Protesting the Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum

Yesterday, the End Jew Hatred (EJH) Movement, a grassroots civil rights movement fighting Jew-hatred, held at a protest at the Federal Building in Los Angeles, where I was honored to be one of the speakers. The reason for the EJH protest? The proposed Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum (ESMC) and the continued rise of systemic Jew hatred in academia and education.

The below is adapted from the speech I gave yesterday at the protest:

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I am the father of a current California high school student.

Like most people, I wear far more than one so-called “hat,” and like most people, my bio corresponds to quite a few “titles” or “identities” — attorney, writer, ex-cop, huge fan of Italian food, etc. But two of the identities that have mattered most to me include the one I was born with — “Jew” — and another I was blessed to first acquire almost 26 years ago — “father.”

As a father, I have always tried to keep in mind the quote by famed Israeli child psychologist Dr. Chaim Ginott: “Children are like wet cement: whatever falls on them makes an impression.”

As a Jew who grew up with a Savta (Grandma) who was the only person in her extended family to survive the Holocaust, and as a Jew who remembers hearing my first anti-Semitic slur when I was a 5- or 6-year-old boy walking home from synagogue in Chicago, I have always wanted to protect my children as much as I can from Jew-hatred.

Ultimately, that is what this protest is about: protecting impressionable children.  Not just Jewish children, but all children. For while the virus of anti-Semitism certainly paints a big target on the backs of Jews, we all know that what starts with the Jews never ends with the Jews. Societies that become too infected with the Jew-hatred virus ultimately become too sick to survive, let alone thrive.

This is also what the controversy over the ESMC is about. It is about Jews, and our allies in the fight against Jew-hatred, saying that enough is enough. Saying loudly and proudly that we are no longer going to stand by and let people gaslight us about systemic Jew-hatred in education and in so-called “academia.”

After all, anyone paying any attention to what it’s like to be a proud Jew on most American college campuses knows how widespread Jew-hatred is in academia. For decades now, on most college campuses in the United States and certainly in Europe, Jews have been told that they have to check their Jewish identity and pride at the door if they want to be accepted.

Jews have been told that they have to check their Jewish identity at the door if they want to be accepted.

It is why Rose Ritch, who identified as proud progressive Jew at USC, was forced to resign from her position in student government after a relentless anti-Semitic cyber-bullying campaign. It is why a 2014 Survey of American Jewish college students found that 54% of Jewish students reported experiencing or witnessing anti-Semitism on campus — that’s over half of Jewish college students in America experiencing Jew-hatred on campus. Does that sound like a systemic problem?

So by 2014, it was known that over half of the Jewish students on college campuses in America were experiencing antisemitism. And for any of our California legislators who have been paying attention, it has also not been a secret that there has been a 72% increase in anti-Semitic hate crimes in California over the last three years.

Yet, despite this backdrop, when our state government was tasked with the noble goal of creating an ethnic studies curriculum for kids in California, they assigned that task to several anti-Semitic academics in California — the very people helping to make so many college campuses “no-go” zones for proud Jews.

That is why the first draft of the ESMC was riddled with anti-Semitism. That is why, in a curriculum intended to be about the diverse history of ethnic minorities in California, only one foreign country was repeatedly blasted for existing — Israel — and only one ethnic minority was lambasted for being “privileged” — Jews.

Barely a month ago, one of the “experts” selected to draft the ESMC (Theresa Montano of Cal-State Northridge) literally called the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) a “white supremacist organization.” How anti-Semitic — and how removed from reality — does one have to be, in order to consider the ADL a “white supremacist organization?

Because it was so plainly anti-Semitic, the draft ESMC was sent back to the drawing board twice. And while much of the over-the-top and overt anti-Semitism was excised from the third draft, it remains deeply flawed: it still lionizes even more Jew-haters, such as:

• Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, who has been widely criticizedfor multiple anti-Semitic comments and for her promotion and use of anti-Semitic tropes.
• Linda Sarsour, who has a long record of anti-Semitic actionsand statements, as well close ties to the infamous Jew-hater Louis Farrakhan.
• Jack Shaheen, who accusedIsrael of manipulating Hollywood in a manner that mimics anti-Semitic slurs about Jews allegedly running Hollywood and controlling the media.
• Helen Thomas, who infamously said that all Jews need to be forced out of Israel and forced to live in our former killing fields in Europe.
• Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, who has been widely criticized for her anti-Semitic commentsthat also mirror and promote dangerous anti-Semitic tropes.

The reason why the third version of the ESMC still venerates Jew-haters is because it was built by anti-Semitic architects. It is also dangerous because it embraces an idea that leads to anti-Semitism, the idea of people who are innately “oppressors” and people who are the victims of those oppressors. For centuries, anti-Semitism has largely been a conspiracy theory about “all powerful, nefarious” Jews who seek to oppress people. Any curriculum that embraces these concepts is inherently dangerous for Jews.

But despite these problems with the ESMC, there are many who claim this third version is good enough. That since we were able to get so much of the over-the-top Jew-hatred out of the ESMC, we need to accept this latest draft, lest the earlier versions be adopted.

We must reject this false choice. First: Nothing because prevents school districts from adopting the earlier — more anti-Semitic versions (something the original authors of the ESMC said is their goal). Second: Since when is “it’s only a little anti-Semitic” acceptable?

The late great Rabbi Sacks (z”l) spoke and wrote often about the importance of education. One of my favorite quotes was this:

Long ago the Jewish people came to the conclusion that to defend a country you need an army. But to defend a civilization you need schools. The single most important social institution is the place where we hand on our values to the next generation — where we tell our children where we’ve come from, what ideals we fought for, and what we learned on the way. Schools are where we make children our partners in the long and open-ended task of making a more gracious world.

California is one of the most diverse states in the United States. It is a state that the Jewish people have contributed to mightily and in innumerable ways. We have a right to demand that ethnic studies programs in this state combat all bigotry and racism, including Jew-hatred. That way, we can all help “make all of children our partners in the long and open-ended task of making a more gracious world.”

California’s children deserve no less.