‘Teach opposing views on Holocaust’

JEWS in the Texas school district where an administrator told teachers that a new state law meant they should include “opposing” views of the Holocaust in their classrooms are speaking out against her statement and the law that prompted it.

“The facts are that there are not two sides to the Holocaust,” Jake Berman, an alumni of the district said at a school board meeting, reported on NBC.

“The Nazis systematically killed millions of people.”

He added, “There are not two sides to slavery. White Europeans enslaved black Africans in this country until June 19, 1865, a moment we’re barely 150 years removed from. There are not two sides to Jim Crow. There are not two sides to racism and that same oppression continues today.”

Last month, the administrator was recorded telling teachers in the Carroll Independent School District that, in order to comply with a law requiring teaching “diverse and contending perspectives” on controversial issues, they would have to offer “opposing” and “other perspectives” on the Holocaust.

The administrator signalled that she was uncomfortable while she gave that guidance, and teachers at the meeting protested.

The law in question was motivated by growing Republican opposition to critical race theory, a concept in legal studies that says racism is baked into the country’s laws and institutions.

Opponents of the theory – including some Jewish activists – claim it is being taught broadly in schools with no room for opposing perspectives.

The superintendent of the school district has apologised for the administrator’s remarks, saying that “the comments made were in no way to convey that the Holocaust was anything less than a terrible event in history. Additionally, we recognise there are not two sides of the Holocaust.”

He added that the state law “does not require an opposing viewpoint on historical facts”.

Rob Forst, a parent in the district who identified himself at the school board meeting as a descendant of Holocaust survivors, called the administrator’s comments “completely unacceptable,” according to NBC News.

Berman said, “I was subject to a rash of bullying, almost all of which was antisemitic in nature. I received everything from jokes about my nose to gas chambers, all while studying for my bar mitzvah from a Holocaust survivor.

“The message you and the state are sending to your teachers opens the door for more of this type of behaviour in your students.

“If you don’t think that these same attacks are happening in your schools today with regard to someone’s skin colour, gender or religion, you are sorely mistaken.”