Parents are working together to fight systemic antisemitism in US classrooms

The Anti-Defamation League recently published an online toolkit on how to “record and disrupt” problematic messages in the K-12 curriculum. It aims to teach parents how to identify and deal with biased curriculum in their children’s schools. When I saw it, it felt like I was being punched in the gut.

The toolkit cites a classic example: a 2017 Vox video titled “The Israel-Palestine Conflict: A Brief, Simple History.” It’s the same biased video my friend’s daughter had to watch in her seventh grade class in 2018 – after which a student yelled, “F— Israel”. The video that local Jewish leadership, including the ADL, convinced my friend was owned by the district, then resurfaced, two years later, in his daughter’s ninth grade social studies class. Mostly because it is “handled”.

Then on October 7th a flood of distorted news flooded K-12 classrooms. As a result, hatred, disguised as political propaganda, took over the halls of our children’s schools. The parents immediately panicked. It was obvious – misinformation has been growing in schools for years, yet it has been talked about quietly, in bits and pieces, and privately (or sometimes not at all), not systematically. And it is this inaction that laid the foundation for the systemic anti-Semitism embedded in our K-12 programs today.

Parents across the country quickly realized that no one was coming to fix this systemic problem and classrooms were becoming more hostile by the day. Many community leaders did not have children in schools; the threat felt abstract. They did not understand the dynamics of the local district, they had no relationship with the school leaders, and they were prevented from getting involved in politics. Worse, they were not ready to admit that the obsession was fueling the problem.

But, we as parents saw it right away. We felt it viscerally. So we dove head first, and began swimming upstream against the tide of opinion that told teachers, administrators, and school board members that our children were not entitled to the same “inclusion” as other students who were discriminated against.

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School choice has become increasingly popular in states across the country, with recent additions to Arizona, Utah and Iowa. (Stock)

By the time this collection came out last month, we had identified the problematic curriculum, developed a plan and started working. We organized locally, influenced school board elections, created non-profit organizations and built parent networks from scratch.

But we are underfunded, isolated, and tired. Our supposed allies sometimes push us aside or “pour water on the boats we just registered.” The role of the established Jewish community is not to turn up late and tell the parents what to do. Instead, it’s about listening to parents who are already doing the work humbly and using their resources to help measure what’s already working.

We don’t have expensive PR budgets, social media teams, paid social media strategists and in-house lawyers. We need money. We need infrastructure. We need to communicate. Links to each other. Communicating with the media is a battle in the court of public opinion. Liaising with government officials at the federal, state and local levels. And communication with lawyers who can help us fight the fight in the court of law. And, when all is said and done, we need to know our leaders will turn their backs on us when our enemies will surely follow us.

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Fox News Digital obtained a photo of the pro-Hamas slogan “Free Palestine. From the river to the sea” written on a teacher’s board at Susan E. Wagner High School. (Fox News Digital)

There are promising examples of parent empowerment, such as the Bay Area Center to Counter Antisemitism and the North American Values ​​Institute (NAVI). At NAVI, we empower parents by listening to them and providing them with tools like our white paper, When the Classroom Becomes Hostile.

Parents did not choose to be lawyers – we were forced to go where our children were directed. This time requires humility, cooperation and urgency. Parents are an important part of the solution that has been overlooked. What we need now is real partnership and integrity, real resources and real power.

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