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California Parents Say No to Anti-Semitic Ethnic Studies

(Wall Street Journal) Lori Lowenthal Marcus and Jesse M. Fried - A group of Jewish public-school parents and teachers filed a federal lawsuit last Thursday challenging the adoption of anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist curricular materials in Los Angeles public schools. The Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum Consortium, which disseminates teaching materials lifted directly from radical anti-Israel websites, rejects the idea that all cultures should be studied. It asserts that ethnic studies is about only four groups: Native Americans, black Americans, Chicanos/Latinos, and Asian-Americans/Pacific Islanders. That last group includes Arabs from the Middle East - but not Jews, who've lived in that same region for millennia. The consortium's materials deny that Jews are indigenous to the Middle East and teach that Israel is a "colonialist" and "settler state" founded through "genocide," "ethnic cleansing" and "apartheid." They falsely teach that Zionism is an invention of the "late 19th century." Tell that to the millions of Jews who end their Passover Seders with "next year in Jerusalem," or end every Jewish wedding by breaking a glass to mourn Jerusalem's destruction, or pray each day facing Jerusalem. The consortium's materials says Israel and the U.S. are "white settler states," even though Israel's Jewish population is more than half "people of color" - including people whose ancestors lived in Africa and India and more three million Israelis descended from Jews who've lived in the Middle East for more than 2,600 years. Jewish teachers have the right to a workplace, and Jewish parents to a public school for their children, where government-paid teachers don't denounce their homeland, characterize their people as genocidal criminals, or disparage their religious beliefs. Ms. Marcus is legal director of the Deborah Project and lead counsel in the lawsuit. Mr. Fried is a professor at Harvard Law School and chairman of the Deborah Project's board of directors.
2022-05-19 00:00:00
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