New one urges people to “resist a foundation that “exceptionalizes” hatred and separates it from other systems of oppression.
Last year, four of the San Francisco Unified School District’s high schools were required to have hatred trainings, but some teachers were unhappy with it.
According to NPR online KQED, the biggest hanging level was whether “anti-Zionism” should be considered “antisemitic”.
The American Jewish Committee led the workshops, and that is what, sigh! — supports” Israel’s right to exist and protect itself.”
The courses had been postponed again now due to “parents and society groups express]ing ] concern about the]AJC]’s pro-Israel position”.
The district noted the courses “do no focus or take a place” on the present Israel-Hamas battle, but this did n’t assuage people like the class Jewish Voice for Peace, which complained that the AJC’s teaching materials are “inherently political”.
JVP’s Seth Morrison ( pictured ) claimed the AJC is “very biased in favor of Israel” and that it “basically weaponiz]es ] the concept of antisemitism”.
JVP backed an alternate workshop on the topic led by PARCEO which, according to its website, “focus]es ] on a range of inter-connected issues, including educational justice, racial justice, workers ‘ rights, gender justice, challenging Islamophobia, immigrant rights, health and food justice, and more”.
The local teachers ‘ union said it would” support” teachers and staff who opted for the PARCEO training.
You may have noticed “antisemitism” is n’t explicitly mentioned in the PARCEO description above, but the group does offer a” Curriculum on Antisemitism from a Framework of Collective Liberation”.
The PARCEO website’s education is largely unspecified. The summary of the program uses a lot of beautiful and post-modernist/oppression-studies language, such as” Also covered is an exploration of key historical instances of racism and experience of violence and prejudice and the way antisemitism intersects with other targets and histories of systemic violence and persecution” (emphasis added ).
Further, the PARCEO training looks at “how both data and the “hate crimes” framework are used/misused,” why it’s crucial to “resist a framework that “exceptionalizes” antisemitism and isolates it from other systems of oppression,” and how “mis-definitions advance political goals that are harmful movements for justice.
MORE: Northwestern to mandate antisemitism,’ other forms of hate ‘ training for students
( Neither PARCEO nor the AJC would give KQED access to their curriculum. )
The American Jewish Committee cited the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of “antisemitism,” which includes” the denial of Israel’s right to exist.”
By the way, that right to exist is a key component of Zionism, and 80 % of American Jews claim that caring about Israel is a key or crucial component of what being Jewish means to them.
On the other hand, Jewish Voice for Peace’s approach to Zionism begins with a quote from” Jewish American lesbian feminist, author and activist” Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz:” Solidarity is the political version of love”.
JVP says Zionism is” a false and failed” response to the Holocaust,” a settler-colonial movement” which establishes” an apartheid state”, and has” by design” caused the “dispossession” of the Palestinians.
Jewish Voice for Peace chapters on campuses across the country have sided with anti-Israel activists since Hamas ‘ October, 7 2023 attack. Its affiliates have complained that police have suspended a pro-Hamas encampment, have planted symbolic flags honoring Palestinian deaths lost since October 7 and have taken part in an altercation involving the burning of an Israeli flag.
SFUSD teacher Julia David accurately summed up , the situation: It is the JVP which “represents a’ fringe group ‘ that does n’t advocate for the majority of Jewish Americans”.
MORE: New ‘ Hate Map ‘ exposes left-wing hostility, antisemitism on college campuses
IMAGE: Shutterstock .com, Seth Morrison/Facebook
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