O pinion
democracy in the Middle
East, a place where women,
the LGBTQI+ community
and Arabs live freely, vote in
elections and can participate
freely in society. Who wins
and who loses in athletics pales
in importance to battling the
prejudices inherent in society
right now.

Jewish and non-Jewish
athletes participating in the
Winter Olympics in the next
few weeks need to stand up
and fight against antisemitism.

We must continue to stand
together, fight the good fight
and use the platform of the
Olympics — particularly in a
place like China — to show the
world that all hate, including
that of the Jews and Israel, will
no longer be tolerated. The
memory of the Munich 11 and
the fight against antisemitism
depends on it. l
Steve Rosenberg is the chair of
The Philadelphia Jewish Sports
Hall of Fame. To learn more, visit
phillyjewishsports.org, or help us
rebuild by visiting gofundme.com/f/
help-rebuild-our-museum. The Meaning of the ‘Maus’ Removal
BY ZEV ELEFF
ON JAN. 11, the McMinn
County Board of Education in
Tennessee voted to remove Art
Spiegelman’s Pulitzer Prize-
winning graphic novel from
its eighth-grade language arts
curriculum. Spiegelman’s
“Maus” depicts the author’s
interviews with his father, a
Holocaust survivor. The illus-
trations present Jews as mice
and Germans as cats.

The Tennessee school board’s
rationale was that “Maus”
contains within it “unnecessary
use of profanity and nudity and
KVETCH ’N’ KVELL
Fort Myers Named After a Jewish Man
AFTER READING ABOUT “Jewish Fort Myers” (Jan. 27), I
was surprised that Abraham Charles Myers, the Jewish Army
officer for whom the fort was named, wasn’t mentioned.

Paul L. Newman | Merion Station
Henry Ford Was Antisemitic
In your Jan. 27 edition, I turned to page 10 and read “Edison-
Ford Winter Estates.”
Does anyone at the Jewish Exponent understand how much
of an antisemite Henry Ford was? Ford bought the Dearborn
Independent and published 91 articles claiming a vast Jewish
conspiracy was infecting America. These articles were then put
into four volumes entitled “The International Jew.”
It amazes me that the Orensteins felt compelled to write about
anything to do with Henry Ford. l
Marv Waxman | Hatboro
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its depiction of violence and
suicide.” The final two points
center on a small but provoc-
ative panel in the comic. In it,
Spiegelman drew his mother,
dead and naked in a bathtub.

The board determined
that the graphic novel was
“simply too adult-oriented”
for its eighth-grade classes and
apparently for any other grade
level. The board reiterated its
commitment to Holocaust
education and hoped that its
teachers could find a “more
age appropriate” alterna-
tive to Spiegelman’s critically
acclaimed graphic novel.

The trouble is that finding
a replacement for “Maus” is
difficult. Teachers who assign
the graphic novel in their
classroom ensure that through
Spiegelman’s memoir their
students receive a full “dosage”
of Holocaust education.

Through its pages, “Maus”
relays the historical facts of
the Holocaust and the depth
of Jewish suffering during that
nadir of European civilization.

Tennessee is among the 22
states that mandate Holocaust
education in public schools.

Like most of the others,
Tennessee offers curriculum
standards. A 2021 report
furnished by Arizona State
University showed that states by
and large leave it to the schools
to determine the duration and
intensity of the teaching.

Tennessee’s guidelines
read like most others in the
American public school arena:
“Explain the state-sponsored
mass murder of the Jews in
Nazi-controlled lands, and
describe the varied experiences
of Holocaust survivors and
victims.” This can be accom-
plished in a short set of lesson
plans, or it can occupy a much
larger swath of classroom
time. Inserting “Maus” into
the curriculum assures that
Holocaust education reaches a
satisfactory dosage.

Then again, there’s no
doubt that Spiegelman’s work
JEWISH EXPONENT
is provocative. I suspect that
an unmentioned factor in
the McMinn County board’s
evaluation of “Maus” was
Spiegelman’s postmodern art
design, a style he explained
at a Gratz College Holocaust
education event in March 2021
was first introduced to him
through Mad magazine in the
1950s. The cartoonists for Mad
drew with a subversive touch,
anticipating the counterculture
of the 1960s.

Spiegelman’s cartoons are
dark and edgy. His lettering —
his placement of words in the
comics — is also intentionally
tense. Consider, for example,
the page with which the
Tennessee school board took
the most issue: the cartoonist’s
mother’s suicide. To convey his
conflicting emotions and grief,
Spiegelman’s jarring drawings
are framed on the page around
large black letters that read:
“Menopausal Depression,”
“Hitler Did It!” and “Mommy.”
I suspect that the full presen-
tation of the art, taken together,
rather than the individual parts
— harsh language, unsettling
cartoon style, a solitary nude panel
and mention of suicide — was
what had set off the oppositional
board members in mid-January.

Several McMinn County
educators defended “Maus”
in all its postmodernism. One
assistant principal posited at
a school board meeting that
all teaching materials on the
Holocaust are gruesome:
“There is nothing pretty about
the Holocaust and, for me, this
was a great way to depict a
horrific time in history.”
The two sides repre-
sent an important debate
about Holocaust education.

According to the first view,
Holocaust education ought
to be focused on “cultural
literacy.” Students must obtain
knowledge about the Holocaust
and keep the memory of Nazi
terror in circulation. Educators
should deliver this curriculum
with appropriate teaching
tools. The counterpoint argument
is that Holocaust education is
in fact about being provocative.

The confrontational aspect
is one of the key ingredients
in the value proposition of
Holocaust education.

In September 2020, Echoes
and Reflection — a partnership
program between ADL, USC
Shoah Foundation and Yad
Vashem — released findings
of a survey that asked 1,500
U.S. college students about the
impact of Holocaust education.

Those who received Holocaust
education also, claimed this
report, possess more plural-
istic attitudes and openness
to different opinions and
different people. This change
takes place, I suggest, because
“there is nothing pretty about
the Holocaust.”
No doubt, both sides of the
Holocaust education debate
are eager to see improved
Holocaust literacy and for
students to become more
open-minded because of that
education. Still, there is a
stark difference in pedagogical
emphasis. Policymakers and commu-
nity stakeholders look to
Holocaust education to cause a
controlled amount of confronta-
tion. They view it as an important
intervention to combat antisem-
itism and address other brands
of human hatred.

Education leaders can debate
whether Holocaust education
is the appropriate antidote to
combat contemporary hate
and make suggestions on how
educators might broaden the
curriculum. Until then, it
seems to me that eliminating
“Maus” from the syllabus
removes a very valuable tool
to provoke thought and ensure
that our students receive a
satisfactory dosage of learning
on this all-important subject. l
Zev Eleff is president of Gratz
College and a scholar of American
Jewish history.

FEBRUARY 3, 2022
11