Why the Fight Against Antisemitic Curriculum Must Extend to Younger Grades

In 2019, outraged Jewish community members immediately raised their voices in opposition to California’s newly proposed ethnic studies curriculum — a curriculum rich with references to various forms of bigotry, but conspicuously lacking in discussion of antisemitism and including blatantly anti-Zionist rhetoric. 

Through significant effort, the Jewish community fought and successfully replaced the blatant antisemitic and anti-Zionist rhetoric with an account of the history of antisemitism. That said, the fight for an accurate portrayal of Jews and Israel and a unifying rather than dividing ethnic studies curriculum is far from over.

While the Jewish community continues the valiant fight to amend California’s ethnic studies curriculum, it cannot lose sight of the greater goal: Ensuring that public education does not negatively impact American Jews, and that it promotes the acceptance of Jews and peaceful coexistence in America and around the world.

The high level of vigilance granted to California’s ethnic studies curriculum must also be applied to the insidious aspects of the general social science curriculum.

In this pursuit, the high level of vigilance granted to California’s ethnic studies curriculum must also be applied to the insidious aspects of the general social science curriculum. Specifically, attention must be given to the fatally flawed portrayal of Jews in grade six textbooks. Such images erroneously teach students that Jewish ancestry is synonymous with native European descent. They also state that Jews have always been “white,” and that therefore Jews historically are participants and beneficiaries of the systems of white privilege. The overall message is that Jews contributed to white ascendency and continue to benefit from its consequences. The fact that Jews are inheritors of historical and pervasive racial hatred, and that they continue to be a target of white supremacy is conspicuously absent from these textbooks.

As a college student during these turbulent political times, the ramifications of this issue are a part of my lived reality. I have witnessed first-hand the consequences of white supremacy. I am a Zionist and a supporter of Palestinian rights. But given that Zionism (the belief in Jewish self-determination) has been wrongfully equated with white supremacy in many progressive circles, it is the only one of those identities that I feel the need to hide. To admit that I am a Zionist is tantamount to saying that I am a racist, to those who hold these beliefs. 

Let me give you an example of what I mean. 

At pro-Palestine rallies across the country, on and off university campuses, crowds of individuals chant the now-familiar call-to-arms for pro-Palestinian activists “From the River to the Sea Palestine Will be Free!” — a call for establishing a State of Palestine from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. It’s a blatant call for the erasure of the State of Israel and an end to the Jewish right of self-determination in our ancestral homeland. 

It would be false to claim that the average American pro-Palestine protestor understands that they are calling for the end of the Jewish state or the genocide of its Jews when they chant these words. The words “from the river to the sea” have been the rallying cry for such groups as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine as well as Hamas, a terrorist organization responsible for the murder of countless Jews and founded on goals of Israel’s destruction, and so it is unquestionable that adopting this rhetoric is meant to signal agreement with the agenda to erase both Jews and the Jewish homeland. Calling for Palestinian control “from the river to the sea” is calling for an end to the Jewish state.

In March 2022, in the heart of the UCLA campus, a group of primarily white students braved the heat to call for the erasure of the Jewish state. 

When asked what Palestine needs to be freed from, an L.A.-born, 22-year-old Jewish UCLA student, a member of Student for Justice in Palestine, said, “Palestine needs to be free from colonization, the oppression of Zionism’s white supremacy.” A pro-BDS, San Jose-born, Muslim second-year UCLA student answered, “the apartheid racism of white colonists.” A white San-Diego-born, first-year UCLA student replied, “Western settlers, invading and stealing native land.” 

A combination of UCLA student protestors and individuals carrying pro-Palestine markers (shirts, stickers, etc.) were asked the above question independently and on different days. In the conversations that followed, out of 20 students, 14 mentioned “whiteness,” 13 mentioned “western,” 16 mentioned “apartheid,” two mentioned “equality,” three mentioned “peace,” and 17 mentioned “colonization.” All 14 students who mentioned whiteness were California residents. 

The student’s statements reveal a shared element. In the U.S., Israel and Jews have become synonymous with white privilege. American Pro-Palestinian ideology is no longer about peace and equality but about fighting western white hegemony. 

This begs the question: Where have individuals learned that all Jews are white? How has it been forgotten that less than a hundred years ago, American Jews were called Orientals or Hebrews, and some six million Jews were explicitly murdered for their non-white and subhuman status? 

Given its blatant references to Jews as beneficiaries of white privilege, California’s 6th-grade public education may have played a direct role in propagating the false notion of Jewish/Israeli whiteness. And as California’s curriculum has an impact on curricula adopted throughout the U.S., this is not only a local but also a national issue.

Moreover, the curriculum has abetted the erasure of Jewish multiculturalism and indigenous MENA (Middle East and North Africa) heritage, and thereby supported the spread of false notions of a Jewish history of white supremacy and the evolving antisemitic rhetoric of Jewish “hyper-whiteness.” This hyper-whiteness implicitly places blame on Jews for modern-day issues ranging from the coronavirus pandemic, to gentrification of low-income neighborhoods of color, racist police brutality, and poverty in America. Further, it has erased the lived experiences of Jews who are visibly of color, with various diasporic ancestries. 

The 6th grade year is a critical moment in K-12 education. It marks a transition from childhood toward adolescence, is a period of formative identity and worldview formation, and is typically the first-year students are introduced to the study of World Cultures and Civilizations. In many cases, this is a student’s first introduction to the cultural heritage of numerous minorities, including Jews, and as a first impression, its impact on all future encounters between students and minority cultures will be profound. 

And what is a California 6th-grader’s first impression of Jewish heritage? White. Leafing through the pages of California accredited textbooks, an educated reader will be shocked. Ancient Israel is not pictured as an area of ethnically Middle Eastern and multicultural people but as a haven for white people. Paintings of blonde, red-headed, and as depicted, white Egyptians, Jordanians, and Israelites abound on textbook pages. It is a blatantly false portrayal of those from various dark-skinned backgrounds. 

Take for instance the California and LAUSD accredited textbook, “California World History & Geography, Ancient Civilizations Grade 6.” Within its section on ancient Israel, there is not a single photo of an ancient Jew that is easily identifiable as Middle Eastern. Rather, there are images of Moses, Ruth and Naomi that are all identifiably white. 

Repeated studies have demonstrated the “truthiness effect” of images — that visual forms of knowledge production impact our perception of a vast array of topics, from general knowledge, predictions about future events, to judgments about our own episodic memories. Therefore, inauthentic images of Jews shown to students will likely directly impact their understanding of Jewish identity.

In accrediting textbooks that misrepresent Jewish ancestry, California has molded student perspectives on Jews.

In short, it’s no shock that students who are provided images of “white Jews,” and whose first academic impression of Israel is as an ancestrally white people, have come to associate Israel and Judaism with white supremacy. In accrediting textbooks that misrepresent Jewish ancestry, California has molded student perspectives on Jews.

“From the River to the Sea/Palestine Will Be Free.” If we wish to curb the rising antisemitism and anti-Zionism spreading across the United States, we must address the American portrayal of the Jewish community, particularly in California. We need increased discussion and education on Jewish ethnicity, specifically that while many Jews benefit from passing as white, passing is not being. And that contrary to the images often displayed, many Jews are not phenotypically European-white. Those that do appear so must be contextualized no differently than their white-passing black, Latino, Arab, or multiracial counterparts — as individuals who may have inherited different features as a result of diaspora, intergenerational forced migration, and admixture with dominant populations. While merely observational, the data gathered on the UCLA campus supports this understanding. It demonstrates how assumptions of Jewish whiteness directly influence current American antisemitic rhetoric. 

As a white-passing Ashkenazi Jew, I will never fully understand the plight of racism in America. That said, I will never understand what it means to be white, as, while I am light-skinned, I am also a Jew, which means that the historical white experience is not part of my heritage. Our curricula and educators must teach in a way that more fully meets the initiative for diversity, equity and inclusion that it has outlined for our generation and generations to come.

Isaac Levy is a student of the UCLA honors and Scholars programs, a entrepreneur driven by curiosity, a love of learning, and the ambitious desire to disrupt and positively change our world.