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ical race theory aims to do just
that — put people into neat
boxes. Because CRT revolves
around race and racial cate-
gories, by definition it must
downplay the individual. We
become defined by our skin
color, a radical departure from
Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous
dictum that we ought to be
judged by “the content of our
character and not the color of
our skin.”
This stereotyping is especially
problematic for groups that
have a long history of being put
in stereotypical boxes that have
led to their persecution, such as
Jews. Throughout the centuries,
Jew-haters have used any con-
venient box to attack Jews —
communist, capitalist, powerful,
weak, religious, secular, insular,
universal and so on.
Today, one of the conse-
quences of CRT is that Jews
are put in the “ultimate white
privilege” box, reinforced by an
association with the powerful
“white” State of Israel, a coun-
try that attracts an inordinate
amount of antisemitic hostility,
particularly when it defends
itself.
As a result, Jews are facing a
form of identity erasure, made
worse by CRT’s erasure of indi-
vidual choice.
The Jewish tradition, while
valuing communal connections,
values individual agency above
all. We make choices as individ-
uals, whether to serve God or
our fellow humans.
We sin as individuals, seek
forgiveness as individuals and
forgive as individuals. The
major figures of the Bible, from
Moses to King David, all had
their individual flaws. The sages
of the Talmud were in constant
debate.
The Jewish message is that
none of us have static identities
based on qualities or charac-
teristics that can never change.
Our message is always one of
action and hope — each one of
us is a work in progress, even
kings and great leaders.
Critical race theory nullifies
this powerful idea — that we
are individuals with the power
to make a difference, both in
the world and in our lives.
ACKNOWLEDGING
PROGRESS
We can and must teach in
our schools the shameful and
complicated racial history of
the United States and fight its
lingering effects, but without
ignoring the long arc of prog-
ress or the ability of individuals
to think critically and strive
for improvement. Even when
we are part of groups — what
is commonly known today as
“identity politics” — it is what
we bring to these groups as
individuals that nourishes our
lives and helps the groups suc-
ceed.
We have an obligation to
teach our kids the universal
truth that the sanctity of our
individuality is the real source
of human dignity. We might call
that Critical Human Theory.
David Suissa is editor-in-chief and pub-
lisher of Tribe Media Corp, and the Los
Angeles-based Jewish Journal news-
paper. He can be reached at davids@
jewishjournal.com. This article was first
published by the Jewish Journal.
origin of these ideas among
legal scholars).
The impact of systemic
racism may be measured, for
example, in things as diverse
as the wealth gap between
white and Black Americans
with similar educations and
the declining tree cover in
neighborhoods with majority
African American populations.
Critical Race theorists look
to the history of government
policies from the 1930s like
redlining, under which the
Federal Housing Authority
refused to underwrite
mortgages in African American
neighborhoods with the explicit
goal of separating “incompatible
racial groups.” Blacks were, like
Jews, forbidden to buy homes
in newly developed suburbs,
while white Americans received
help from the government to
purchase homes in these leafy
neighborhoods and to build
generational wealth.
The CRT framework, decades
old, gained popularity (or
notoriety, depending on whom
you ask) after the summer 2020
wave of protests that followed
the murder of George Floyd.
MEMORY LAWS
The bans on teaching with a
Critical Race Theory framework
aren’t really against history per
se, which is in the past and
therefore stubbornly resists
regulation. Rather, these decrees
fall more precisely within the
category of what are called
“memory laws.” Historian
Timothy Snyder described
these laws as “government
actions designed to guide public
interpretation of the past … by
asserting a mandatory view of
historical events, by forbidding
the discussion of historical
facts or interpretations or by
providing vague guidelines that
lead to self-censorship.”
Compared to Americans,
Europeans have less of an
allergy to limitations on free
speech, and they generally
accepted these laws when
they were designed to protect
victims of historical trauma, for
example, by banning noxious
phenomena such as Holocaust
denial.
Putin, however, pioneered
a new approach to memory
laws: Rather than protecting
the weak, they also can be
weaponized to strengthen
the powerful. In the context
of Russian history, the
counterpart to American
slavery is the Holodomor,
a terrible famine that killed
millions of Ukrainians from
1932-1933. Beginning in
2008, Russia’s Duma assembly
passed legislation that forbade
the discussion of Russian
government policies that
contributed to the genocidal
nature of the famine.
This is the intellectual
home of the CRT bans. They
share educational space with
Poland’s ridiculous, offensive
and dangerous 2018 law that
criminalizes the suggestion that
Poland bears any responsibility
for the crimes committed by
the Germans during World
War II. The object of Poland’s
memory law is not to prevent
the resurgence of extremist
antisemitism; it is to prevent
Poles from confronting the
complex legacy of collaboration
with the Nazi occupation.
U.S. BANS ON CRT
This brings us to the American
versions of the memory laws.
Tennessee, for example, recently
passed SB 623, which lists
14 directives all tied to state
funding. The requirements
oscillate between the painfully
obvious and the absurdly
comic. On the one hand,
Tennessee “does not prohibit
… the impartial discussion
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