O pinion
Banning Critical Race Theory Will Gut the Teaching of Jewish History
BY HENRY ABRAMSON
ANYONE TEACHING
the past by skipping over the
unpleasant parts isn’t teaching
history. They are engaged in
propaganda. Jewish tradition understands
this: Refusing to sugarcoat their
own people’s culpability, the
Sages themselves teach that the
destruction of the Temple by
the Romans is a consequence of
baseless hatred — among Jews.

Yet in nearly two dozen states,
the movement to impose restric-
tions on the teaching of history is
gaining momentum. Incited by
a national hysteria over “critical
race theory,” advocates of these
educational fatwas are borrowing
a page from authoritarian
governments like Vladimir
Putin’s Russia in a clumsy
effort to avoid discussing the
messy, controversial and painful
moments in America’s history.

And as a professional histo-
rian, I can tell you that these
bans will be terrible for anyone
teaching or studying Jewish
history. What exactly is critical race
theory, and how is it apparently
— in the words of Florida Gov.

Ron DeSantis, a Republican
who is seen as a potential presi-
dential candidate — teaching
our kids “to hate each other”
and “hate our country”?
Critical race theory is a body
of ideas associated not with the
discipline of history, but with
the practice of law. Adherents
believe that the legacy of slavery
is baked into American society
and culture to such a degree that
African-Americans continue
14 JULY 15, 2021
to suffer long-term, systemic
economic harm. It suggests that
discussing reparations should
be on the national agenda
(hence the origin of these ideas
among legal scholars).

The impact of systemic
racism may be measured, for
example, in things as diverse
as the wealth gap between
white and Black Americans
with similar educations and
the declining tree cover in
neighborhoods with majority
African-American populations.

Critical race theorists look to the
history of government policies
from the 1930s, like redlining,
under which the Federal
Housing Authority refused
to underwrite mortgages in
African-American neighbor-
hoods with the explicit goal
of separating “incompatible
by forbidding the discussion of
historical facts or interpretations
or by providing vague guidelines
that lead to self-censorship.”
Compared to Americans,
Europeans have less of an allergy
to limitations on free speech,
and they generally accepted
these laws when they were
designed to protect victims of
historical trauma, for example,
by banning noxious phenomena
such as Holocaust denial.

Putin, however, pioneered
a new approach to memory
laws: Rather than protecting
the weak, they also can be
weaponized to strengthen the
powerful. In the context of
Russian history, the counter-
part to American slavery is
the Holodomor, a terrible
famine that killed millions of
Ukrainians from 1932-1933.

the resurgence of extremist
antisemitism; it is to prevent
Poles from confronting the
complex legacy of collaboration
with the Nazi occupation.

This brings us to the
American versions of the
memory laws. Tennessee, for
example, recently passed SB
623, which lists 14 directives
all tied to state funding. The
requirements oscillate between
the painfully obvious and the
absurdly comic. On the one
hand, Tennessee “does not
prohibit… the impartial discus-
sion of controversial aspects of
history,” or even “the impartial
instruction on the oppression
of a particular group of people.”
On the other hand, it bans
teaching that “an individual, by
virtue of the individual’s race
or sex, is inherently privileged”
What exactly is critical race theory, and how is it apparently — in the
words of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican who is seen as a
potential presidential candidate — teaching our kids “to hate each other”
and “hate our country”?
racial groups.” Blacks were, like
Jews, forbidden to buy homes
in newly developed suburbs,
while white Americans received
help from the government to
purchase homes in these leafy
neighborhoods and to build
generational wealth.

The CRT framework, decades
old, gained popularity (or
notoriety, depending on whom
you ask) after the summer 2020
wave of protests that followed
the murder of George Floyd.

The bans on teaching with a
critical race theory framework
aren’t really against history per
se, which is in the past and there-
fore stubbornly resists regulation.

Rather, these decrees fall more
precisely within the category of
what are called “memory laws.”
Historian Timothy Snyder
described these laws as “govern-
ment actions designed to guide
public interpretation of the
past ... by asserting a manda-
tory view of historical events,
Beginning in 2008, Russia’s
Duma assembly passed legisla-
tion that forbade the discussion
of Russian government policies
that contributed to the
genocidal nature of the famine,
and established entities like
the “Presidential Commission
of the Russian Federation to
Counter Attempts to Falsify
History to the Detriment
of Russia’s Interests” (an
ideological antecedent to the
now-defunct 1776 Commission,
then-President Donald Trump’s
last-minute attempt to promote
a “pro-American curriculum”).

This is the intellectual
home of the CRT bans. They
share educational space with
Poland’s ridiculous, offensive
and dangerous 2018 law that
criminalizes the suggestion that
Poland bears any responsibility
for the crimes committed by
the Germans during World
War II. The object of Poland’s
memory law is not to prevent
JEWISH EXPONENT
(forestalling, presumably,
lessons in how the redlining in
the 1930s led to white wealth
accumulation today, or how men
enjoyed privileges over women
— well, at just about any point
in history). The prohibition sits
within the same category as
“promoting or advocating the
violent overthrow of the United
States government”!
Some scholars have objected
in particular to the squishy
concept outlined in 51.a.6:
Educators are forbidden to
teach in a manner that causes
a student to “feel discomfort,
guilt, anguish, or another form
of psychological distress solely
because of the individual’s race
or sex.” Now it’s certainly good
pedagogic practice to refrain
from humiliating one’s students
(I’m embarrassed to even have to
say that). But it is a tall order to
teach the history of race and sex
in this country without making
someone feel discomfort
or anguish, just as it impos-
sible to teach the Holocaust
properly without causing
German students to reflect on
their national history, or the
Holodomor without giving
Russians pause to contemplate
brutal Soviet agrarian policies.

Despite the 1776 Commission’s
promise to “unite, inspire, and
ennoble all Americans,” these
laws will chill honest engagement
with hard truths, forcing teachers
to lie to their students, even if
only by omission.

Furthermore, anyone
teaching Jewish history will
be challenged to find a way to
present the legacy of antisemi-
tism without running afoul of
these regulations. The histor-
ical linkage between Catholic
theology and the persecution
of Jews, for example, is rife
with difficult topics. They range
from the medieval charges
of host desecration and the
horrendous blood libel to the
pope’s kidnapping of 6-year-old
Edgardo Mortara in 1858 (we
could, unfortunately, continue
at length). Protestants would
also be discomfited by Martin
Luther’s anti-Jewish screed, “On
the Jews and their Lies” (1543).

The list of countries where Jews
have lived in their diaspora is
pretty much identical to the list
of countries that have discrimi-
nated against Jews.

Obviously, the presentation
of challenging material must be
titrated to the specifics of the
classroom, considering factors
like the age and background
preparation of the students.

No responsible teacher wants
to teach students to “hate each
other” or “hate America.” But
we all participate in a sacred
covenant with our students:
They expect us to tell them the
truth. These memory laws, if
enforced, would ask us to betray
that covenant. l
Henry Abramson is a specialist in
Jewish history and thought who
serves as a dean of Touro College
in Brooklyn, New York.

JEWISHEXPONENT.COM