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To Protect Zionism, We Must Reject Ethnic Studies
Demonstrators holding a “Stand Up for Internationals” rally on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley, in Berkeley, California, US, April 17, 2025. Photo: Carlos Barria via Reuters Connect.
There are two hard truths at the core of the ethnic studies mandate debate currently raging across California, which continue to generate intense division and a growing number of lawsuits.
For those of us in the Jewish community, acknowledging these truths is urgent. Wherever ethnic studies — and its ideological sibling, DEI — are implemented, Jewish students have faced some of the most egregious violations of Constitutionally protected civil rights our country has experienced in recent times.
The first hard truth is that to teach “authentic” ethnic studies (as its architects intended), one must categorically reject Zionism. That’s not a flaw in the system — it’s the point.
The second point follows with painful clarity: you cannot fight antisemitism while embracing the very ideological framework that perpetuates it.
Zionism is inseparable from the Jewish people — it is our identity, our origin story, our homeland, and our essence.
And yet, across California classrooms — and increasingly across the country — Zionism is being smeared, redefined, and dismantled by the purveyors of “authentic” ethnic studies. And it’s showing up in the vast majority of school districts, classrooms, and colleges across America.
Ethnic studies teaches that Zionism — and even Israel’s existence — is something to be rejected. But the vast majority of Jews worldwide believe Zionism simply means that the Jewish people have the right to live freely and safely in their own homeland. Calling Zionism “racist” isn’t education — it’s hate dressed up as justice.
This isn’t a misunderstanding, or the fault of “a few bad teachers.” Hostility to Zionism is not incidental — it is central to the ethnic studies project.
By its own definition, ethnic studies is not about cultural understanding. It is a radical ideological framework born out of revolutionary Marxism and the Third World Liberation Front. It’s about dismantling systems it views as oppressive — “white supremacy,” settler colonialism, and capitalism. From its inception, ethnic studies was designed to “decolonize” the world — which in practical terms, means the dismantling of Western democracies, including the United States and Israel.
This is not my interpretation. It is, nearly word-for-word, how ethnic studies scholars describe their own discipline.
One ethnic studies professor, Dr. Marcelo Garzo Montalvo, describes the curriculum as rooted in a “fundamental critique of power,” with the explicit goal of “engagement” with “white supremacy, settler colonialism, racial capitalism, and other global structures of power.” He explicitly states that California’s high school ethnic studies requirement “has no other origin besides [Third World Studies] and their relevant demands.” The curriculum’s origins lie in revolutionary movements, not multicultural education.
Those familiar with the origins of the Third World Liberation Front know this: Zionism was never going to be recognized as the Jewish liberation movement. Ethnic studies would never portray it as progressive, aspirational, or worthy of respect.
Ironically, Zionism is the only real-world example of the very “decolonization” ethnic studies claims to pursue. And yet, rather than celebrate it, ethnic studies revives a familiar tactic: taking whatever society deems the ultimate evil and projecting it onto the Jews.
That’s the danger: ethnic studies packages ancient hate as modern “social justice.” And in ethnic studies, it’s not just present — it’s institutionalized. At this point, any effort to add “balance” to ethnic studies through Holocaust education or occasional references to Sephardic Jewish diversity is utterly futile.
And still, some major Jewish organizations continue to try and reform ethnic studies from within — offering feedback, drafting addendums, proposing lesson plans. Why? Out of fear, or perhaps the belief that being “at the table” means having a say?
The answer is a cocktail of fear, ignorance, wishful thinking, and institutional groupthink. Many hoped ethnic studies could be tamed — turned into a tool for inclusion, maybe even used to elevate Jewish identity alongside others.
They believed that by having a seat at the table, they could influence what’s on the menu. But the truth is: we were never meant to be at that table. Not as equals. Not when Zionism — central to Jewish identity — is framed as part of the problem.
And so long as we continue to assert our right to self-determination in our ancestral homeland (Zionism), we will always be portrayed as the villain. The more we try to sanitize the ethnic studies movement as a plea for inclusion, the more legitimacy we give to the latest iteration of Jew-hatred that seeks to destroy us.
We cannot protect Jewish students while endorsing a curriculum that teaches others to hate Jews. And we cannot defend Zionism while legitimizing an ideology that slanders it as oppression.
The solution to ethnic studies is not reform, it is rejection.
Zionism is the civil rights movement of the Jewish people. It deserves to be taught with truth, not twisted into a caricature. Not reduced to a slur.
And if defending Zionism means standing alone, so be it. It wouldn’t be the first time. It won’t be the last.
When a movement tells you — clearly and proudly — that it opposes everything you stand for, the most self-respecting thing you can do is believe them.
Nicole Bernstein is the co-founder of PeerK12, a grassroots organization combating institutionalized Jew-hatred in K-12 education. A mother of two public school students, she serves on her School District’s Equity Advisory Council.
The post To Protect Zionism, We Must Reject Ethnic Studies first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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New Poll: Majority of NYC Voters ‘Less Likely’ to Support Mamdani Over His Refusal to Condemn ‘Globalize the Intifada’
Zohran Mamdani. Photo: Ron Adar / SOPA Images via Reuters Connect
In a warning sign for the campaign of Democratic nominee for mayor of New York Zohran Mamdani, a majority of city voters in a new poll say the candidate’s hardline anti-Israel stance makes them less likely to vote for him.
In the survey of likely city voters conducted by American Pulse, 52.5 percent said Mamdani’s refusal to condemn the slogan “globalize the intifada” coupled with his backing of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement made them less likely to vote for him in November. Just 31% of city voters polled were more likely to support him because of these positions.
At the same time, a significant share of young New York City voters support Mamdani’s anti-Israel positioning, a striking sign of shifting generational views on Israel and the Palestinian cause.
Nearly half of voters aged 18 to 44 (46 percent) said the State Assembly member’s backing for BDS and “refusal to condemn the phrase ‘globalize the intifada’” made them more likely to support him.
Mamdani, a democratic socialist from Queens, has been under fire for defending “globalize the intifada,” a slogan many Jewish groups associate with incitement to violence against Israel and Jews. While critics argue it glorifies terrorism, supporters claim it’s a call for international solidarity with oppressed peoples, especially Palestinians. Mamdani has also voiced support for BDS, a movement widely condemned by mainstream Jewish organizations as antisemitic for singling out Israel.
The generational divide exposed by the poll comes amid a broader political realignment. Younger progressives across the country are increasingly critical of Israeli policies, especially in the wake of the Gaza war, and more receptive to Palestinian activism. But to many Jewish leaders, Mamdani’s rising support is alarming.
Rabbi David Wolpe, visiting scholar at Harvard University, condemned the phrase with a sarcastic analogy.
“‘Globalize the intifada’ is just a political slogan,” he said. “Like ‘The cockroaches must be exterminated’ was just a housing authority slogan in Rwanda.”
Jewish organizations have reported a surge in antisemitic incidents in New York and across the U.S. since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war last fall. The blending of anti-Zionist slogans with calls for “intifada,” historically linked to violent uprisings, has deepened fears among Jewish communities that traditional red lines are being crossed.
Whether this emerging coalition reshapes New York politics remains to be seen. However, the poll indicates that among younger voters, views that were once considered fringe are quickly moving into the mainstream.
The post New Poll: Majority of NYC Voters ‘Less Likely’ to Support Mamdani Over His Refusal to Condemn ‘Globalize the Intifada’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Report: Jews Targeted at June’s Pride Month Events
A Jewish gay pride flag. Photo: Twitter.
The research division of the Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM) released a report on Wednesday detailing incidents of hate against Jews which took place last month during demonstrations in celebration of LGBTQ rights and identity.
Incidents reported by the group include:
- At a Pride march in Wales, the activists Cymru Queers for Palestine chose to block the path and show a sign that said “Profiting from genocide,” an attempt to link the event’s sponsors — such as Amazon — to the war in Gaza.
- A Dublin Pride march saw the participation of the Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign, which labeled Israel a “genocidal entity.”
- In Toronto at a late June Pride march, demonstrators again attacked organizers with a sign declaring, “Pride partners with genocide.”
CAM also identified a recurring narrative deployed against Israel by some far-left activists: so-called “pinkwashing,” a term which the Boycott, Divest, Sanctions (BDS) movement calls “an Israeli government propaganda strategy that cynically exploits LGBTQIA+ rights to project a progressive image while concealing Israel’s occupation and apartheid policies oppressing Palestinians.”
The report notes that at a Washington DC Pride event in early June Medea Benjamin, cofounder of activist group Code Pink and a regular of anti-war protests, wore a pair of goofy, oversized sunglasses and a shirt in her signature pink with the phrase “you can’t pinkwash genocide.”
Other incidents CAM recorded showed the injection of anti-Israel sentiment into Pride events.
A musical group canceled a performance at an interfaith service in Brooklyn, claiming the hosting synagogue had a “public alignment with pro-Israel political positions.” In San Francisco before the yearly Trans March, a Palestine group said in its announcement of its participation, “Stop the war on Iran and the genocide of Palestine, stop the war on immigrants and attacks on trans people.”
CAM notes that this “queers for Palestine” sentiment is not new, pointing to a 2017 event wherein “organizers of the Chicago Dyke March infamously removed participants who were waving a Pride flag adorned with a Star of David on the grounds that the symbol ‘made people feel unsafe.’”
In February, the Israel Defense Forces shared with the New York Post documents it had recovered demonstrating that Hamas had tortured and executed members it suspected of homosexuality and other moral offenses in conflict with Islamist ideology.
Amit Benjamin, who is gay and a first sergeant major in the IDF, said during a visit to New York City for Pride month that “All the ‘queers for Gaza’ need to open their eyes. Hamas kills gays … kills lesbians … queers cannot exist in Gaza.”
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IAEA pulls inspectors from Iran as standoff over access drags on
IAEA chief Rafael Grossi at the agency’s headquarters in Vienna, Austria, June 23, 2025. REUTERS/Elisabeth Mandl/File Photo
The UN nuclear watchdog said on Friday it had pulled its last remaining inspectors from Iran as a standoff over their return to the country’s nuclear facilities bombed by the United States and Israel deepens.
Israel launched its first military strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites in a 12-day war with the Islamic Republic three weeks ago. The International Atomic Energy Agency’s inspectors have not been able to inspect Iran’s facilities since then, even though IAEA chief Rafael Grossi has said that is his top priority.
Iran’s parliament has now passed a law to suspend cooperation with the IAEA until the safety of its nuclear facilities can be guaranteed. While the IAEA says Iran has not yet formally informed it of any suspension, it is unclear when the agency’s inspectors will be able to return to Iran.
“An IAEA team of inspectors today safely departed from Iran to return to the Agency headquarters in Vienna, after staying in Tehran throughout the recent military conflict,” the IAEA said on X.
Diplomats said the number of IAEA inspectors in Iran was reduced to a handful after the June 13 start of the war. Some have also expressed concern about the inspectors’ safety since the end of the conflict, given fierce criticism of the agency by Iranian officials and Iranian media.
Iran has accused the agency of effectively paving the way for the bombings by issuing a damning report on May 31 that led to a resolution by the IAEA’s 35-nation Board of Governors declaring Iran in breach of its non-proliferation obligations.
IAEA chief Rafael Grossi has said he stands by the report. He has denied it provided diplomatic cover for military action.
Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said on Thursday Iran remained committed to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
“[Grossi] reiterated the crucial importance of the IAEA discussing with Iran modalities for resuming its indispensable monitoring and verification activities in Iran as soon as possible,” the IAEA said.
The US and Israeli military strikes either destroyed or badly damaged Iran’s three uranium enrichment sites. But it was less clear what has happened to much of Iran’s nine tonnes of enriched uranium, especially the more than 400 kg enriched to up to 60% purity, a short step from weapons grade.
That is enough, if enriched further, for nine nuclear weapons, according to an IAEA yardstick. Iran says its aims are entirely peaceful, but Western powers say there is no civil justification for enriching to such a high level, and the IAEA says no country has done so without developing the atom bomb.
As a party to the NPT, Iran must account for its enriched uranium, which normally is closely monitored by the IAEA, the body that enforces the NPT and verifies countries’ declarations. But the bombing of Iran’s facilities has now muddied the waters.
“We cannot afford that … the inspection regime is interrupted,” Grossi told a press conference in Vienna last week.
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