California Introduces Radical Anti-Semitic High School Curriculum
Outrage in Jewish, pro-Israel community after anti-Israel activists hijack curriculum
Adam Kredo - AUGUST 12, 2019 11:00 AM
The state of California has introduced "blatantly anti-Semitic and anti-Israel" lessons into its official high school curriculum, drawing outrage and concern in the state's Jewish and pro-Israel communities, according to multiple sources involved in the controversy.
The California Department of Education is facing backlash after permitting a host of anti-Israel activists to build a statewide educational curriculum that demonizes the Jewish state and is said to be fostering hatred of Jewish and Israeli-American students, sources said.
Already, 83 pro-Israel and anti-discrimination organizations have petitioned the state's education department to reform its Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum (ESMC) to remove multiple instances of what they say is anti-Semitic and anti-Israel bias.
Multiple sources involved in the fight have described to the Washington Free Beacon anti-Semitic courses that they say are fostering an unsafe environment for Jewish and Israeli-American students. Further information obtained by the Free Beacon reveals that several of the educators involved in pushing the new curriculum have a history of anti-Israel activism that has often spilled into anti-Semitic territory.
"We are aware that many individuals and groups affiliated with the Jewish community have already written to you about the ESMC's shocking omission of information about American Jews and anti-Semitism, its use of classic anti-Semitic stereotypes, and its blatant anti-Israel bias," a coalition of 83 pro-Israel organizations led by the AMCHA Initiative, a watchdog group that combats anti-Semitism in America, wrote to California's Education Department.
"This includes the California Legislative Jewish Caucus, who wrote to you that they ‘cannot support a curriculum that erases the American Jewish experience, fails to discuss anti-Semitism, reinforces negative stereotypes about Jews, singles out Israel for criticism and would institutionalize the teaching of anti-Semitic stereotypes in our public schools,'" the groups wrote.
The curriculum, the organizations claim, is the result of an effort by several leading educators who have expressed both anti-Israel and anti-Semitic viewpoints.
"The anti-Jewish, anti-Israel bias of the proposed ESMC curriculum—including its implicit portrayal of Jews and Israel as part of ‘interlocking systems of oppression and privilege' and its endorsement of the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement as a form of ‘direct action' or ‘resistance' that students are encouraged to engage in—clearly exposes the politically motivated and directed nature of the curriculum and its drafters," the organizations wrote.
"Not surprisingly, more than one-quarter of the Model Curriculum Advisory Committee members, appointed by the State Board of Education to draft the ESMC, have publicly expressed animus towards Israel and its supporters, with some members openly supporting BDS," the letter states. "There is no doubt that these committee members have unconscionably used the state-mandated curriculum as a tool for politically indoctrinating California's high school students with anti-Israel propaganda and encouraging them to engage in political activism against the Jewish state."
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