Part 1 explained how JCRC censored Jewish moms’ comments explaining that they don’t feel JCRC represents them, especially on several key issues.
Part 2, outlined the disagreement between the Jewish moms and JCRC regarding Ethnic Studies.
In this Part 3, I explain the transparent three steps Ethnic Studies uses to teach antisemitism.
Ethnic Studies presents itself as deep and intellectual, but beneath the jargon, it boils down to a simplistic, three-step formula for antisemitism. I’m not sure why JCRC thinks there’s no “discriminatory content” in the model curriculum. In fact, it singles out Jews for utter contempt and derision.
First, it divides everyone into either a good or a bad group. Second, Jews are placed in the bad group. Third, the bad group is judged for its oppression of the good group, and resistance is justified to reverse the injustice caused by the bad group. It’s such an obvious antisemitic doctrine that even JCRC can’t deny it.
In the first step, all of society is split up into two groups (Page 2 of the Model Curriculum). One group is inherently good and the other is inherently evil. The evil group is cast as white, dominant, oppressive, or colonial, while the virtuous group is framed as people of color, nonwhite, indigenous, marginalized, BIPOC, LGBTQ+, or decolonial.
Before exploring how Jews are categorized, let’s take a closer look at the third step to understand how Ethnic Studies passes ruthless judgment on the dominant group with utter disdain. These conclusions are presented as objective facts, even though they are more accurately akin to religious doctrines:
- Dominant groups “harm oppressed groups” through “oppression,” which is “unjust treatment of and control.” (P. 98).
- Dominant groups benefit themselves by telling narratives “in service of the dominant social group’s interests and ideologies” (P. 98)
- “Dominant narratives in the United States often target nonwhite ethnic groups who face oppression at the hands of the dominant social group.” (P. 104).
- The dominant narrative “achieves dominance through repetition, the apparent authority of the speaker (often accorded to speakers who represent the dominant social groups), and the silencing of alternative accounts.” (P. 98).
In this religion, it obviously seems pretty bad to be in the “dominant” group. A religious obligation is practically imposed on the students to adopt the “correct” viewpoints and feel like they must take action to reverse the manifold injustice conducted by the dominant group. Let’s return now to the second step, to ask how does Ethnic Studies analyze whether Jews are “dominant” or “marginalized?” This seems to be a pretty important question, or perhaps the single most important question about the entire course, that should be at the forefront of our analysis. Yet, our Jewish leaders don’t appears to be asking.
As you might guess, Jews, in this religion, are arbitrarily deemed to be in the “dominant” group. The “analysis” is limited to the following: Regarding Jews in America, the model curriculum teaches that although Jewish immigrants were once considered nonwhite, Jews climbed up American society to join the white dominant group, not by merit, but by adopting the practices of the “dominant majority” and pushing down other minorities. Calmly describing Jews’ duplicity, Ethnic Studies teaches that Jewish people “change[d] their position on the racial hierarchy from that of their immigrant parents[.]” (P. 381). “Light-skinned Jewish immigrants were able to…resemble the [culture] of the majority” by “adopt[ing] many practices and values of the majority or dominant culture[.]” (P. 381). Remember that Dominant groups “harm oppressed groups” through “unjust treatment of and control.” (P. 98).
After portraying Jews as part of the dominant oppressor group in America, it is unsurprising that the curriculum also frames Israeli Jews as colonial oppressors. Recently disclosed curriculum from San Mateo Union High School District demonstrate that Israelis are taught to be Zionist colonizers in stolen Palestinian land through the modern state of Israel. Conduct that is labeled “colonial” (such as Israel’s) is especially pernicious. Ethnic Studies equates “colonial” behavior as “racist, bigoted, [and] discriminatory” on “multiple levels.” (P. 57). Ethnic Studies — like any religion — requires action, teaching that decolonization of Jews from their homeland in Israel is necessary to achieve justice.
Therefore, in three simple steps, Ethnic Studies creates a religion based on a conspiracy theory that Jews are guilty of committing the cardinal sin. Committing heresy against the most cherished element of the theology, instead of being proud of belonging to a marginalized group, Jews betrayed their fellow marginalized people and intentionally joined the dominant, evil group.
There is no practically no greater sin that could be envisioned in this theology. Ethnic Studies portrays Jews perhaps worse than any other minority. Not only are Jews in the dominant group, Jews chose to join. It follows, then, that Jews must have resorted to unjust tactics to suppress other minorities as they climbed the social ladder. All of the celebration and centering of marginalized and minority groups taught by Ethnic Studies does not apply to Jews because they committed Ethnic Studies heresy and chose to join the dominant group.
This depiction of Jews pretending to be white to achieve unearned privilege can be traced directly to Nazi propaganda. “Just as it is often hard to tell a toadstool from an edible mushroom,” according to a Nazi children’s book, “so too it is often very hard to recognize the Jew…” Dr. Pamela Paresky writes that “Depicting Jews as imposters and appropriators of privilege — people who pose as something to which they have no legitimate claim — has been a frequent anti-Semitic theme throughout history.”
There is no confusion that Jews are not to be celebrated in Ethnic Studies. Listen to the flowery language used to depict non-Jewish minorities, such as for “Native People/s and Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC),” Ethnic Studies instructs to “[c]ultivate empathy, community actualization, cultural perpetuity, self-worth, self-determination, and the holistic well-being of all participants,” “Center and place high value on the pre-colonial ancestral knowledge, narratives, and communal experiences of Native People/s and people of color and groups that are typically marginalized in society” and “Celebrate and honor…their intellectual and cultural worth.” (P. 78). In stark contrast to how these celebrated groups are depicted, remember, it is taught that Jews came to resemble the dominant group by adopting the practices of the majority. (P. 381).
Placing Jews in an evil, controlling, dominant group is just a classic antisemitic trope. While we may debate our skin tones, it is blatantly antisemitic to teach that Jews are part of the dominant group that oppresses people of color. Not only is it offensive, it is totally inaccurate. Even accepting the simplistic framework that society can be split into oppressors and oppressed people, the narrative is false. Jews are not oppressors. Jews have worked to improve civil rights for all Americans, not to oppress others. Jews, as a historically persecuted minority, do not fit the oppressor-oppressed binary that Ethnic Studies promotes. Teaching that Jews are associated with “whiteness” as a central tenet of Ethnic Studies is unabashed antisemitism. It is not a big leap to see why public educators so easily accept teach the idea that “white Jews” are also oppressing “black Palestinians” in Israel and Gaza.
Now we must ask, knowing that Ethnic Studies frames Jews as dominant oppressors and Israel as colonizing the Palestinians, in Part 4, given what we know, why does JCRC still support Ethnic Studies?
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