecting knowledge abound. For instance, this summer, the taxpayer-funded Free Library of Philadelphia scheduled at least six antizionist events for small children. Alana Goodman reports for Zionist Organization of America about
”anti-Israel “storytime” events that teach children that Israel “senselessly murdered” thousands of kids in Gaza, depict a map in which Israel is entirely replaced with “Palestine,” and create art projects promoting the “Palestinian liberation” movement.”
Likewise, in May, Children’s Room of Iowa City Public Library hosted a “Palestine Storytime and Craft” event during which activists read books that erased Israel and demonized its citizens. In New York City, public libraries hosted Read Palestine Week during which books about the Holy Land Arabs were displayed next to the literature about Native Americans. Drowning out of the Jewish voices is the next logical step in the campaign that calls for the erasure of the Jewish state.
In the wake of the NEA conference, libertarian educational reformer Corey DeAngelis called on his followers to contact their representatives to “REVOKE the National Education Association’s federal charter”. It’s a worthy undertaking.
However, Jewish parents have to be realistic about the scale of the problem we are facing. Antizionism and antisemitism throughly permeate places of learning — this is not something that can be fixed easily.
Our nemesis are certainly preparing surprises. For instance, on June 30 the San Francisco Unified School District ambushed Jewish families with the announcement of an experimental mandatory Ethnic Studies curriculum that appears to be based on antisemitic Liberated Ethnic Studies lesson plans. Jewish families and organizations are left scrambling to find out what their children will be learning and how to prepare them for it.
It’s realistic to assume that educational establishment will define Jewishness in ways that clash with what they learn from home and synagogue. The school and the library might be telling them that they are colonial bloodsuckers but the Torah introduces them to the Jewish history in the Levant. From other community members they learn about the hundreds of brave IDF soldiers whose lives were sacrificed in order to alleviate the suffering of Gaza civilians — the very people most of whom wholeheartedly supported and in many cases participated in the Simchat Torah massacre.
In addition, if teachers find it necessary to hide their Jewishness in classroom settings, how can we expect our children to grow up to be proud Jews? Parents need to think long and hard about these issues. Demographic shifts alone are likely to press institutional change towards less tolerance and liberty.
The gap between the state institutions and community life is large and growing. For years to come it will be a source of frustration and anxiety. Our goal is to preempt the hostile actors from poisoning our children’s minds and to help them to reach their full potential.
I’m not a treasure trove of good suggestions, but I do know that although America has been great for us, being a Jew was never easy and what we have to deal with right now looks like another diaspora arrangement. What probably would help is to live in an area with a large Jewish population where tactics for addressing these problems can be developed locally.
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