Open letter from Jewish Studies scholars, Jewish academics, and Jewish educators on Ethnic Studies.

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September 2023

To: Gavin Newsom, Governor of California

As Jewish Studies scholars, Jewish academics, and Jewish educators, we write to oppose attacks on ethnic studies and on its leading scholars by right-wing, pro-Israel/Zionist institutions who cynically portray themselves as “anti-hate” groups.

In a historic moment when ethnic studies is being implemented at the K-12 level in California — in response to decades of advocacy by communities of color whose historical experiences, worldviews, and epistemologies have been absent from or sidelined in traditional curricula — groups including StandWithUs, Amcha Initiative, the Simon Wiesenthal Center, and the Anti-Defamation League have sought to derail the entire scholarly field of ethnic studies, and either quash the statewide requirement or strip the curriculum of its true value and material. These groups have used the rhetorical bludgeon of charges of antisemitism and wielded racist and life-endangering accusations of terrorism to make any mention of Palestine, let alone Palestinian liberation struggles, impermissible in the K-12 ethnic studies curriculum. California’s K-12 ethnic studies requirement has served as a battleground in which they have attacked antiracist teaching; smeared, harassed, and racially disparaged ethnic studies scholars; sought to prevent the discussion of Arab American experiences and/or critiques of Israeli colonialism; and portrayed major Black, Indigenous, Chicanx, Asian American, and Arab American historical figures as “too political” to learn about. These ungrounded attacks have not only advocated for the exclusion and censorship of Arab American Studies, but also sought to excise key figures like Dolores Huerta and sitting Muslim members of Congress from discussion within ethnic studies.

We write as Jewish Studies scholars, Jewish academics, and Jewish educators because false charges of antisemitism are being used as a weapon in the right-wing crusade against Critical Race Theory, antiracist education, and the teaching of histories from below.

Attacks on ethnic studies are part of a larger conservative assault on education, despite disingenuous bids to frame them as efforts to stop antisemitism. Pro-Israel groups use the now-standard menu of conservative anti-education arguments to shut down classroom discussion that takes seriously Palestinian voices and overtly discusses Israeli colonization. They claim that studying systems of racialized power marginalizes white and wealthy students, focuses too much on racism, and elevates “anti-American” and “Soviet” ideas. The attacks in California add, as well, false charges of antisemitism against ethnic studies’ leading scholars and outrageously frame the field of ethnic studies as an arena of “hate.” They mislabel materials that reflect Palestinian lives, which necessarily include discussion of Israeli colonization, as “antisemitic.” They falsely charge that ethnic studies, created to remedy a Eurocentric curriculum, is “exclusionary” of Jewish students, despite the long-standing integration of Jewish voices and topics in K-12 European history, literature, and state-mandated Holocaust education. As Jewish scholars, we cannot sit back and watch the political weaponization of antisemitism to censor and defame ethnic studies and ethnic studies scholars.

StandWithUs, Amcha Initiative, the Simon Wiesenthal Center, and the Anti-Defamation League are widely criticized in Jewish communities for making bad-faith claims of defending Jews against racism while they in fact coopt antiracist language so it can be used to denounce critics of Israel. This hurts not only those communities which are being silenced, but also more broadly our shared fight against real concerns and instances of antisemitism.

StandWithUs, Amcha Initiative, the Simon Wiesenthal Center, and the Anti-Defamation League, alongside many of their partners, frequently target people of color, especially Palestinian scholars and organizers, Jews who oppose Zionism and the weaponization of antisemitism, and antiracist and anticolonial social justice movements. Each of these groups has campaigned for adoption of the “IHRA definition of antisemitism” which enshrines the spurious claim that criticism of Israel and Zionism is antisemitism. Each of these groups has attacked human rights, self-determination, and academic freedom, despite portraying themselves as civil rights organizations.

In the face of conservative, pro-Israel groups using false charges of antisemitism to attack antiracist education, scholars, and communities, government officials and university administrators have failed to defend ethnic studies leaders and educators.

Instead, they have acceded to the conservative demands to continue to gut and vilify ethnic studies and its practitioners. These conservative, pro-Israel groups have interfered in the faculty governance process around the approval of the University of California Area H ethnic studies course criteria. They have warned school districts against partnering with the University of California’s own ethnic studies scholars and antiracist organizations to develop curriculum. They have adopted a “guardrails” policy using the anti-Critical Race Theory playbook, in which vague restrictions on appropriate content and bias have become tools for threatening educators who teach about the Arab American experience, Palestine, or solidarity among colonized groups. The aim is no less than to censor and erase discussions on Arab Americans in our classrooms. Despite the objections of Jewish studies and ethnic studies scholars, we instead witnessed the insertion of ahistorical, inappropriate content that repeats Zionist advocacy messaging. Zionist groups have been given countless opportunities to publicly, and under the banners of state government, harass and defame educators of color, who have as a result been on the receiving end of racist messages and mail. As Jewish scholars, academics, and educators, we find it horrific that this is done in the name of “defending Jews.”

As Jewish Studies scholars, Jewish academics, and Jewish educators, we call on Governor Newsom, the California Department of Education (CDE), and UC administrators to refuse these transparent right-wing bids to coopt antiracism and anti-antisemitism and instead uplift and listen to actual scholars of ethnic studies. Additionally, and most immediately, we believe it is imperative for Governor Newsom and the CDE to release a formal statement to K-12 schools clarifying that teaching about Palestine, settler colonialism, and social movements is not banned by law nor officially censored by the state of California. The state must stand against the harassment of scholars and educators, by publicly opposing such attacks and engaging institutional legal counsel to protect employees.

In short, we call on you to stop lending credibility to these right-wing organizations who attack ethnic studies under pretexts of Jewish inclusion.

As Jewish Studies scholars, Jewish academics, and Jewish educators, we are incredibly concerned with the coopting of antisemitism to vilify and criminalize ethnic studies scholars and educators and call on you to support and defend antiracist education, including ethnic studies and its scholars, educators, and communities.

Signed,

[Affiliations for identification purposes only.]

Elsa Auerbach, Professor Emerita, University of Massachusetts Boston

Ariella Aïsha Azoulay, Professor of Modern Culture & Media and Comparative Literature, Brown University

Abigail Bakan, Professor, University of Toronto

Anita Barrows, PhD, Institute Professor, The Wright Institute; Jewish Voice for Peace

Benjamin Balthaser, Associate Professor of English, Indiana University

Dov Baum, PhD

Sara Bazan, MFT

Jessie Belfer, Social Studies Teacher

Dan Berger, Professor

Benay Blend, Scholar; Member, Samidoun: Palestine Political Prisoners Solidarity Network; Contributing writer, Palestine Chronicle

Daniel Boyarin, Taubmann Professor of Talmudic Culture emeritus, UC Berkeley, American Academy of Arts and Sciences

Solomon Brager, PhD, Independent scholar; Contributing Writer, Jewish Currents

Rachel Brown, Assistant Professor, Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Washington University in St. Louis

Rachel Ida Buff, Professor, History, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee; Milwaukee JVP

Paul Buhle, Retired Senior Lecturer, American Studies, Brown University

Judith Butler, Distinguished Profession in the Graduate School, UC Berkeley

Steve Cohan, Professor Emeritus

Sarah Combellick-Bidney, Associate Professor of Political Science, Augsburg University

Elyse Crystall, Professor, UNC-Chapel Hill

Mike Cushman, Research Fellow (rtd), London School of Economics

Joan Colin Dayan, Professor, Vanderbilt University

Hasia Diner, Professor Emerita, New York University

Linda Dittmar, Professor Emerita, University of Massachusetts Boston

Shimon Edelman, Professor of Psychology, Cornell University

Laura Einhorn, EdD Candidate / High School Teacher, Mills College at Northeastern University

Marjorie Feld, Professor of History

Keith Feldman, Associate Professor, UC Berkeley

Eric Fink, Associate Professor, Elon University School of Law

Marilyn Frankenstein, Professor (retired), University of Massachusetts

Cynthia Franklin , Professor of English, University of Hawai’i ; USACBI

Samuel Friedman, Research Professor, NYU Grossman School of Medicine

Robin Gabriel, Ph.D. Candidate, University of California Santa Cruz

Robert Gelbach, PhD, Professor of Political Science emeritus, Southern Connecticut State University

Emmaia Gelman, Social Sciences, Sarah Lawrence College; Director, Institute for the Critical Study of Zionism

Yulia Gilich, PhD, Institute for the Critical Study of Zionism

Terri Ginsberg, Director of Research and Academic Affairs, International Association of Middle Eastern Studies

Alyosha Goldstein, Professor, University of New Mexico

Dr. Steve Golin, Bloomfield College, NJ

Benjamin Grinstein, Distinguished Professor of Physics, UC San Diego

Rico Gutstein, Professor, Curriculum & Instruction, University of Illinois — Chicago

Martin Hart-Landsberg, Professor Emeritus, Lewis and Clark College

Jenny Heinz, Therapy supervisor

Jane Hirschmann, Retired university professor, Jews Say No!

Mara Horowitz, Assistant Professor, SUNY

Lucas Ives, Trainer

Natalia Jacovkis, Associate Professor, Latin American literature, Xavier University

Richard Kahn Core, Faculty in Education, Antioch University

Caren Kaplan, Professor Emerita, American Studies, UC Davis

Ariel Kates, Adult education director

Benjamin Kersten, PhD Student, Teacher, UCLA Department of Art History, Sholem Education Institute

Gabi Kirk, PhD candidate, UC Davis/Cal Poly Humboldt

Emily Klein, Professor, Saint Mary’s College

Gabrielle Kubi, PhD Candidate in Education & Psychology, University of Michigan

Zoe Kupetz, Social studies teacher

Antony Lerman, Mr, Senior Fellow, Bruno Kreisky Forum for International Dialogue, Vienna

Les Levidow, Senior Research Fellow, Open University

Zachary Levenson, Assistant Professor of Sociology, Florida International University

Pauline Lipman, Professor, Educational Policy Studies, University of Illinois at Chicago

Brooke Lober, Lecturer, UC Berkeley Department of Gender and Women’s Studies; Jewish Voice for Peace

Alex Lubin, Professor of African American Studies and History, Penn State University

Jodi Melamed, Professor

Jeffrey Melnick, Professor, university of Massachusetts Boston

Alan Meyers, Emeritus Professor of Pediatrics, Boston University School of Medicine; Jewish Voice for Peace Health Advisory Council

Chrissy Mo, Graduate student

Nicole Morse, Associate Professor of Media Studies; South Florida Jewish Voice for Peace

Nora Lester Murad, Educator and Author

Sarra Lev, Professor

Alice Mishkin, PhD Candidate, American Studies, University of Michigan

Judith Norman, Murchison Distinguished Professor of Philosophy, Trinity University

Sheryl Nestel, PhD, Affiliated Scholar, New College, University of Toronto

Donna Nevel, Educator

Rosalind Petchesky, Distinguished Professor Emerita of Political Science, Hunter College & the Graduate Center, City University of New York

Chloe Piazza, PhD Candidate, Near Eastern Studies, UC Berkeley

Harry Pomeranz, PA-C Emeritus

Steve Quester, Racial Justice Strategist and Coach; Member, Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, NYC

Peter Rachleff, Emeritus Professor of History, Macalester College, East Side Freedom Library

Kate Rayner Fried, Scholar

Mark Rifkin, Professor of English and WGSS, UNC Greensboro

Jillian Rogin, Associate Professor, University of Windsor

Lisa Rofel, Professor Emerita and Research Professor; Jewish Voice for Peace

Eleanor Roffman, Professor emerita

Penny Rosenwasser, PhD, City College of San Francisco; Kehilla Community Synagogue

Alice Rothchild, MD, author, filmmaker, contributing writer to Mondoweiss, Jewish Voice for Peace, We Are Not Numbers

Leslie Salzinger, Associate Professor, Gender and Women’s Studies, UC Berkeley

Michal Sapir, PhD, writer and independent scholar

Abby Saul, Early childhood educator

Amy Schrager Lang, Professor Emerita, Syracuse University

Rebecca Schreiber, Professor, University of New Mexico

Sarah Schulman, Professor

Zach Schwartz-Weinstein, PhD

Daniel Segal, Jean M Pitzer Professor Emeritus of Anthropology and History, Pitzer College of the Claremont Colleges

Victor Silverman, Emeritus Professor of History, Pomona College

Jeffrey Skoller, Prof Emeritus, Film & Media, UC Berkeley

David Slavin, PhD

Sophia Sobko, PhD, Educator and independent scholar, Jewish Voice for Peace

Jody Sokolower, Co-coordinator, Teach Palestine Project, Middle East Children’s Alliance

Abba Solomon, Researcher, Author of “The Miasma of Unity: Jews and Israel”

Nicole Solomon, Adjunct Professor, Media Instructor, School of Visual Arts, BRIC

Rebecca Subar, Instructor, Conflict Studies

Barry Trachtenberg, Rubin Presidential Chair of Jewish History, Wake Forest University

Tran Tran, Elementary Educator

Seth Uzman, PhD student, University of Houston

David Waldstreicher, Distinguished Professor, Graduate Center, City University of New York

Jeff Warner, Former curator of lunar samples at NASA Johnson Spacecraft Center; LA Jews for Peace

Valerie Wayne, Professor Emerita of English, University of Hawaii at Manoa

Lesley Williams, Librarian and curriculum developer; Advisory board member, Institute for the Critical Study of Zionism

Gabriel Winer, Professor

Theresa A. Yugar, Educator California State University, Los Angeles

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CC: Tony Thurmond, California State Superintendent of Public Instruction

University of California Regents

Michael V. Drake, President of the University of California

Lori G. Kletzer, Executive Vice Chancellor of University of California, Santa Cruz

Cindy Larive, Chancellor of University of California, Santa Cruz

California Jewish Legislative Caucus

California Latino Legislative Caucus

California Legislative Women’s Caucus

California Legislative Black Caucus

Asian American & Pacific Islander Legislative Caucus