Blacks and Jews join to protest California plan for critical race theory in high-school curriculum; Though ratified 11-0, why it's flawed fundamentally

Christians join Jews outside of L.A. Federal Building Sunday, 7 Mar'21, to protest identity-politics,
Ethnic Studies curriculum California state officials sought to mandate  (photo: End Jew Hatred)

"Teach Love Not Hate,” a Los Angeles protest contesting the proposed Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum (ESMC) was held at the West Los Angeles Federal Buildingon Sunday March 7th.  The protest, featuring speakers Jewish and Christian, white and black, was sponsored by organizations End Jew Hatred, Yad Yamin, the Simon Wiesenthal Center, and The Lawfare Project.

The event drew approximately 100 attendees. JooTube caught-up with a few of the speakers for up-close explanations of their views. Joshua Washington, a Zionistic Christian with the Institute of Black Solidarity with Israel, and Maytal, a Persian-Jewish mother of school-age kids, express the alarm of California's Jewish Community

Maytal goes a step further and, coming from an Iranian-Jewish immigrant family, comments on the Biden Administration appointing pro-Iran and anti-Israel officials to manage nuclear arms limitations negotiations.

Jewish Journal Editor-In-Chief David Suissa also spoke during the protest, argued that his main issue with the ESMC was that it inculcates students with the notion that their core identity is based on their ethnicity rather than their individuality.

At the Los Angeles rally, black civil-rights activist, Ted Hayes of "Love is Real" (LIRM.com) and gentile advocate for Israel and Jews, Laurie Cardoza-Moore of "Proclaiming Justice to the Nations" (PJTN.org) discuss their objections to ESMC.

 

Aaron Bandler, in the Jewish Journal, March 8, 2021 wrote:

In his speech, Mr. Washington pointed out that Martin Luther King Jr (a day before his assassination) had said that there was increasing radicalization among some in the Black community that “There are some who are color-consumed and see a kind of mystique in being colored, and anything non-colored is condemned.” Dr. King, he added, explicitly REJECTED that line of thinking. Mr. Washington stated, “What we are saying now with this Critical Ethnic Studies curriculum is an academic reiteration of the 'color consumption' that King described. This is part of why many like Dr. King are excised from the curriculum - and Dr. King himself is lambasted and belittled as weak and docile.”

Joshua Washington addresses anti-Semitism among the Left and African-American mainstream:

Mr. Washington added that several civil rights leaders are ignored and disparaged in the curriculum while it glorifies “militant violence.”

He also said that the history of Jews and the Black-Jewish alliance is underrepresented in the curriculum, while Arab studies are overrepresented and fail to mention “the centuries long slave trade of Africans that still continues today.”

Washington warned that more than 20 school districts in California have adopted the first ESMC draft that many Jewish groups viewed as problematic. “If your school district is one of those districts, it is up to you to apply serious pressure on your child’s school to get rid of this,” Washington said. “Apart from espousing poisonous doctrine, the curriculum is filled with lies and half-truths and complete distortions. It isn’t a celebration of different culture; it’s a celebration of a single destructive ideology.” 

He added that “no revision can redeem this Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum. What can redeem it is a return to the drawing board with a new group of authors with more diversity of thought - and not a group of people with the clear and obvious anti-Jewish, anti-Black and anti-peace agenda!”

"Ethnic studies curriculum passes 11-0 after one final day of sparring" by Gabe Stutman in Northern California's JWeekly 19 March

... The curriculum passed with a number of Jewish concerns addressed; it now includes two lessons on Jewish Americans, absent from the first version, in the section “Interethnic Bridge-building,” it discusses antisemitism at multiple points, and it does not mention the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel nor the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

“The model curriculum approved today by the State Board of Education is a vast improvement over prior drafts and a win for everyone who fought to remove bigoted and discriminatory content about Jews and Israel,” said Assemblymember Jesse Gabriel of Woodland Hills and state Sen. Scott Wiener of San Francisco, chair and vice chair of the California Legislative Jewish Caucus, respectively, in a joint statement.

“The just-approved model curriculum, while not perfect, addresses the major concerns our community identified nearly two years ago,” said Tye Gregory, executive director of JCRC, the agency that works on behalf of the Bay Area Jewish community on critical issues affecting Jews.

Other groups, including StandWithUs, the AMCHA Initiative, the Alliance for Constructive Ethnic Studies and the American Jewish Committee, still opposed the curriculum as written.

The national AJC office said in a statement Thursday that revisions were “a salve” but were “ultimately not curative of the fundamental flaws at the heart of the original curriculum, much of which represented a rigid ideological (but sharply contested) world view.”

Roz Rothstein, CEO of StandWithUs, an L.A.-based nonprofit focused on supporting Israel and combating global antisemitism, said the organization was “disappointed that this model curriculum was approved as is,” adding, “we are proud that so many spoke out at today’s meeting and for nearly two years leading up to this vote … without their voices, the curriculum would have been dramatically worse.”

The textbook-length model curriculum sparked more than 82,000 public comments over three review periods since the summer of 2019. More than 38,000 of them were summarized by the CDE as “Comments about Jewish Americans and/or antisemitism,” by far the most of any category.

The curriculum next will be edited by CDE staff to reflect minor changes and to include a definition of “critical race theory,” which State Board of Education members suggested was necessary to resolve confusion.

Read full article at JWeekly.com

"The problem with ethnic studies isn’t just how it treats Jews" by Jonathan S. Tobin  March 19

Anti-Semitic content was removed from a proposed California public-school curriculum. But the real danger is a radical and divisive ideological agenda at the heart of this effort.

(JNS) Some Jews are declaring victory. Their long battle to alter the draft of the proposed Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum (ESMC) for California public schools ended with an outcome that left the Simon Wiesenthal Center “encouraged.” The effort to remove overtly anti-Semitic and anti-Israel content from the document was approved by the California State Board of Education succeeded. Yet the center remains “concerned” about the program. The American Jewish Committee agreed. It referred to the ESMC as “fundamentally flawed.” StandWithUS concurred, calling it “problematic.”

At stake was a new school course requirement for schools from K-12 that would make the study of the histories, struggles and contributions of Asian, African-American, Latino and Native American communities an integral part of public education in the nation’s most populous state. The fourth and revised draft of the curriculum now includes material about, among others, Jews, Armenians and Sikhs.

The first draft, which provoked a strong protest from Jews, included anti-Semitic and anti-Israel language. It effectively endorsed the boycott of Israel by listing it alongside the Black Lives Matter movement and #MeToo protests against sexual harassment as praiseworthy activities. It referred to the establishment of modern-day Israel by the term nakba, the Palestinian word for “catastrophe.” It spoke of Jews gaining “race privilege” because of their skin color, which makes them part of the oppressive majority grinding down minorities. And it even included a song lyric that spoke of Jews manipulating and controlling the press.

That’s all gone from the final draft that’s been approved and included in it now are lesson plans on American Jews, including one on the Mizrachi Jewish experience that discusses anti-Semitism. Both contain the widely accepted definition of Jew-hatred, according to the International Holocaust Remembrance Association, as well as material on anti-Semitism from the Anti-Defamation League.

That’s enough to satisfy some in the Jewish community. The California Legislative Caucus and the San Francisco Jewish Community Relations Council have withdrawn their objections entirely. Tyler Gregory, executive director of that JCRC, said in a press release that “we need ethnic studies now. Ethnic studies gives marginalized communities the agency to define and share their own stories, cultures and histories. As Jewish Americans, we relate to this urgent need.”

So why do many Jews remain worried about the implementation of this curriculum?