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Massachusetts Schools Teach Anti-Semitism
Fighting anti-Semitism sometimes seems like a challenging game of whack-a-mole: we fight anti-Semitism all around us—on college campuses, at street protests, but somehow it keeps reappearing to corrupt our society, especially our children and their schools. Most recently, the Massachusetts Teachers Association, 117,000 strong, has developed materials that teachers can use in the classroom. Max Page, a Jew himself, is the current president of the association. He was interviewed at a meeting of the state’s Special Commission on Combating AntiSemitism, co-chaired by state representatives Simon Cataldo and John Velis, regarding the nature of the training. Senator John Velis, a non-Jew, protested the materials that were being offered:
Velis added that the MTA’s proposed materials ‘absolutely horrified’ him. ‘The resources that they have put together are nothing short—and I said this a couple times during the hearing—than education malpractice,’ he said. ‘If this material enters our K–12 schools, then shame on us, because we know about it right now, and we’re going to do everything we can to push back on that.’ He said that he may consider legislation to keep the materials out of Massachusetts classrooms.
State Rep. Cataldo provided specific information regarding these resources:
Examples included: a poster depicting a person holding an automatic weapon with the words ‘what was taken by force can only be returned by force,’ a poster depicting a hand grabbing a snake’s tongue with the words ‘unity in confronting Zionism,’ and a storybook about a young Palestinian girl who says that ‘a group of bullies called Zionists wanted our land so they stole it by force and hurt many people,’ in describing the Nakba.
In studying this situation, the real issue becomes clear: the union leadership are trying to convince people that these materials are presenting “both sides” of a situation, but instead are publishing anti-Jewish and anti-Israel materials, because they believe that Zionism, Israel and the Jews are at fault for the war in Gaza.
To provide an example of their teaching, the union provided a webinar sponsored by Massachusetts Teachers Association Anti-Racism Task Force. One of the participants had this to say afterwards:
Leila Farsakh, a political science professor at UMass Boston who participated in the webinar, strongly denied assertions that the event was antisemitic. ‘The goal of the webinar was to explain the Palestinian perspective because often the Palestinian perspective gets denied or demonized,’ she said. ‘The aim of this webinar was to explain the settler colonial structure of Zionism, of Israel. But it was neither against Israelis or the Jewish people.’
The irony in her statement is that referring to the “settler colonial structure of Zionism” is an anti-Semitic trope. It’s not uncommon for those people who sympathize with the Palestinians to fail to recognize their own anti-Semitism.
And Max Page doesn’t see the irony in his statements either:
Page, who spoke about being a practicing Jew who lost many family members during the Holocaust, recognized both the ‘rising tide of antisemitism’ and the real fears of Palestinian educators and students. He also took time to address the larger political environment in America. Powerful people, led by President Donald Trump, want to censor books, purge the government of alternative views, annex territories, and promote eugenics, he said.
It’s difficult to comprehend the cognitive dissonance that Page must experience: is he anti-Jewish? Anti-American? It’s also not unusual to see American Jews attacking America, especially attacking conservatives, while defending the Palestinians.
The solution to this type of situation is clear. First, a union shouldn’t be offering controversial teaching materials that can be misused and misinterpreted for the schools. They are not in the business of developing education materials.
One person explained what was required:
Brett Berkman, a literacy coach in Framingham schools and an MTA member, was one of them:
‘The MTA hasn’t been involved in any other international affair, to my knowledge,’ Berkman told WBZ, ‘The MTA has many things they should be doing. We need help with contracts, best practices for students, and teaching facilities. Not this.’
Berkman says anyone who signed up to participate in the webinar was asked questions for a survey beforehand.
‘They asked participants how comfortable they felt teaching anti-Zionist narratives about Israel. Zionism is simply the belief that Jewish people should have the right to live freely and govern themselves in their homeland,’ she said.
The MTA needs to get out of the propaganda business and take care of union business.
The agenda of the Massachusetts Teachers Union is clear, and it’s not education: it’s to propagandize against the Jews and Israel.
It’s time to stop.
[Originally published in the American Thinker]
Published in Culture
Reading, writing, and arithmetic. Leave the moral instruction to parents and those who the parents select. Not only are you outside of your lane MTA, you’re on the wrong highway.
I listened to how a union official explained that this was not instructional materials, it was information for teachers. Uh, you mean like explaining the wage negotiations? I don’t think so. There is zero chance that the union did not want this perspective taught to students.
No kidding. How stupid do they think we are?? Don’t answer that…
I started my teaching career in Bedford-Stuyvesant in Brooklyn, New York. That had originally been a Jewish neighborhood, but as those immigrants acclimated to the new environment and became successful business people, doctors, lawyers, etc. they moved out of there into nicer neighborhoods. They were replaced by blacks coming out of the south looking for work in northern industries. The complexion of the area changed. However, many of the businesses and stores which were owned by Jews remained in place. The same thing happened in Harlem with the same results. I have seen similar things happening in Seattle as once Jewish neighborhoods became predominantly black, again with Jews maintaining the ownership of the businesses serving the area.
It isn’t too difficult to figure out what happened in these situations. Shoplifting increased dramatically. Shop owners needing to cover the slippage increased prices. Black residents complained about having to pay more for groceries, etc. Resentment grew, and rather than the community accepting responsibility for the causes of the problem they simply blamed it all on the greedy Jews. By the time I got into Bed-Stuy as a teacher there existed what was called a food desert, all of the stores were gone, simply driven out of business by losses that could not be compensated for. I actually saw the same thing happen in the southeast part of Seattle in real time. In the 1980s there were large Safeway and Fred Meyer stores in the Rainer Beach area of Seattle which seemed to be thriving. Boundary areas around them were populated by affluent families, but the areas in close proximity to the stores became solidly black. Before 1990 both stores were forced to close because of loses. Again, the owners of the stores were blamed, and whether they were Jews of gentiles didn’t matter. The Jews were blamed since they were predominant in the population of the area.
I don’t know for sure, but I would guess that this rise in antisemitism that we are seeing is to a large extent fueled by that which as existed, smoldering in the black communities around the country. Blacks have gained dominant positions in schools and government agencies due to affirmative action. I have seen evidence of black antisemitism first hand in the schools of Seattle, so what happened in Massachusetts isn’t surprising to me at all. To some extent it gives license to non-blacks to vent their feelings more openly. October 7th, 2023 opened a fissure which allowed what has been boiling beneath the surface to rise and flow.
Thank you for this insightful comment, Eugene. Your experiences always had depth to my posts.
You don’t need government schools. They don’t add any value, obviously. Cut a check to the parents. Immediately 80% of the students value would go straight up.
I’ve had a bunch of good Jewish stuff coming up on my YouTube and I like Jews and I like Judaism.
We have “Teachers for Palestine” in Ireland. Appalling people.
Expedite their emigration.
Who are they and what do they do, Charles?
They have “workshops” in schools. They agitate, meddle and protest. They ooze self-righteousness. No disrespect to decent teachers doing their jobs, but these people have too much time on their idle hands. In the hateful environment here, no teacher would ever be disciplined for taking time off to protest, or for brainwashing their students. More generally, we have far too many teachers in our parliament, and in leadership positions, including our anti-Israel PM and our odious Israel- hating President ( a great admirer of Iran). No wonder Ireland is the most anti-Israel country in the Western World.
Read this and weep-
https://www.jns.org/irish-president-says-israel-outed-his-chummy-letter-to-iran/
I think I want to say thanks! How awful, and especially the article with the president praising Iran. It all sounds so terrible. I hope you don’t have young children exposed to that ugly stuff.
The Massachusetts teaching materials feared a Star of David composed of folded dollar bills. You can see it briefly, before the paywall is imposed, at the Boston Herald website if you do a search for Massachusetts Teachers Association Star of David.
Trope much?
Oh, and it can be found on a link from the Jewish ADL website too.
I don’t understand your question.
Wait- you mean they actually succeeded in teaching something? I mean they meant to teach something & got it across-on purpose?
Please find out their technique, because most schools can’t teach much of anything…….[except the DoDEA schools]
Only 70% of 8th graders below proficient in reading-some interpret as 1/3 functionally illiterate
54% of Adults had a literacy below 6th grade.
https://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/
https://www.dodea.edu/news/press-releases/dod-schools-ranked-best-united-states-again-nations-report-card#:~:text=Fourth%20and%20eighth%2Dgrade%20students,NAEP
Government schools are a disaster and their existence hasn’t been logical since at least 1970. Cut a check to the parents.
I’m presenting the dollar bill Star of David as being a trope for antiSemitism. Nothing more to understand.
I thought that was obvious.
So Hamas made a grotesque show of returning the murdered members of the Bibas family, and it turns out the body purportedly of the mother, Shiri Bibas, is not hers. Something is going to break very soon.
The story of this family is so tragic. Do you want to give us a hint of what you think will “break”? A story about the Bibas family?
I was thinking of the patience of the Israeli people, and maybe, just maybe, the willingness of so many to take Hamas propaganda at face value. Probably wishful thinking in the latter case.
Hamas has to be broken. You cover it with bunker busters and then you follow it up with a MOAB. I used to think I was wrong about this because they got some hostages back, but what are you going to do now? The whole country is mentally ill worse than even Germany was.
I sadly share your view. It’s like the Biblical Sodom and Gomorrah tale. God bargains with Abraham over how many righteous souls there needs to be in those towns to avert their total destruction. It starts out with 50 and then sequentially falls to 10 — and even then there were not enough. Sodom and Gomorrah is the metaphor for irredeemable wickedness. Gaza’s worship of genocidal violence seems to be at a Biblical level.
The Palestinian Arabs are the last remaining allies of the Nazi party on Earth, descended in unbroken lineage.