https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/271717/newtons-anti-semitism-problem-ilya-feoktistov
Ilya Feoktistov is Executive Director of Americans for Peace and Tolerance.
Newton, Massachusetts, a large Boston suburb, has an anti-Semitism problem in its public schools. Some Newton high school teachers, trained by Saudi and Qatari-funded curriculum mills, teach about the history of the Middle East and the Arab-Israeli conflict in ways that the U.S. Department of Education Office of Civil Rights defines as anti-Semitic.
Influenced by anti-Semitic classroom portrayals of the Jewish state, some Newton students have bullied their Jewish classmates with Nazi comparisons; and swastikas have appeared at a couple of schools.
In response to the situation, local activists have been engaged in grassroots campaigns to remove the anti-Semitic elements in the Middle East curriculum. The campaign, initiated by APT, strongly supported by CAMERA, and recently joined by the group Education Without Indoctrination (EWI), has included an in-depth investigation of the curriculum by APT, a short APT documentary about the events, a scholarly report by CAMERA analyzing curricular materials, numerous published articles, as well as correspondence with the school committee, the school superintendent, and Newton’s mayor. More recently EWI initiated a lawsuit against the Newton School Committee over an illegal lack of transparency. National news stories have emerged about biased teaching in Newton schools.
Now, after seven years of grassroots campaigns, Boston’s establishment Jewish leaders, who were for a long time reluctant to address the problem, have finally acknowledged it. On October 9, at a public meeting hosted by the Israeli-American Congress (IAC), the Jewish Community Relations Council, the New England branch of the ADL, and the Committee on Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA), all discussed the biased Middle East curriculum at Newton schools. All the groups, including the IAC, agreed that the curriculum and the teachers who use it are promoting anti-Israel lies to Newton students. The event further augmented the mounting negative publicity and pressure on the schools and teachers to act. Instead of addressing the problem, the very next day the educational establishment in the city struck back.