Newton School Battle: Report from the Trenches
Last night 7 of us attended the Newton School Committee meeting to continue our fight to get the Committee to publicly recant the lesson that was taught at Newton South High School, to apologize to the community and to warn other school boards about attempts to insert anti-Semitic materials into public school class rooms.
In an effort to thwart us, the Committee Chair, Clair Sokoloff, limited the time each of us could speak to three minutes. In the past we were allowed six.
Even under these conditions, we made our points which, by the way, are all televised as part of the normal procedure to put these meetings on Newton local cable.
Margot Einstein, the leader of our grass roots group led off reading an account of a meeting she and a parent had with the Curriculum head of the school, in which the parent was told that if she didn’t like what was in the curriculum, she could send her child to another school. Margot also read from the School Department’s website – which clearly states that parents can have access to curricular material……. So far, the school has not complied with its own rules.
Below are the remarks I prepared, thinking I had 6 minutes…. I rushed to cut these remarks in half.
Stay tuned,
Charles Jacobs
Remarks to the School Committee, January 14, 2013:
At the last meeting, Superintendent David Fleishman, addressed the issue of our concern: the use of racist and anti-Semitic materials in the Newton high schools. I’d like to respond to Mr. Fleishman’s remarks, which he has also posted on the school website.
We have been protesting and complaining to you for two years about a Saudi funded effort to defame the Jewish people and Israel that had slipped by school authorities and wound up being taught in at Newton South.
Newton students learned, from a handout in the Arab World Studies Notebook that Jews torture and kill Arab women in Israeli jails. The American Jewish Committee and others have characterized that Notebook as a propaganda tool produced by Saudi Arabia with intent to harm Jews in American classrooms.
We learned about this from a student at South who came home and asked her father if indeed Jews kill women in Israeli jails.
Because of the controversy this created, Jewish people have been coming here and asking for you to set the record straight about Jews killing Arab women and jails… and … by the way -- to date no one sitting in front of me has identified this as a lie. Not one of you…. Is it a lie, Mr. Fleishman?
1. And as you know Matt Hills and I have had opposing op eds in the Tab,
2. and I have published articles in the Jewish Advocate,
3. and the largest synagogue in Newton, Matt Hills synagogue, was because of this controversy, host to a three hour seminar on the problem of anti-Jewish materials in the public schools, which over a hundred people attended.
So now David Fleishman issues a statement intended to put this to rest.
First he says, the Arab World Studies Notebook has been removed from both high schools. Not because it is Saudi-produced hate literature, and not because of all the embarrassing publicity, No. It was removed, he says, and I quote: “there was a general sense that the materials were ….outdated.” Mr. Fleishman, the Bible is pretty old. The Constitution is over 200 years old…. You haven’t removed them.
The Arab World Studies Notebook is only 20 years old. So please….. It is hard for us to believe that you removed it because it is “outdated.”
So the real question is why don’t you all just come clean? Why not be honest about it? How hard can it be to say “We messed up. They got one past us. We’re going now to warn other school districts about the Arab World Studies Note book. We’re sorry.”
Instead, Mr. Fleishman goes to enormous lengths to twist what happened.
In his statement, he tells us that nobody taught lies about the Jews, really. But that this is simply a way that we teach critical thinking.
But there is only one legitimate way to teach about propaganda: that is to label it propaganda. That’s what excellent programs do.
I’m sure you all know the program Facing History and Ourselves. Many area schools use the Facing History Book about the Eugenics movement to specifically discuss the racism underlying the Nazi ideology. False information, properly explicated, can certainly be used responsibly -- in this case to reveal the ludicrous proposition that some people are "less human" than others. Similarly information from the KKK or a book like the Protocols of the Elders of Zion could be used in the same way, if there is a clear context about its hate and bias and racism.
But you indicate that the teacher did not say to the class, “here is a piece of anti-Semitic propaganda. We are going to teach you how propaganda works. Some people hate other people and they invent slick lies about them. We are going to show you KKK materials that deride black intelligence; mysogenous materials about how women can’t do math; fundamentalist materials about gays and “abomination,” and the grand daddy of them all, we are going to show you how the Arab world has invested hundreds of millions of dollars to teach hatred toward the Jews of Israel. When you are done, you’ll understand and be on your guard.
That, Mr Fleishman, would be academically excellent critical thinking….
That is the only responsible way teach about propaganda. It is wrong and unprofessional to teach lies as "one side of an argument.
Your method, if that’s what it was, failed: Mr. Pagliuso’s daughter came home thinking that maybe Jews torture and murder women. Because your teacher called the canard that Jews kill women in jail “a biased perspective” not a hateful lie.
And as we sit here today, STILL, nobody at the table in front of me is willing to tell her that it is a lie.
If I may…. One other point: why did you only use hate literature about Jews and not about anyone else?
You know of course what would happen if you trotted out a KKK piece on blacks, don’t you. No amount of dancing around “critical thinking” would save you from the storm of community indignation… you wouldn’t dare use the words the KKK uses about blacks…. But you used Arab hate propaganda against Jews and you still won’t call it lies. Even here. Even in front of these cameras.
* * *
Support us in spirit (join us if you can) as we speak before the Newton School Committee, demanding access to curricula and an honest explanation for the anti-Semitic materials that slipped into a high school class. After a year of effort, a grass roots group of Jews and Christian supporters got material from the Arab World Studies Notebook removed from the Newton high curriculum. One worksheet taught students that Jews in Israel torture and kill Arab women in Israeli jails. The Superintendent finally issued an official explanation that is appallingly transparent. The students were not taught this as truth, he said. They were only given the "lesson" as part of a critical thinking exercise. "We don't tell them what's true. We only teach them how to think." Imagine! The Newton public schools chose an anti-Semitic story to teach critical thinking.... without ever telling the students that it was a lie! Would they have used a KKK worksheet on black IQ? No. Would they use a misogynist worksheet on women's problems in thinking mathematically? How about a homophobe worksheet on "abominations?" Never! Only the Jews get the "critical thinking" treatment.....We want the school department to tell the simple truth: that they let slip some hate literature into our schools and will warn others and never do it again!
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