OPINION:
The standard response to antisemitic incidents in K-12 schools (Holocaust education and antisemitism training) is failing, and a new report from my organization, the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis, demonstrates why.
The effects of a school system grounded in an oppressor-oppressed binary are often felt first by Jewish students, falsely labeled as “White colonizers.” Jewish students in the School District of Philadelphia, on which our study focuses, report being taunted with Nazi salutes, swastika graffiti and pressure to say, “Free Palestine.”
The climate is shaped by many teachers who regularly use their classrooms to demonize Israel.
This isn’t just a Jewish concern; it should be a clarion call to all Americans. Districts nationwide teach that Western values are irredeemably racist and must be dismantled.
Under Philadelphia’s thematic approach, chronological history is sacrificed. Without sequence, students cannot grasp causation, and their understanding of history is weakened.
Nowhere is this more apparent than in the school district’s treatment of controversial subjects. For example, Shariah is presented as promoting “equitable financial transactions,” while its restrictions on women and religious minorities go unmentioned. Jihad is framed as “just-war theory.” Terrorism is massaged to frame the U.S. and Israel as terrorist states.
Under the influence of teachers unions, advocacy organizations such as the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations and activist curriculum groups such as the Zinn Education Project, the city that birthed the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution is teaching children to view our nation as a source of oppression.
Philadelphia isn’t an isolated case. Districts across the country have made similar changes.
Communities must look beyond reactive training to tackle antisemitism and examine the ideological foundations shaping classrooms. Curriculum is never neutral; it forms citizens, not just test takers. When history is reduced to a grievance narrative, it distorts the past and undermines the civic principles necessary for a pluralistic democracy.
REBECCA SCHGALLIS
Director, K-12 Program, Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting & Analysis
Boston, Massachusetts
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