COMMUNITY VIEWS

Preaching Hatred Must Stop

lence in our culture, in TV, films,
ongratulations on your stand
music and video games, is undoubted-
against Arab Palestinian text-
ly
a contributing factor in the kind of
books that preach hatred
violent
acts perpetrated by American
and advocate violence
kids
on
their peers, teachers and par-
against Jews and Israelis.
ents
in
the
latest killings in our public
Mothers Against Teaching Chil-
schools.
How
much more detrimental,
dren to Kill and Hate (MATCKH)
then, would be a
has been dedicated
daily diet of
to exposing this
state-sponsored
vile rhetoric since
indoctrination to
April 1998, when
hatred and vio-
we first saw a
lence, propagated
Sesame Street-styled
by role models
weekly TV pro-
— teachers — in
gram in which chil-
a public school
dren as young as 5
setting, for Arab
were singing the
Palestinian chil-
glory of jihad and
dren?
MOLLY RESNICK
the virtue of
"The kids in
AND JANET ARONOFF
becoming "a suicide
Littleton were
Special to the Jewish News
warrior in battle
desensitized by a
dress at the gates of
violent pop cul-
Jerusalem.
ture. They had the
Is it really so far-
availability of guns and the willingness
fetched to connect the tragedy of Lit-
to die for a moment of ecstasy. The Arab
tleton, Colo., to the far greater poten-
Palestinian children are subject to all
tial tragedy that could explode from
these elements plus one more extra
the classrooms of Arab Palestinian
potent ingredient — "a noble cause,"
schools? Please follow our logic:
jihad — an ideology to die for." This is
Experts claim that subliminal vio-
how an expert on violence, forensic psy-
chiatrist Professor Emanuel Tanay from
Wayne State University, described the
Molly Resnick and Janet Aronoff are
connection of the Arab Palestinian edu-
co-founders of West Bloomfield-based
cational system to the recent violence in
Mothers Against Teaching Children to
our schools.
Kill and Hate.

C

"Why should we be surprised that
propaganda works?" he asks. "In our
country, we spend millions of dollars
on it, only we call it advertising.
"Hatemongering toward Jews has
existed for centuries and the inevitable
result was the Holocaust. This kind of
indoctrination (in Arab Palestinian
schools) is no different and just as
dangerous. "
As to the use of "valuable class
time" to have children write letters to
their Arab Palestinian counterparts,
here is how we see it:
Jewish children have played an
activist role since our inception as a
Jewish people. The Midrash describes
the Almighty at Mount Sinai asking,
"Who will be the guarantors of My
holy Torah?" He rejects the patriarchs;
neither the matriarchs nor the scholars
will do. It is only when the children
are offered as guarantors that G-d is
satisfied.
When the evil Haman plotted our
destruction again, it is to the children
that Queen Esther's relative,
Mordechai, first turned. Twenty-two-
thousand of them gathered to pray
and fast for the Jewish people, eliciting
a most poignant verse in Psalms:
"Out of the mouth of babes and
sucklings
You have established strength .. .
to silence foe and avenger."
Spending school time to involve chil-

dren in combating evil not only is not
wasteful, but is a moral obligation and c /
an educational imperative. Just recently,
Congress commended a school teacher
in Colorado for urging her students to
collect their lunch money to buy slaves
their freedom in the Sudan. Why is our
"Kids for Peace" letter-writing campaign
any less idealistic or noble?
In our presentation, Jewish children
are exposed to the abuse and exploita-
tion of these Arab Palestinian chil-
dren. They are then encouraged to
address letters to them demanding
that they ask that their textbooks be
recycled and transformed from books
of hatred and violence to books advo-
cating respect and co-existence. Who
better to touch a child than another
child?
MATCKH has already visited
schools in Michigan, Pennsylvania and
New Jersey. We have collected more
than 300 letters — some have already
been assembled into "Quilts of Peace."
We plan to visit camps around the
country in the summer and more
schools in the fall. Our final destina-
tion is the Capitol and our legislators.
We will not stop till the Arab Palestin-
ian curriculum has been changed,
until we convince the world that there
can be no peace or security anywhere
unless the Arab Palestinians stop the
systematic teaching of their children
to kill and hate Jews and Israelis. 17

Moreover, there has been criticism
by many right-wing leaders of the
"leftist" nature of the most popular
children's books and the "leftist" incli-
nations of the media, where Israelis are
urged repeatedly to make any sacrifice
possible for peace.
There are a number of official gov-
ernment-sponsored programs to help
Israeli and Arab children mingle in
summer camps, to get to know each
other and remove the barriers of many
years of enmity.
Please watch the Israeli Sesame
Street program with Itzhak Perlman
as an example of how Israel is edu-
cating its children. In the book Chil-
dren's Letters to God, the most com-
mon theme was the wish for peace
between Israel and its Arab neigh-
bors.

Stop Accepting
Enemy Lies

LETTERS

to undo injustice and muzzle hate-
mongering, even if the chances of ever
making a real difference are slim? How
many social moral crusades were led
by those who were told they could
never change society?
We at Akiva are proud that our stu-
dents focused their color-war activities
on trying to make our world a better
place to live.
To us, that is an extremely impor-
tant educational message.
Rabbi Karmi Gross
principal,
Akiva Hebrew Day School
Lathrup Village

Israel Works
Against Hatred

I am writing regarding your editori-
al, "Pipe Dream Or Pipe

6/11
1999

34 Detroit lawith

NPWC

Bomb?" on June 4.
You mentioned the need to change
the Arab textbooks and stop their hate
propaganda; then, in another para-
graph you said, For its part, Israel
must scrutinize its own textbooks for
prejudice to show the world it prac-
tices what it preaches."
As an Israeli-born citizen, who
was educated in Israeli schools and
universities and as an educator for
more than 30 years, I am closely
familiar with Israeli textbooks and
Israeli children's literature. And I can
assure you that Israel is practicing
what it preaches.
Israeli textbooks have never advo-
cated hatred and, since the Oslo
accords, Israeli textbooks, literature,
children's programs on TV have all
consistently been advocating peace
and understanding between the two
nations and emphasizing the absurdity
and futility of war.

Nira Lev
Southfield

This week's Torah portion tells of
Moses' sending spies to check out the
land of Israel. They return and tell
him, "The land is flowing with milk
and honey," and then proceed to say
how terrible the land is and that Jews
would never be able to conquer it. If
their whole purpose was to vilify the
land, why did they begin with praise?
Our rabbis comment that when a lie is
presented with a bit of truth at the
beginning, it will be much more readi-_ /
ly accepted.
The Jewish News editorials last week
("Pipe Dream Or Pipe Bomb?"and
"The Wrong Lesson") began with a
call to the Palestinian Authority to
remove the vicious hatred toward
Israel and Jews from its children's
LETTERS ON PAGE 36