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Oregon Teachers’ Union Under Fire for Promoting Anti-Israel Lesson Plans
Illustrative Pro-Hamas activists calling themselves the United Front for Liberation lead march through Valley Plaza Mall. The ‘Ceasefire’ rally began at Wilson Park in Bakersfield, California, on Dec. 16, 2023. Photo: Jacob Lee Green via REUTERS CONNECT
The teacher’s union of an Oregon school district is drawing scrutiny for promoting the teaching of anti-Zionist propaganda to children as young as five, according to numerous reports.
Last month, as first reported by The Oregonian, the Portland Association of Teachers (PAT) posted an anti-Zionist lesson plan on its website, titled “Know Your Rights! Teaching & Organizing for Palestine Within Portland Public Schools.” Among other things, the document describes Israel as “separatist” and “nationalist” and links opposition to its existence to the entirety of the progressive policy agenda, from the environment to LBGTQ rights and the Black Lives Matter movement.
One section, “Organizing with Students,” also counsels teachers on how to meet up with their students outside of school.
The document even contains a definition of antisemitism written by a far-left group which rules out the possibility that anti-Zionism can be a form of antisemitism and asserts that hatred of Jews is exclusively a Christian European form of racism. It also fails to mention forms of Islamic antisemitism that are anti-Zionist and influenced by German Nazism, which was a secular phenomenon.
“Originating in European Christianity, antisemitism is the form of ideological oppression that targets Jews,” it says. “In Europe and the United States, it has functioned to protect the prevailing economic system and the almost exclusively Christian class by diverting blame for hardship onto Jews.”
The Oregonian also reported that the union posted lesson plans, some of which have since been removed from its website, claiming that Israel is a “settler colonial” state. The materials target children as young as five with themes such as “Woke “Kindergarten” and “Lil Comrade Convos.” Others — such as “No Freedom Without Reproductive Freedom for Palestinian Women” and “Renewable Energy in Occupied Palestine” — aim to appeal to high school students.
“After hearing concerns from members around the content of some of these lessons … we’re taking it all off our website,” Angela Bonilla, president of the Portland Association of Teachers, said in announcing the decision, according to the Oregonian. “The concerns of them being one-sided is enough for me to say we have to pause and review … I’m hearing things about these materials I would not have let through.”
Bonilla has not, however, removed “Know Your Rights” from the website. She told the Oregonian that the document was “vetted.”
The Portland Association of Teachers, the paper added, also courted controversy for meeting with a radical anti-Zionist group which distributed pamphlets praising Hamas and implored teachers to promote anti-Zionism in the classroom by displaying flags and wearing t-shirts imprinted with the slogan “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” The popular slogan among anti-Israel activists has been widely interpreted as a call for the destruction of the Jewish state, which is located between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.
Local Jewish organizations have criticized the union for promoting political advocacy in the classroom and fostering antisemitism.
“PAT has their narrow agenda,” the Jewish Federation of Greater Portland said in a statement addressing the issue. “This is an effort by the teachers’ union to promote what many feel is a biased and historically revisionist curriculum.”
Antisemitism in K-12 schools is an issue that is drawing increasing attention from Jewish civil rights groups.
“The problem is coming to light as many people realize that K-12 indoctrination is oftentimes the basis for the antisemitism we see on college campuses,” Marci Lerner Miller, attorney for the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, told The Algemeiner earlier this week. “Many students arrive at their first day of college already having been taught to hate Israel and Jews. Addressing K-12 antisemitism helps us get to the root of the problem in many cases. The Office for Civil Rights has taken an interest in investigating it, and Congress recently called the superintendent of the Berkeley Unified School District to testify about what is happening there.”
The Brandeis Center has taken the lead in fighting antisemitism at the K-12 level. This month, it prevailed in its latest civil rights case brought forth on behalf of a North Carolina Middle schooler who was bullied for being “perceived” as Jewish. In February, it filed a civil rights complaint alleging that the Berkeley Unified School District (BUSD) in California has caused severe psychological trauma to Jewish students as young as eight years old and fostered a hostile learning environment.
At several schools throughout BUSD, students were recruited to assist anti-Zionist teachers in cheering Hamas’ atrocities as “liberation,” according to the complaint. They were called on to join “walk outs” and rewarded with excused absences in return for their participation, a violation of district policy forbidding excused absences for all but the most important reasons.
The complaint described how these demonstrations became salvos of antisemitic rhetoric. During one organized at Martin Luther King, Jr. Middle School, students shouted “KKK,” “Kill Israel,” “Kill the Jews,” and “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” In another incident, a second-grade teacher who threatened a parent instructed her students to write “Stop bombing babies” on sticky notes.
“The Jewish community was slower than we should have been to grasp the threat posed by antisemitism in higher education. Now we’re in danger of repeating the same problem in elementary and secondary education,” Brandeis Center chairman Kenneth Marcus told The Algemeiner. “It is horrifying to acknowledge, but the fact is that the situation in many high schools is starting to replicate some of our most worrisome campuses. Elementary schools are not safe either. One ramification is that college campuses may get even worse, as entering freshmen arrive after having already been indoctrinated while in elementary and secondary schools.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Oregon Teachers’ Union Under Fire for Promoting Anti-Israel Lesson Plans first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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A pro-Israel rally at the University of Toronto was headlined by Columbia University professor Shai Davidai
Around 200 people gathered for a pro-Israel demonstration at University of Toronto’s downtown campus at King’s College Circle—which was the site of one of Canada’s largest pro-Palestinian encampments during May […]
The post A pro-Israel rally at the University of Toronto was headlined by Columbia University professor Shai Davidai appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.
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‘Not Welcome’: New Pro-Hamas Campaign Aims to Abolish Hillel Campus Chapters
A statue of George Washington tied with a Palestinian flag and a keffiyeh inside a pro-Hamas encampment is pictured at George Washington University in Washington, DC, US, May 2, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Craig Hudson
The campus group National Students for Justice in Palestine (NSJP) is waging a campaign to gut Jewish life in academia, calling for the abolition of Hillel International campus chapters, the largest collegiate organization for Jewish students in the world.
“Over the past several decades, Hillel has monopolized for Jewish campus life into a pipeline for pro-Israel indoctrination, genocide-apologia, and material support to the Zionist project and its crimes,” a social media account operating the campaign, titled #DropHillel, said in a manifesto published last week. “Across the country, Hillel chapters have invited Israeli soldiers to their campuses; promoted propaganda trips such as birthright; and organized charity drives for the Israeli military.”
It continued, “Such actions reveal Hillel’s ideological and material investment in Zionism, despite the organization’s facade as being simply a ‘Jewish cultural space.’”
DropHillel claims to be “Jewish-led,” although only a small minority of Jews oppose Zionism, and the group has been linked to and promoted by Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapters.
Hillel International has provided Jewish students a home away from home during the academic year. However, NSJP says it wants to “weaken” it and “dismantle oppression.”
The idea has already been picked up by pro-Hamas student groups at one college, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, according to The Daily Tar Heel, the school’s official student newspaper. On Oct. 9, it reported, a member of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) unveiled the idea for “no more Hillel” during a rally which, among other things, demanded removing Israel from UNC’s study abroad program and adopting the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement. Addressing the comments to the paper days later, SJP, which has been linked to Islamist terrorist organizations, proclaimed that shuttering Hillel is a coveted goal of the anti-Zionist movement.
“Zionism is a racist supremacist ideology advocating for the creation and sustenance of an ethnostate through the expulsion and annihilation of native people,” the group told the paper. “Therefore, any group that advocates for a supremacist ideology — be it the KKK, the Proud Boys, Hillel, or Heels for Israel — should not be welcome on campus.”
The #DropHillel campaign came amid an unprecedented surge in anti-Israel incidents on college campuses, which, according to a report published last month by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), have reached crisis levels.
Revealing a “staggering” 477 percent increase in anti-Zionist activity involving assault, vandalism, and other phenomena, the report — titled “Anti-Israel Activism on US Campuses, 2023-2024” — painted a bleak picture of America’s higher education system poisoned by political extremism and hate.
“As the year progressed, Jewish students and Jewish groups on campus came under unrelenting scrutiny for any association, actual or perceived, with Israel or Zionism,” the report said. “This often led to the harassment of Jewish members of campus communities and vandalism of Jewish institutions. In some cases, it led to assault. These developments were underpinned by a steady stream of rhetoric from anti-Israel activists expressing explicit support for US-designated terrorists organizations, such as Hamas, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and others.”
The report added that 10 campuses accounted for 16 percent of all incidents tracked by ADL researchers, with Columbia University and the University of Michigan combining for 90 anti-Israel incidents — 52 and 38, respectively. Harvard University, the University of California – Los Angeles, Rutgers University New Brunswick, Stanford University, Cornell University, and others filled out the rest of the top 10. Violence, it continued, was most common at universities in the state of California, where anti-Zionist activists punched a Jewish student for filming him at a protest.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post ‘Not Welcome’: New Pro-Hamas Campaign Aims to Abolish Hillel Campus Chapters first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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‘Muslim for Trump’ Launches Initiatives in Key Battleground States, Says Candidate Will Bring ‘Peace’ to Gaza
Former US President Donald Trump is seen at a campaign event in South Carolina. Photo: Reuters/Sam Wolfe
The “Muslims for Trump” organization has officially launched initiatives to help elect Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump to the White House, arguing that he would be more likely to end the war in Gaza than Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris.
In a statement released on Monday, the group said it will focus on recruiting Muslim voters in key battleground states such as Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Georgia, and North Carolina. The organization both praised Trump for his supposed “peace-focused” approach to ending the war in Gaza and condemned Harris for helping facilitate a so-called “genocide.”
“After meeting with President Trump, it was clear to me he is the right leader for Muslims to get behind,” Rabiul Chowdhury, co-founder of Muslims for Trump and former co-chair of the “Abandon Harris Movement,” said in a statement.
Chowdhury added that during his discussions with Trump, the former president vowed to “ending the escalation of wars and bringing peace to war-torn regions.” In contrast to Trump’s promise to stop the “bloodshed” in Gaza, he claimed, Harris has “recklessly pushed us toward World War III.”
Chowdhury, a self-described “peace advocate,” urged the Muslim community not to fall victim to supposed “misinformation” campaigns by the media and Democrats that paint the former president as hostile to immigrants. He claimed that the former president’s focus is on “ending war, not dividing families through false immigration claims.”
Samra Luqman, chair of the Michigan chapter of Muslims for Trump, underscored the need to punish the Biden administration for what he described as supporting a “genocide” in Gaza.
“The goal of this election is to hold the Biden administration accountable for a genocide. No amount of fear mongering or scare tactics will persuade my community into forgiving the mutilation, live-burning, and genocide of over 200,000 people,” he said.
According to data produced by the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry, roughly 40,000 people have died in Gaza since the war began last October. Israel has said that its forces have killed about 20,000 Hamas terrorists during its military campaign.
Israel says it has gone to unprecedented lengths to try and avoid civilian casualties, noting its efforts to evacuate areas before it targets them and to warn residents of impending military operations with leaflets, text messages, and other forms of communication.
On the organization Muslims for Trump’s official website, it claims that the Abraham Accords, a series of historic, Trump administration-brokered normalization agreements between Israel and several countries in the Arab world, helped stabilize the Middle East. It also says that had Trump not lost the 2020 presidential race, the so-called “genocide” could have been prevented.
“Under Trump’s leadership, the Abraham Accords were brokered, fostering peaceful relations between Israel and several Arab countries. Supporters might argue that Trump’s diplomacy prioritized peace and stability in the Middle East, reducing the likelihood of large-scale conflicts like genocide,” the group wrote.
Over the course of his campaign, Trump has repeatedly touted his support for the Jewish state during his singular term in office. Trump has boasted about his administration’s work in fostering the Abraham Accords, promising to resume efforts to strengthen them if he were to win November’s US presidential election.
Harsh US sanctions levied on Iran under Trump crippled the Iranian economy and led its foreign exchange reserves to plummet. Trump and his Republican supporters in the US Congress have criticized the Biden administration for renewing billions of dollars in US sanctions waivers, which had the effect of unlocking frozen funds and allowing the country to access previously inaccessible hard currency.
Trump also recognized Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights, a strategic region on Israel’s northern border previously controlled by Syria, and also moved the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, recognizing the city as the Jewish state’s capital.
Despite Harris’s repeated efforts to woo Muslim voters, polling data indicates that the demographic has made a dramatic swing away from the Democratic Party. Polling data from the Arab American Institute reveals that Trump slightly edges Harris among Muslim voters by a margin of 42 to 41 percent. A report from the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) shows that Green Party candidate Jill Stein leads Harris and Trump with Muslim voters in the key swing states of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Arizona.
The post ‘Muslim for Trump’ Launches Initiatives in Key Battleground States, Says Candidate Will Bring ‘Peace’ to Gaza first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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