Opinion | The Anti-Israel Craze Hits High School

To describe Zionism as racism, to deny Israel’s most basic right to exist, is anti-Semitic in effect, if not in intent. Why is Israel the only country in the world whose right to exist is not just questioned but actively campaigned against? Israel’s enemies protest that they are simply anti-Zionist, not anti-Semitic, yet their view of justice requires eliminating the one and only Jewish state.

And they attack it with such venom. Their hatred of Israel is a primal loathing.

The events at Fieldston have broad importance, and are reflective of a much bigger problem. Anti-Israel activism has spread beyond the college campus and into the elementary and high school classroom. In Newton, Mass., a high school taught that Israel was “murdering and torturing Palestinian women.” In 2016, a Palestinian activist visiting an elementary school classroom in Ithaca, N.Y., inveighed against Israel and called on students to “be the freedom fighter” for the Palestinians.

A hateful obsession with Israel too often descends into hatred of Jews, even if it doesn’t start there. Hateful words lead to hateful deeds. This environment produces, teaches, accelerates and normalizes anti-Semitism. Anti-Israel activity on some college campuses has led to verbal and even physical assaults on Jewish students. And we must be honest with ourselves. It is happening in our space — in the heart of intellectual liberalism.

Jewish parents should be especially worried. When teachers and professors turn the classroom into an arena for anti-Israel animosity, students become unwitting pawns instead of safeguarded learners. They should feel they can ask questions without fear of scorn, explore their own ideas and draw their own conclusions. Academic malpractice is unfolding with too little pushback from parents and community leaders.

Schools need to respond — and so do the communities they serve — so that our children are not taught hateful views, but are instead imbued with the values of balanced inquiry, tolerance and the ability to take pride in who they are and where they came from. It is our diversity that strengthens society.

Joshua Davidson is senior rabbi at Temple Emanu-El. Ammiel Hirsch is senior rabbi at Stephen Wise Free Synagogue.

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