Hot off the Presses: Full Webinar Recording of "Drop the ADL from Schools Campaign"
Brought to you by Teaching While Muslim, Nora Lester Murad, and Emmaia Gelman of the Institute for Critical Zionism Studies - a webinar filled with distortions, antisemitic tropes and illiberalism
Watch the full webinar above for antisemitic tropes, bad faith mischaracterisations, obfuscations, and an adherence to an illiberal oppressor/oppressed worldview that they want to impose on K-12 education
“If we allow the ADL [and similar organisations] to control what happens in schools, we will be raising another generation of genociders” - Nora Lester Murad
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“Antisemitism is nuanced” - Nora Lester Murad
The “Drop the ADL from Schools Campaign” Officially kicks off in October -but we got an early taster of the campaign with this “Information Session” Webinar. The Webinar was run by:
Emmaia Gelman, director of the Institute for Critical Zionist Studies - Gelman also happens to be a trustee of the Sparkplug Foundation which funds Jewish Voice for Peace and National Students for Justice in Palestine along with other far-left, anti-Israel groups.
Nora Lester Murad - previously covered by K-12 Extremism Tracker thanks to her Toolkit to Defend Against False Accusations of Antisemitism and the extreme lesson plans linked to her book “Ida In the Middle”
How children's books are used to spread anti-Israel and illiberal ideology and turn your kids into activists: Ida in the Middle - be aware of the content if this is in your child's school
The lesson plans for this children’s book include incorrect history, demonisation and delegitimisation of Israel and Zionism, teaching children about violent resistance and why violent protest is used. In short - it is dangerous anti-Israel propaganda. The resources and lesson guides were prepared by extremist activists, many of whom justified October 7…
Farida from TeachingWhileMuslim - TeachingWhileMuslim previously covered by K-12 Extremism Tracker
Welcome to K12 extremism tracker
Teaching While Muslim and NY Educators for Palestine/ Teaching While Muslim and the Fellowship of Reconciliation
“The ADL is as bad as the proud boys” - Nora Lester Murad
“Drop the ADL From Schools” Campaign:
https://droptheadl.org/the-adl-is-not-an-ally/
https://docs.google.com/document/u/1/d/18-2uvHV89O1m0eS0Go5hbmDeWxNsT7wqsLRq96VbutA/pub
The campaign aims to get ADL supported curricula, training and collaboration of out K-12 schools because (they claim):
The ADL doesn’t care about Jews but only supports Israel.
The ADL supports the military and police.
The ADL invalidates forms of anti-racism that challenge the state and that challenge systems of power and oppression.
The curriculum developed by the ADL is oppressive.
The ADL is involved in suppressing the Jewish left (later in the Webinar however, Project Shema, a progressive Jewish group, comes under fire for using the language of social justice but still being pro-Israel and therefore “anti-Palestinian”)
The ADL has endorsed and supported white nationalists and antisemites while suppressing Progressive and POC voices.
The ADL is Islamophobic
The ADL opposes all the tenets of justice and democracy, and free speech that it claims to support
The ADL holds all forms of racism to be equally bad - and doesn’t take into account power and privilege
The ADL’s hate crime data has been ‘taken out of context’ - journalists, “especially Jewish news outlets”, run with that.
The ADL is problematic for K-12 because (they claim):
It defines the problem of antisemitism in a way that pits Jews against Palestinians and all supporters of Palestinian human rights. “as if uplifting Palestinian humanity is harmful to Jews in and of itself”
It pushes its policy recommendations at local, state and national level
It claims to protect Jewish students but it actually bullies students and teachers through slander and lawfare
Their anti-bias/anti-hate approach doesn’t engage with systems of power
The ADL is “telling schools they shouldn’t talk about Palestine” (or is it simply that teachers shouldn’t give a one-sided, ahistorical account of the conflict? if talking about Palestine means repeating lies, then no, teachers shouldn’t do that)
This article appears in “Rethinking Schools” (a far-left publication, which bills itself as the premier social justice magazine for educators) co-written by Murad and anonymous teachers…
https://rethinkingschools.org/articles/educators-beware-the-anti-defamation-league-is-not-the-social-justice-partner-it-claims-to-be/
“The ADL is a poisoned pill” - Emmaia Gelman
“The ADL works in an ecosystem of anti-Palestinian interest groups…we need to pay attention when any of these or any other anti-Palestinian organisations show up in the schools. We have to be asking what are they doing here?…Their mission and their impact is to reinforce unconditional support for Israel across schools in the United States - not to protect Jews.”
The anti- Palestinian interest groups in question….
Perhaps they need to read what the IHRA definition actually says because they seem to have misunderstood (I’m sure by accident…)
“False advertising…A sneaky way of making sure their viewpoints..their pro-Israeli…that is their main goal to indoctrinate all of our students, our teachers and our spaces to be pro-Israeli is evident in their resources..and their anti-Muslim discrimination”
“Nefarious…that’s a good one” - “that’s a nice one”
