Quick Take
Rabbi Debbie Israel was stunned when she attended the recent Pajaro Valley Unified School District meeting, where trustees voted to continue a controversial ethnic studies contract with Community Responsive Education. She says she found “outright antisemitism in the name of no antisemitism.” She says trustees used conventional antisemitic tropes and showed little grace, openness or leadership skills in their dealings with concerned members of the Jewish community.
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The Pajaro Valley Unified School District, after many grueling long months, voted to continue its contract with Community Responsive Education (CRE) as the ethnic studies curriculum for our students.
I am a rabbi serving the Jewish community of Santa Cruz County and a Watsonville resident for 16 years. I teach at the time of the scheduled board meetings, so I have been unable to attend and express my concerns about the CRE contract in person. My class was not in session during the most recent meeting as it was Passover, and I was able to witness firsthand what other Jewish community leaders have been enduring: outright antisemitism proclaimed in the name of “no antisemitism.”
One of the board trustees took great glee in gloating that those who opposed this contract “lost” in our resistance to the motion. Further, the trustee declared that the Jews who opposed CRE cared only about ourselves – that other pressing issues like immigration and the attacks on immigrants were of no concern to us.
I was speechless.
As if this trustee knows me, or the other members of the Jewish community who opposed CRE. As if this trustee knows I have protested at Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) offices in Morgan Hill and have gone to the border in El Paso, Texas, with the Poor People’s Campaign to stand up for immigrant rights, that I expanded and directed an award-winning middle school prejudice awareness curriculum used in school districts across the United States and was a member of the Watsonville Policing and Social Equity ad-hoc committee. My values are rooted in my Jewish religion that teaches me to care for the stranger, the poor, to love my neighbor as myself.
Even as some board trustees were insisting there is no antisemitism in the curriculum, they used conventional antisemitic tropes to “prove” their points. They spoke of Jewish power and Jewish wealth, which had no relevance to the points they were trying to make that no antisemitism is present in the curriculum. By using this language, they demonstrated that they don’t know what antisemitism is.
I am not alone in feeling this way – the trustees’ comments have garnered statewide attention and criticism from the Anti-Defamation League.
As a mature adult, I accept when my point of view is not the majority. But to me, democracy is about the winning side taking into account the needs of the minority. Instead of pointing at the Jews in attendance and proclaiming that we are losers, if I were a trustee this is what I would have said:
“We heard your concerns. While we believe our ethnic studies program has no antisemitic agenda, we hear that you don’t agree and have grave apprehensions. As we go forward, we will be looking for any expressions of antisemitism in the agenda. We will consult with local rabbis and leaders of the Jewish community and other experts. We will do everything in our power to make sure that every student participating in this curriculum feels welcome and safe. Now we hope we can all come together as a community and rebuild a truly unified school district.”
That is how leaders react, not by gloating about their win but by offering a hand in friendship and reconciliation.
Rabbi Debbie Israel is a community rabbi in Santa Cruz County. She is rabbi emerita of Congregation Emeth, serving the Jewish communities of Morgan Hill, Gilroy, Hollister and South San Jose. She is a founder of the Interfaith Clergy Alliance and the Interfaith Community of South County (Morgan Hill and Gilroy), where she continues to serve as the clergy liaison and advisor to the lay group. Prior to entering rabbinical school, she was editor and co-publisher of Noah’s Ark, a Newspaper for Jewish Children, an international, award-winning publication with over a million readers.