FEBRUARY 18 • 2021 | 23

JOSEFIN DOLSTEN/
TIMES OF ISRAEL

Bari Weiss

also included a song lyric that 
appeared to accuse the Jews 
of manipulating the press, a 
long-standing antisemitic ste-
reotype.
“We cannot support a 
curriculum that erases the 
American Jewish experience, 
fails to discuss antisemitism, 
reinforces negative stereo-
types about Jews, singles out 
Israel for criticism, and would 
institutionalize the teaching 
of antisemitic stereotypes in 
our public schools,” read a July 
2019 letter from a coalition of 
California Jewish state law-
makers.
Jewish organizations were 
not the only ones to object to 
exclusions in the first draft. 
A letter signed by a coalition 
of organizations representing 
Middle Eastern immigrant 
communities, spearheaded by 
JIMENA, protested what they 
saw as a lack of representation 
in the curriculum.

A REVISED VERSION
Following the backlash to the 
first draft, the state’s Education 
Department said it recognized 
changes were needed.
The following year, Gov. 
Gavin Newsom vetoed a bill 
that would have made ethnic 
studies a high school gradu-
ation requirement, citing the 
controversies over the draft as a 
reason.
A number of Jewish groups 
campaigned for the inclusion of 
the Jewish experience in later 
drafts. The latest curriculum 
does include two lessons on 
American Jews, including one 
on the Mizrahi experience. 
JIMENA drafted the lesson plan 
on Mizrahi Jews last year.
Another lesson plan focus-
es on the complex nature of 
American Jewish identity, 
including the ways in which 
some Jews experience “condi-
tional whiteness and privilege.
” 
Both lesson plans discuss 
antisemitism — including defi-

nitions of antisemitism from the 
Anti-Defamation League as well 
as the International Holocaust 
Remembrance Alliance.
The sections echoing 
anti-Jewish stereotypes and dis-
cussing the movement to boy-
cott Israel have been removed. 
So have references to the Nakba. 
Jewish groups that had cam-
paigned for the changes said 
they were pleased with the latest 
draft.

OBJECTIONS PERSIST
Some Jewish commentators 
and activists still aren’t happy. 
Even with the changes, they 
say, the curriculum advances a 
narrow ideology despite aiming 
to increase tolerance and inclu-
sion.
Critics, including the former 
New York Times 
editor and writer 
Bari Weiss, have 
called for the phi-
losophy underpin-
ning it to be reject-
ed. Others agree.
“The Ethnic 
Studies Model curriculum pro-
posed for K-12 California pub-
lic schools is divisive, encourag-
es victimization and promotes a 
narrow political ideology,
” reads 
the website of the Alliance for 
Constructive Ethnic Studies, a 
group mobilizing opposition 
to the curriculum that was 
co-founded by Elina Kaplan, 
a Jewish activist who emi-
grated from the former Soviet 
Union and is a self-identified 
Democrat.

“The Ethnic Model Studies 
Curriculum should be revised 
to provide a balanced range of 
perspectives, remove the polit-
ical agenda, and inspire mutual 
respect and dignity.
”
In a January tweet criticizing 
the curriculum, Weiss wrote, 
“There is no more important 
story in the Jewish world this 
month.
”
Corresponding with the 
Jewish Telegraphic Agency this 
week, Weiss said her issue with 
the curriculum is its embrace of 
critical race theory (CRT).
“There are some people who 
think CRT can be made kosher,
” 
Weiss told JTA. “It cannot. It 
is, at its root, hostile to Jews, to 
liberalism and to American val-
ues. And it is the framework for 
every single draft that has been 
proposed.
”
Opponents of critical race 
theory have generally come 
from the right, and last year 
President Donald Trump 
instructed federal agencies 
not to fund any program that 
employs critical race theory or 
anything that “suggests either 
(1) that the United States is an 
inherently racist or evil country 
or (2) that any race or ethnicity 
is inherently racist or evil.
”
In the case of the ethnic 
studies curriculum, some of 
its opponents are not Trump 
supporters. Kaplan is a 
Democrat and Weiss has been 
vocally critical of Trump. The 
members of the California 
Legislative Jewish Caucus, who 
objected to the initial draft and 

praised the later ones, are all 
Democrats.

REVISIONS ‘INSUFFICIENT’
The curriculum has gained 
renewed attention of late, 
including from liberal activists 
like actor Josh Malina, due 
to a critical article by Emily 
Benedek in Tablet magazine, 
which has published a number 
of articles in recent years about 
the perceived dangers of “woke” 
thinking. The article features 
the objections raised to the 
first draft and notes that school 
boards have been lobbied to 
teach the original draft rather 
than the revised one.
Benedek takes aim at critical 
race theory, which she called 
“dangerous” and “fundamental” 
to the curriculum. She wrote 
that the revisions celebrated by 
Jewish groups are insufficient.
“The exclusion of Jews from 
the original ESMC, which 
was what the various organi-
zations spent their energies 
on, was offensive,
” she wrote. 
“But focusing on that is akin to 
painting a house that is rotted 
from the foundation.
”
An article about the curric-
ulum in the left-wing Jewish 
Currents magazine also fea-
tured objections to the revised 
version, but for the opposite 
reason. The piece, by Gabi Kirk, 
reports on the resignation of 
the original draft’s authors, who 
contended in an open letter that 
the principles of ethnic studies 
have been “compromised due to 
political and media pressure.
”
In the article, Kirk wrote that 
the latest draft of the curricu-
lum puts forward “a version of 
ethnic studies unrecognizable to 
scholars and community orga-
nizers engaged in the field — 
and heavily influenced by those 
who oppose the discipline’s very 
existence.
”
The Education Department 
is required to make a final 
decision on the curriculum by 
March 31. 

California Gov. Gavin Newsom

AGUSTIN PAULLIER/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES/JTA