The state Special Commission on Combatting Antisemitism hears testimony from Rabbi Amy Wallk of Temple Beth El at a hearing on March 11.
Reminder Publishing photo by Sarah Heinonen
LONGMEADOW — In the auditorium of the Springfield Jewish Community Center in Longmeadow, state legislators, invited speakers and members of the local Jewish community gathered for a hearing by the state’s Special Commission on Combating Antisemitism.
It was the commission’s fifth meeting, and the first to be conducted outside the State House. The commission was established in 2024 to examine the rise of antisemitic hate speech and incidents throughout the commonwealth and make recommendations of how that trend and the issues that have given rise to it can be addressed.
In December 2024, the Executive Office of Public Safety and Security’s released an annual report finding that 2023 saw a 70% increase in anti-Jewish hate crimes as compared to the previous year, which had been an eight-year high for the state.
While the work of the commission will tackle all aspects of antisemitism, this hearing focused on antisemitism in K-12 schools. For more than four hours, the commission heard testimony from rabbis, leaders in the Jewish community and officials from the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.
Antisemitism
Commission co-chair state Sen. John Velis (D-Westfield) remarked that antisemitism long preceded the creation of Israel. “It mutates and shapeshifts” and is “so pervasive.” He asked Rabbi Amy Wallk of Temple Beth El what she believed was the origin of antisemitism. She said it is rooted in “hating the other and hating those who are different.” In today’s world, she said, antisemitism comes from people who think that Israel’s actions are “horrific.”
Wallk responded that the answer is to educate them. She spoke at length about the damage of framing political and social issues as being between “the oppressor and the oppressed.” She said Jewish people are often misunderstood to be “white and they are part of the oppressing class.” Instead, she said, “We don’t fit neatly in a box.”
Velis agreed and said it is easier to hate someone if you believe they are an oppressor.
Wallk also said that antisemitism is not the same as other hate, because antisemitism is “the oldest form of hate” and, historically, society’s ills have been blamed on Jewish people. She shared a statistic that 2% of the U.S. population is Jewish, but 68% of hate crimes target Jewish people.
After Commissioner Peggy Shukur recalled that an improvised explosive device was placed in front of JGS Lifecare, a senior living facility in Longmeadow in 2020, Wallk, speaking about those who want to hurt Jewish people, cited David Berenstein of the North American Values Institute. She paraphrased, “Antisemitism that comes from the right is the form of a heart attack — it’s abrupt, you see it, it’s lethal, you’re dead — and antisemitism that comes from the left is a kind of cancer, and it’s growing and it’s not so terrible … but the cancer can spread.”
Velis commented, “It is incumbent upon people to look in the mirror.”
Pattern of behavior
Rabbi Jodie Gordon of Havre of Southern Berkshires in Great Barrington spoke about the ways antisemitism affects small communities. “We all have the same problems that you see in larger places,” she said, “but we do have far fewer resources.” Due to the intimate size of the communities she serves, she said, “incidents, when they do happen, are often magnified by a background of relative calm.”
Gordon spoke about a 15-year-old student from Southern Berkshire Regional School District who recently wrote a manifesto that was “full of explicit antisemitic and anti-LGBTQ sentiment” and threats. In a separate incident, an educator suggested that two high schoolers lead a conversation about the Israeli-Hamas War “because they were Jewish.”
Molly Parr, first vice-president of the Jewish Federation of Western Massachusetts, said antisemitic incidents are rampant in Northampton. She described a student having paper emblazoned with swastikas thrown at them and said that posters “denying the atrocities of Oct. 7, [2023],” were put up by a pro-Palestinian club at Northampton High School. She said when the latest Swastika was found at Northampton’s John F. Kennedy Middle School, teachers and most city councilors ignored it. However, one councilor was intimidated into resigning after speaking out about it.
Similarly, Wallk shared stories about teachers and students who left their schools due to what she described as “hostile” environments. A teacher saw a fellow educator crumple an Israeli flag and “[throw] it in the corner of the room while using expletives to describe the flag of oppression.” Their colleagues “cheered” at the action, she said. Wallk also said she knew of a middle schooler who was told “all Jews should die.”
Considering the proliferation of antisemitic acts, Wallk said Holocaust education is not working. Rather than there not being enough education around the Holocaust, she said the problem is that it only teaches the “universal lessons,” rather than seeing “the particularity of our people, past and present and to see the uniqueness of Jew hatred that keeps us demonized, delegitimized and held to a double standard.”
To address this, Wallk plans to take a group of about six Longmeadow educators to Israel over the summer to “teach them the complexity” of the Jewish people and “understand Israel’s unique story.” She said teachers should know material completely and be open to having their minds changed.
State Rep. Simon Cataldo (D-Concord), Velis’ co-chair, asked Wallk if the responsibility for Holocaust education and lessons about the Israeli-Hamas War is at the state or local level. She said a prepared curriculum is important, but the implementation will always vary from teacher to teacher.
DESE testifies
Continuing on the topic of education, the commission heard from Acting Commissioner of the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education Russell Johnston and Erin Hashimoto-Martell, associate commissioner for DESE’s Center for Instructional Support. Johnston said DESE, which oversees education for 950,000 students in the state, must ensure that decision it makes are “scalable” to all Massachusetts public schools. He also said the department is obliged to uphold laws, including a 2021 law concerning genocide education and a 2024 amendment that required materials and evidence-based curricula on antisemitism and societal bias be made available, as well as professional development on antisemitism, ethnic, racial and religious hate and discrimination.
Hashimoto-Martell continued by explaining that the department has rolled out guidance on preventing and addressing incidents of bias and hate and embedding tools in the frameworks that already exist to provide safe and supportive schools. Additionally, Jewish history and culture has been added to the history and social studies curriculum framework for grade 6 and in high school.
The high school level standard for Holocaust includes its roots in Christian antisemitism, 19th century concepts of race and the Nazi dehumanization and planned extermination of Jewish people, as well as LGBTQ and Roma peoples. A rubric is in development to assist districts in selecting vetted curricula. Johnston explained that the first step in creating guidance on any topic is creating a rubric that districts can use to ensure they are observing the standards.
Johnston added that DESE has created a grant to help districts with their genocide education curricula and materials. An analysis of 111 districts in the 2022-23 school year found that 76% of districts offer at least one of the required courses on genocide. Of those, 89% had made it a requirement. Forty percent of the schools offer at least one class on genocide as an elective, some of which run alongside a required course. The Holocaust is the most common genocide covered, however some courses cover other genocides, such as the ones in Rwanda and Cambodia. World History II classes, for example, tackle multiple atrocities, Hashimoto-Martell said. He added that more than two-thirds of districts are actively working to expand their course offerings.
Cataldo questioned whether the depth of instruction in such a class aligns with the DESE’s guidance. Hashimoto-Martell responded that districts that have received DESE grants for genocide education must provide detailed plans for how the funding will be used, including which curriculum provider is contracted and what genocide they will cover.
Cataldo also pushed back on the fact that 24% of districts were not offering the required classes. “Is that OK?” he asked Johnston. “Many of my colleagues would be shocked to hear that statistic.”
Johnston told him, “We’re not satisfied with that.” He explained that the analysis was conducted to see the status of the implementation. With that information, DESE can work to expand it. When asked by Cataldo if there is a downside to mandating Holocaust education, Johnston said he did not see one.
Friedman asked Johnston if any districts in the state were teaching “liberated ethnic studies” courses. While ethnic studies courses explore the experiences and perspectives of marginalized communities, liberated ethnic studies does so through a decolonial framework. The Santa Ana Unified School District in California was sued in 2023 with complaints that the courses were antisemitic. The district settled and agreed to remove the courses.
Johnston said he knew of no district in Massachusetts that teaches liberated ethnic studies courses. He pointed out that DESE does not have the legal authority to require a course not be taught, but said, “Discrimination is unlawful,” and urged people to file a complaint if it occurs. A mobile-ready, accessible complaint form is available in multiple languages on DESE’s website.
MTA controversy
Several times throughout the hearing, people expressed concern regarding materials that, until recently, had been offered to educators by the Massachusetts Teachers’ Association, the largest teachers’ union in the state. The materials, which included an image of dollar bills folded to resemble a Star of David, a poster reading “Zionists f*** off” and another that depicted a Muslim woman with a gun and read “what was taken by force can only be returned by force,” have been condemned by many in recent weeks as antisemitic. The commission previously questioned union President Max Page about the materials at the commission’s previous meeting.
Reflecting on the issue, Commissioner Aaron Polansky said, “At no point in our schools should anything divide us. Our job is to think about the complexities of what we’re faced with, to make decisions about how we present materials in a fashion that is informative, but never divisive.”
Gordon said, “I want to know that my state is upholding their mandate to provide an education to all children that engages with the world and teaches them to be critical thinkers. So, my concern with a pro-Palestine educational curriculum is not wholly unlike the concern I would have if I learned that there [was] a pro-Israel curriculum.” It should be noted that the MTA does not set curriculum.
Velis said that most of the actions DESE has taken on antisemitism are proactive and asked whether the department serves a “reactive” or “defensive role” to “safeguard” against “outside influence.”
Johnston explained that aside from the state’s legal education standards, DESE can only issue guidance on vetting curriculum and professional development. “We do not have the authority to judge individual professional development that districts are providing their teachers, unless something rises to the level of a complaint,” he said. He went on to say that DESE has been given the power to investigate complaints by students, parents or school districts that a matter violates the law.
Velis asked if resources, such as those provided by the MTA, could be the subject of a complaint. Johnston said it could, but only if it violates the law. DESE would need to be given more authority by the Legislature to provide more than guidance on other matters.
Different perspectives
Commissioner Robert Leikind asked Gordon if she thinks people understand what constitutes antisemitism. She said that it varies. Some people feel any critique of Israel is antisemitic, when she might see it as being critical of a government. Alternatively, people may think they are condemning Israel’s government but do so in a way that confuses Israel and Jewish identity. She said educators should be teaching the history and context of Israel so people can think critically about what is antisemitic.
Rabbi Ariela Rosen of Congregation B’nai Israel also cautioned against conflating antisemitism and critiques of Israel. There are people in her community, both Jewish and non-Jewish, she said, “who hold critical positions on Israel with both integrity and love.” Rosen went on to say, “Protest against the actions of the state of Israel or in support of Palestinian rights and safety is not inherently antisemitic” but can become so through hateful imagery, language or “targeted harm.”
When speaking about Judaic teaching, Rosen said people are commanded “don’t be brutal” and “don’t be naive.” She said, “This duality is so important for navigating being Jews in our time.” While she said, “The threat to Jewish safety is real and exists across the political spectrum,” she added, “Let us not allow the tactics that have been used against us to be used in our name.”
As an example, Rosen pointed to the 2024 protests demanding her alma mater, Columbia University, divest from financial holdings that support Israel. She said a Palestinian graduate student is facing deportation due to his involvement in the protests and the school was recently denied $400 million by President Donald Trump’s administration because there was a “lack of action against antisemitism on campus.” Rosen predicted that these actions would lead to resentment of Jewish students among their peers and faculty. “Jews will bear the consequences,” she said, and added that political agendas that take advantage of Jewish fears make it more difficult to determine what is legitimate protect as opposed to antisemitism.
Rosen said learning, education and conversation are key for affecting “stable, lasting change.” She urged expanding discourse among people and working with educators to achieve understanding. “Let us allow diverse perspectives to help us develop a more expansive toolkit,” to fight antisemitism, Rosen said.
Solutions
The commission is tasked with recommending solutions. As such, they asked those who gave testimony for their thoughts. Gordon pointed to education, outreach and “building relationships locally” as a first step in combatting antisemitism.
In keeping with that idea, Cataldo said school leadership should reach out to the Jewish community when incidents happen. He added that he knows of rabbis who are consciously avoiding being the party to reach out in those situations. Gordon said she would like to see multifaith clergy included in those conversations.
This practice occurred in Longmeadow, Wallk said, explaining that Longmeadow High School Principal Tom Landers recommitted to teaching about antisemitism beyond the Holocaust when he noticed the school climate had been deteriorating and asked her for help. The school has worked with an outside educator to provide professional development on antisemitism and “Zoom into some classes.”
Commissioner Dara Kaufman said those relationships should be created before antisemitic incidents happen so that the social infrastructure is already established. She also said there needs to be an emphasis on the mental and emotional well-being of targets of antisemitism, instead of focusing solely on the person responsible for the act.
Parr shared that after the Oct. 7, 2023, attack, a “well-intentioned” diversity, equity and inclusion parents’ group in the Northampton community wanted to provide a reading lists of texts about the war, but Parr said the texts were “extremely troubling” and “shocking.” After she contacted the school, the texts were removed, a letter of apology went out to families and Parr joined the group to work with them on DEI issues.
Henia “Henny” Lewin is an educator and public speaker who survived the Holocaust as a toddler by being smuggled out of a Lithuanian Jewish ghetto in a suitcase and being taken in by farmers, who pretended she was their child. About her work speaking in schools, she said that she tells students that 95% of Jewish Lithuanians were killed in the Holocaust because most people “looked the other way.” She urges students not to “be a bystander” and “don’t let [a] bully influence others.” When people ask her about the ongoing war, she tells them Jewish people are not responsible for the actions of the Israeli government, just as Americans are not responsible for the actions of the United States government.
As a testament to the work Lewin does, Kaufman said her daughter had heard Lewin speak at her high school, and again when she was in college. She said Lewin had had a large impact on her daughter.
Educators should become more involved and be “empowered” to have “hard conversations” and present students with a “multi-narrative” view of history and political events, Gordon said.
Meanwhile, as the commission was taking testimony, a letter to families was sent out by Longmeadow Public Schools about an incident at Williams Middle School, two miles from the Springfield Jewish Community Center. Superintendent M. Martin O’Shea reported that the words, “Heil Hitler,” which he described as “antisemitic hate speech,” were found scrawled in large letters on the outside of a bathroom stall.
The letter went on to detail the steps being taken by the School Department to create a school environment that is free of such incidents.
These included allowing middle school student leaders to plan schoolwide events that encourage a safe, supportive school climate, a seminar for teachers on manifestations of antisemitism and how to address them in the classroom, a refresher course for educators on the department’s bullying policy and their legal responsibilities regarding hate and bias, and an anonymous “See Something, Say Something” reporting tool.
