Some content is adapted from Addressing Antisemitic Hate With Students, by Teaching Tolerance Staff, with permission of Teaching Tolerance, a project of the Southern Poverty Law Center – https://www.tolerance.org/magazine/addressing-antisemitic-hate-with-students
Antisemitic attacks are happening and they are a reminder of the important role educators play in pushing back against hate and violence.
- In December 2019: a knife attack that wounded five people at a rabbi’s home in Monsey, New York.
- Also in December of 2019: 3 people were found dead inside JC Kosher Supermarket after suspected shooters David Anderson and Francine Graham opened fire.
- Another December, 2019 incident: A 34-year-old woman and her 4-year-old son were attacked in Brooklyn, NY by someone who yelled anti-Semitic slurs and hit the mother in the head.
I could go on citing examples, but they are heart-wrenching.
Antisemitic incidents in the United States reached the highest on record in 2019, according to a press release from the Anti-Defamation League.
We know antisemitism is on the rise in the United States—while the FBI reports that all hate crimes across the U.S. rose in 2017, antisemitism saw the greatest increase.
We know that the man arrested for The Tree of Life attack was active in online white supremacist communities.
He published and “open letter” online, calling the attack on two New Zealand mosques, when a man killed 50 people, a “catalyst.”
He was a 19 year old college student. We cannot get used to this.
If change is to come, educators will be the ones who help to usher it in.
Although the recent—and ongoing—national conversation surrounding hate and bias incidents has focused largely on the targeting of Muslim, Latino and African-American individuals and communities, it is clear that antisemitism is alive and well in the United States. It’s proponents feel emboldened. In community centers, religious schools and places of worship—places intended to offer safe spaces and support positive identity formation—such threats and attacks are particularly unsettling.
While the news is at once disheartening and terrifying, Teaching Tolerance is firm in their belief that inclusive, anti-bias education is the antidote to the fear and hatred that leads to violence.
Clearly, this work is more necessary than ever—and clearly we must include Jewish voices, perspectives and experiences in our teaching if we are to be responsive to the current climate of intimidation in our country.
Here are some resources to help you learn about Jewish identities and antisemitism:
- TT’s free film One Survivor Remembers and teacher’s guide
- TT’s school climate resources, including Responding to Hate and Bias at School
- Selections from our Student Text library: “Out of Auschwitz,” “About Feeling Jewish,” “Danger on My Doorstep,” “Letter to the Hebrew Congregation in Newport” and “What Is Talmud?”
- Facing History and Ourselves’ antisemitism and religious intolerance resources
- The Anti-Defamation League (ADL)’s tools and resources for anti-bias education
- A classroom activity from the ADL titled Anti-Semitic Incidents: Being an Ally, Advocate and Activist
- The United States Holocaust Museum’s tools and resources
TT agree’s 100 percent with Gesher Jewish Day School, one of the schools targeted in the past, that “the work of educating joyful young minds [must continue] unabated.” In a Facebook post, the school acknowledged the threat but encouraged its followers to “learn something new every day, practice justice, kindness, and respect.”
It is only by committing to these principles that we can move forward and help our young people grow up confident that those who look, love or worship differently than they do pose no threat to them personally or to the American way of life.
