Advocacy means going on the record. Since 2002, JIMENA has brought the history, lived experiences, and perspectives of Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews to policy makers, international bodies, and the public. Through statements, letters, and policy responses, we advocate on issues affecting our communities and Jews worldwide - from education and antisemitism to cultural heritage, Jewish refugees from the Middle East and North Africa, and international affairs. These statements show where we stand, what we've advocated for, and why.
Advocacy means going on the record. Since 2002, JIMENA has brought the history, lived experiences, and perspectives of Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews to policy makers, international bodies, and the public. Through statements, letters, and policy responses, we advocate on issues affecting our communities and Jews worldwide - from education and antisemitism to cultural heritage, Jewish refugees from the Middle East and North Africa, and international affairs. These statements show where we stand, what we've advocated for, and why.
JIMENA & The Education Policy Project · April 2026 Our children’s classrooms are being used to rewrite our history. Federally funded university programs are transmitting politically motivated, one-sided narratives about Jews, Israel, and the Middle East directly into California’s K–12 classrooms. We are calling on Congress and the federal government to investigate — and to stop it. Read the full letter and appendices → Why JIMENA is speaking This is personal. It is also a matter of historical record. JIMENA represents the nearly one million Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews — Jews indigenous to the Middle East and North Africa — who were dispossessed and expelled from their homes across the Arab world throughout the 20th century. Iraq. Egypt. Morocco. Yemen. Libya. Communities that had existed continuously for over 2,500 years, dismantled within a generation. We know what it looks like when hostility toward Jews is normalized through educational systems. We lived through it. In country after country, it began in classrooms — with lessons that singled out Jewish children, framed Jews as foreign or threatening, and planted seeds of suspicion that grew into state-sanctioned persecution and mass expulsion. For too long, our histories have been misrepresented, erased, or conscripted to serve ideologies that have nothing to do with truth. The experiences of Mizrahi and Sephardic Jews — our forced displacement, our losses, our identities — have been ignored in academic scholarship and distorted in educational materials. We will not allow that erasure to continue. And we will not allow our histories to be weaponized in K–12 classrooms to advance the political agendas of anti-Israel activists operating within publicly funded universities. 83% of American Jews identify Israel as essential or important to their identity. The vast majority of Mizrahi and Sephardic Jews are Zionist — not as a political ideology imported from Europe, but as an expression of a 2,000-year diasporic longing to return to our ancestral homeland. When K–12 students are taught that Zionism is European colonialism, our identity is being falsified. The pipeline problem How university bias reaches six million students Most people assume that K–12 classrooms are separate from the political debates taking place on university campuses. They are not. Through a federally funded program called the California Subject Matter Project (CSMP), university faculty develop instructional materials and train teachers — and those materials flow directly into public school classrooms across the state. ~6M Students reached Across approximately 1,000 public school districts in California 40K Educators in network Teachers trained through CSMP as of 2022, now focused almost exclusively on Ethnic Studies $135M Federal funds since 2019 CSMP and its delivery partner received over $135M in ESEA Title II federal grants 90+ Regional sites Operating across the University of California system, covering the full state CSMP is not a neutral conduit. University faculty whose materials and trainings have been shown to present contested political positions as historical fact, omit the continuous presence of Jews in the Middle East, characterize Zionism exclusively as European colonialism, and exclude Jewish perspectives from the very history in which Jews are central — are the same faculty developing K–12 curriculum. The U.S. House Committee on Education and Workforce documented these patterns in higher education in its March 2026 report on radical antisemitism on college campuses. What we are showing is that the pipeline runs downstream — into the classrooms of children as young as fourteen. What the materials actually say Selective history is not neutral history CSMP’s K–12 instructional materials present as established fact that Jewish immigration to Palestine began in the 1880s — erasing over two millennia of continuous Jewish presence in the region. They describe the movement of nearly one million Jewish refugees from Arab countries as voluntary “emigration,” omitting the documented expulsions, property confiscations, arbitrary imprisonments, and ethnic cleansing that drove those departures. Teachers are directed to frame Jewish nationalism as a “European political movement” — denying the indigenous, Middle Eastern roots of Jewish identity. Inquiry sets present the founding of Israel without essential historical context. Professional development programs instruct teachers to teach “the occupation of Palestine and genocide of Palestinians” as fact — without competing interpretations, legal definitions, or countervailing scholarship. California’s own academic content standards require that students “identify bias and prejudice in historical interpretations,” “recognize the complexity of historical causes and effects,” and “evaluate major debates among historians.” These materials do none of that. They fail the legal requirements of the very federal grants that fund them. Our call to action What we are asking the federal government to do JIMENA and The Education Policy Project have written jointly to the U.S. House Committee on Education and Workforce, the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division, the Department of Education, and the Department of Labor. Our ask is grounded in federal law — not political preference. Our formal request 1. Conduct a comprehensive federal review of CSMP’s instructional materials and K–12 professional development programs for compliance with ESEA nondiscrimination requirements and content standards. 2. Suspend CSMP’s federal ESEA Title II funding until identified violations are corrected and materials are brought into compliance. 3. Ensure that California’s oversight mechanisms fulfill their legal obligation to monitor federal grant compliance — and that publicly funded teacher training programs serve students, not political movements. This is not a call to censor debate or restrict academic freedom. Universities should be places of open inquiry. But that principle does not give federally funded programs license to present contested political claims as fact to minors, erase the histories of Jewish communities, or train teachers in ideological frameworks that fail California’s own educational standards. The children in these classrooms deserve better. So do we. Read the full letter and appendices → Includes detailed analysis of specific CSMP instructional materials and their departures from California’s own academic standards. Sarah Levin, Executive Director, JIMENA · SarahLevin@JIMENA.org Lauren Janov, Founder, The Education Policy Project · LJanov@EdPolicyProject.org
JIMENA’s Executive Director, Sarah Levin, participated in a statewide panel discussion addressing antisemitism, convened by the California Department of Education (CDE) on August 23, 2023. As part of the CDE’s “Education to End Hate” initiative, this roundtable assembled members of the Legislative Jewish Caucus, Jewish communal leaders, and California State Superintendent Tony Thurmond for a discussion on addressing antisemitism in public schools. Alongside Sarah Levin were Dr. Anita Friedman, Executive Director of Jewish Family and Children Services of San Francisco, the Peninsula, Marin & Sonoma Counties, and Rabbi Meyer May, Executive Director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles. This conversation took place the same day California Governor Gavin Newsom’s administration circulated a letter to school leaders across the state, reminding them that Ethnic Studies courses must not “promote, directly or indirectly, any bias, bigotry, or discrimination against any person or group of persons on the basis of any category protected by Education Code Section 220,” which includes religion, ethnicity, and nationality. This development is welcomed by JIMENA and we regard this as one of many steps the State must take to protect Jewish students and society as a whole from the rising incidents of antisemitism and the influence of antisemitic ideology in our public schools. It is our hope that further communication from Governor Newsom and other elected leaders will more explicitly call out antisemitism and its perpetrators involved in public education. California State Senator Scott Wiener, who represents the city of San Francisco, was clear that “specific, tangible steps” are needed to stem an anticipated “surge of antisemitism in our public education system,” focusing his comments on “Liberated Ethnic Studies” whose proponents are shopping curriculum to unsuspecting school districts. He stressed that “calling out antisemitism…is really the issue” and that it is important for the State to be precise about what is happening, the State has “the responsibility to educate school districts…and hold them accountable.” As JIMENA’s Executive Director, Sarah Levin, emphasized during the convening, “Education can’t combat antisemitism if there are elements of antisemitism within the education system – such as antisemitic board members, administrators, etc. – or if antisemitic ethnic studies educators are being contracted by the education system to train teachers and schools.” All panelists unanimously agreed that Ethnic Studies must not be allowed to become a vehicle for harm and that the highest-quality training for our educators is critical in keeping hate out of schools. During the gathering, JIMENA Director Sarah Levin reinforced the necessity of defining antisemitism as the denial of the Jewish people’s right to self-determination in Israel, the assertion that the state of Israel is a racist endeavor, and the belief that teachers applying double standards to the state of Israel, both inside and outside the classroom, is antisemitic. Sarah reminded participants that Jewish students deserve to be protected from hate in schools and called for a zero-tolerance policy for antisemitic bullying. She reminded participants that school boards approving antisemitic class content such as voting yes on course outlines that advance anti-Zionism and boycotts of Israel is deeply problematic and will be met with a response from the Jewish community. JIMENA stands alongside our national and state-level partners, ready to offer support to diverse educational agencies as they take proactive measures to counter and combat antisemitism. The complete video of this session is available for viewing here. Additionally, please feel free to access and share JIMENA’s thoughtfully curated collection of state-approved lesson plans on Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews, as well as antisemitism, available here.
ias-grant-letter-craft-INLINE.txt 100% Joint Communal Letter · March 7, 2023 California Jewish Organizations Express Concern Over the Rollout of the Antibias Education Grant Program The law required an emphasis on preventing antisemitism. Only four of 74 grantees earmarked funds for it. In 2021 and 2022, Governor Newsom and the California legislature created a $20 million Antibias Education Grant Program and required that grantees place an emphasis on “preventing anti-Semitism and bias or prejudice toward [other] groups.” When the California Department of Education (CDE) announced its grantees, JIMENA reviewed their applications and found that most did not address antisemitism at all. JIMENA and a coalition of California Jewish organizations wrote to State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, asking CDE to pause the grants until recipients showed how they would use the funds to educate students about antisemitism, as the law required. 39% Never mentioned it 29 grantees did not mention “antisemitism” or “Jews/Jewish” in their applications 4 of 74 Earmarked funds Only four grantees were specific and set aside funds for antisemitism education 1% Of students reached Those four grantees reach about 1% of California’s public school students The letter To Tony Thurmond, California State Superintendent of Public Instruction Dear Superintendent Thurmond, We write to alert you to a significant concern we have with the rollout of the state’s Antibias Education Grant program and to suggest to the California Department of Education (CDE) corrective measures to ensure that the grants fulfill the state’s intended program goal of “preventing anti-Semitism.” You may recall that JIMENA: Jews Indigenous to the Middle East and North Africa is a California-based non-profit organization committed to advocating for the rights of one million Jewish refugees from the Middle East and North Africa and their Mizrahi and Sephardic descendants, who comprise an estimated 20% of America’s Jewish population. This puts our numbers at around 1.4 million in the United States, fifteen percent (15%) living in California, including Iranian Jews, one of the world’s largest Middle Eastern diasporic communities. JIMENA’s Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum lesson “Antisemitism and Jewish Middle Eastern-Americans” was endorsed by California’s leading Jewish organizations and 15,000 citizens. JIMENA’s antisemitism lesson was unanimously approved by the Instructional Quality Commission in November 2020 and the California State Board of Education in March 2021. Concern Given your much appreciated public statements acknowledging our state’s antisemitism challenge and leadership role in the Governor’s Council on Holocaust and Genocide Education, we were surprised to discover that a large number of the Antibias Education grantees CDE selected did not include antisemitism as a focus area. In 2021 and 2022, Governor Newsom and the California legislature entrusted CDE with their $20 million Antibias Education Grant program. They were clear; these funds must be awarded to those that commit to place an “emphasis …on preventing anti-Semitism and bias or prejudice toward [other] groups.” (AB 130 (2021) and AB 181 (2022)) (emphasis added). That did not happen. We note that: • Thirty-nine percent (39%) of the grantees CDE awarded antibias grants to did not mention “antisemitism” or “Jews/Jewish” in their grant application (29 did not), • Only four of the 74 grantees were specific and earmarked funds for this use (Conejo Valley Unified, Davis Joint Unified, Moreno Valley Unified, and Marin County Office of Education), and • Those four grantees reach only 1% of California’s public school students. Corrective Interventions This disregard of antisemitism education in the roll out of the antibias grants is inconsistent with AB 130 and 181 as enacted. We urge CDE to correct this immediately by: 1. Notifying all grant awardees (except the four listed above) to suspend this program until they (i) submit to the CDE amended grant applications which are specific on how they will use the funds to educate students about antisemitism, including a meaningful budget and expenditures, and (ii) receive CDE’s approval of those revisions. 2. CDE and the San Diego County Office of Education (SDCOE) amending their December 2022 Ethnic Studies Professional Development Project contract (CN220217) to provide that resources and trainings developed under it also will emphasize antisemitism. 3. CDE advising those in 1 and 2 above: a. To consult with mainstream Jewish organizations leading the fight against antisemitism. b. With respect to JIMENA’s State Board of Education approved “Antisemitism and Jewish Middle Eastern-Americans” lesson, for them to (i) strongly consider including it in the Ethnic Studies courses they adopt (for 1 above), and (ii) feature it in the statewide Ethnic Studies Professional Development Project trainings and resource materials (for 2 above). JIMENA’s educators can offer antisemitism trainings designed around this state approved lesson plan. Antisemitism According to the California Attorney General’s Office, Jews are California’s most prevalent targets of religious-hate crimes and increasingly so: 70% of California’s religious-based hate crimes target Jewish people, up 32% from the year prior. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) reports that antisemitic incidents are at the highest level nationwide since it started tracking them almost 50 years ago. According to the AJC State of Antisemitism in America 2022 report, nine out of ten Americans (91%) think everyone should care about antisemitism, and one-third (34%) acknowledge that antisemitism is not taken as seriously as other forms of hate. This is the state of things for our Jewish community despite lethal expressions by those who hate Jews, from the murder of worshippers (Poway) to Jews being recently targeted with gunfire on the sidewalks in Los Angeles. As you know, California’s public school system hasn’t been spared from antisemitism. In 2019 California educators released an Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum draft, intended for use in every school, that had antisemitic content embedded in it and omitted antisemitism from its long, varied, and nuanced forms of hate list. Just last month, a tenured Hayward Unified teacher not only advanced antisemitic content as part of his instruction, it was reported that district staff took far too long to acknowledge community concerns and cancelled a meeting with the ADL to discuss it. CDE awarded Hayward Unified a $200,000 Antibias Education Grant despite the district’s grant application not specifying how it would work to prevent bias or prejudice toward “groups/individuals facing Anti-Semitism.” We hope you will take seriously the need for antisemitism education and implement corrective measures to ensure that all Antibias Education grants fulfill all of their required purposes. Thank you. Signatories 30 Years After AJC: American Jewish Committee, California IAJF: Iranian American Jewish Federation Karaite Jews of America JIMENA: Jews Indigenous to the Middle East and North Africa SEC: Sephardic Education Center StandWithUs cc Governor Gavin Newsom Ann Patterson, Governor Newsom’s Cabinet Secretary Linda Darling-Hammond, State Board of Education President Amy Bisson Holloway, Office of the Superintendent General Counsel Senator Scott Wiener, CA Legislative Jewish Caucus Co-Chair Assemblymember Jesse Gabriel, CA Legislative Jewish Caucus Co-Chair Senator Josh Becker, CA Legislative Jewish Caucus Vice Chair What happened next The state’s response JIMENA received no official response for nearly two months. On May 1, 2023, a CDE deputy superintendent told J. Weekly that the department had run the program in line with legislative requirements. At that point about $14 million had been awarded and roughly $6 million remained unawarded. JIMENA continues to work with educators, districts and state agencies to make sure antisemitism, including the antisemitism experienced by Mizrahi and Sephardic Jews, is part of how California teaches about bias. Read the J. Weekly coverage → Notes [1] Jewish Communal Request to the California State Board of Education. JIMENA [2] California Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum, Chapter 4, Lesson 30. cde.ca.gov [3] “Ethnic studies curriculum needs substantial revisions, officials say,” J. Weekly, August 13, 2019. jweekly.com [4] “Jews must be included in ethnic studies curriculum, says state schools chief at press conference,” J. Weekly, August 14, 2019. jweekly.com [5] Antibias Education Grant Program, California Department of Education. cde.ca.gov [6] AB 130 (2021), Section 157. cde.ca.gov [7] AB 181 (2022), Section 138. leginfo.legislature.ca.gov [8] Antibias Education Grant results, California Department of Education. cde.ca.gov [9] California Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum, Chapter 4, Lesson 30. cde.ca.gov [10] Hate Crime in California, 2021, California Department of Justice. doj.ca.gov [11] The State of Antisemitism in America 2022, AJC. ajc.org [12] Los Angeles synagogue shootings, The New York Times, February 17, 2023. nytimes.com [13] “East Bay high school teacher called out for antisemitic lessons,” J. Weekly, February 21, 2023. jweekly.com [14] Hayward Unified School District’s Anti-Bias Grant Application, October 14, 2022, submitted by Assistant Superintendent Davies. Press inquiries: Sarah Levin, Executive Director, JIMENA · sarahlevin@jimena.org
Since 2019, JIMENA: Jews Indigenous to the Middle East and North Africa, has been deeply involved in efforts to help the California Department of Education produce an Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum (ESMC) that is free from bias and inclusive of the experiences of Jewish Americans. Yesterday, after eight hours of hearings, the State Board of Education unanimously approved the fourth draft of the Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum. It is with the support and collaboration of JIMENA’s various community partners that we implemented an effective advocacy campaign that resulted in an Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum that was significantly improved from the first draft. We are proud of JIMENA’s accomplishments, which include the following: Produced Antisemitism and Jewish Middle Eastern Americans, the first lesson plan centering Sephardic Jewish Americans ever adopted into an American public high school system. The first draft, written by Dr. Galia Avidar, is available for distribution nationwide. Our lesson plan includes meaningful definitions of antisemitism from the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), and Facing History and Ourselves, marking the first time the California Department of Education has integrated the IHRA definition into its instructional materials for high schools. Mobilized a new coalition of diverse Middle Eastern minority communities across the state of California. Advocates for Inclusive Middle Eastern Education (AIMEE) exists to ensure that our histories and heritage are included in Ethnic Studies curriculum in California and beyond. Successfully advocated for the inclusion of marginalized Jewish experiences and definitions of antisemitism within an Ethnic Studies framework, a huge milestone for Jewish representation within an academic discipline that has traditionally omitted Jewish American experiences. While celebrating these milestones, JIMENA and our Sephardic partners will continue to advocate for equal treatment of all Middle Eastern communities in Ethnic Studies frameworks, and we firmly believe that our lesson, “Antisemitism and Jewish Middle Eastern Americans,” should be placed thematically alongside lessons on Islamophobia and other forms of bigotry impacting communities from Southwest Asia. This position has had unwavering and broad support from a diverse coalition of major Jewish institutions, including the Anti-Defamation League, American Jewish Committee, Simon Wiesenthal Center, StandWithUs, Israeli American Council, and many others. JIMENA will continue to work with Jewish communal organizations and our Middle Eastern partners to address the flaws in the model curriculum that was adopted and to ensure that the voices of all minority groups, including Middle Eastern and North African Jews, are equally represented in Ethnic Studies classrooms across the state and beyond. We are committed to serving as a resource for Jewish communal organizations that engage with local school districts as they work to implement ethnic studies curricula in their communities, to ensure that it does not result in discrimination or hostility against Jewish students. Our work in California is clearly the beginning of a much larger effort. The Jewish community and our allies must come together in a national effort to ensure that antisemitism and BDS do not find their way into classroom curriculum across the country.
Updated March 12, 2021 To California State Board of Education Members: Next week you will be tasked with approving an Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum (ESMC) with the aim of helping California students become engaged and empathetic global citizens. We, representing our Nation’s prominent Jewish institutions, join 15,000 members of the public in expressing our gratitude for the California Department of Education’s (CDE) recommendation that the State Board of Education include the “Antisemitism and Jewish Middle Eastern-Americans” lesson in the ESMC. We ask that you: 1. Approve the CDE’s recommendation to include the “Antisemitism and Jewish Middle Eastern-Americans” lesson in the ESMC, and 2. Place this lesson in the ESMC’s Asian American Studies section. The ESMC appropriately includes Judaism in its list of major South Asian religions and designates antisemitism a form of oppression in its guiding principles. Sample Lesson 24: South Asian Americans in the United States now addresses xenophobia and Islamophobia with nuance. The Asian American and Pacific Islander Studies section will be greatly enriched if it includes this lesson on antisemitism, pairing shared struggles against hate so this section also aligns with the ESMC’s thematic approach. This lesson gives a voice to a large and vital part of California’s diverse ethnic population — South Asian (Middle Eastern) Jewish Americans also known as Mizrahi Jews. After living in Asia for millennia, they arrived on our shores fleeing antisemitism, marginalization, and state-sanctioned discrimination. Over 200,000 live in our state including Iranian Jews, one of the world’s largest Middle Eastern diasporic communities. Antisemitic crimes, still the most prevalent religious-based hate crime in the United States and California, are increasing – now comprising 68% of all religious-based California hate crimes targeting the Jewish 2% of the population. Disturbing in its scale, yet only half in our Nation know that antisemitism exists. The ESMC will correct that for this generation. * Governor Newsom’s vision for this important project is clear — the ESMC must “achieve[] balance, fairness and [be] inclusive of all communities.” We are grateful for the progress that’s been made toward Governor Newsom’s aims. His vision of a California for All will be advanced by your vote in March to include this lesson in the ESMC’s Asian American Studies section aside its current content on other Middle Eastern ethnic groups and religions (more than 60% of California’s Middle Eastern-American population is non-Arab, the majority being Jewish-Americans). Thank you. 30 Years After Anti-Defamation League American Jewish Committee CAMERA: Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America Iranian American Jewish Federation Israeli American Council Jewish Learning Works JIMENA: Jews Indigenous to the Middle East and North Africa Progressive Zionists of California Progressive Zionist Union (PZU) Sephardic Education Center Simon Wiesenthal Center Stand With Us Zioness cc: Governor Gavin Newsom Brooks Allen, Executive Director to State Board of Education Superintendent Tony Thurmond Chief Deputy Superintendent Stephanie Gregson * This lesson includes the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism. Written two decades ago by an apolitical body of world scholars, policy experts, and researchers, it is championed and embraced by President Biden and now the most authorized and internationally accepted definition of antisemitism. The IHRA definition is also recommended by the UN Secretary General, Secretary General of the Organization of American States (made up of 34-member countries including the US), and European Parliament. It has been adopted in almost 30 nations and by representative religious bodies including the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations and Global Imams Council. Three hundred and two members of the U.S. House of Representatives used the IHRA definition in the Never Again Education Act, co-sponsored by 45 Representatives from California including Jackie Speier, Ro Khanna, Ted Lieu, Barbara Lee, Zoe Lofgren, Anna Eshoo and Adam Schiff.
JIMENA: Jews Indigenous to the Middle East and North Africa strongly supports the Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum (ESMC) recommendations the California State Board of Education’s Instructional Quality Commission (IQC) approved at its November 19th meeting. Now the IQC will be handing the State Board of Education an Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum draft that is balanced and inclusive, as legislators intended when passing AB 2016, the groundbreaking legislation that spurred the creation of the Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum. The IQC agreed with 10,000 individuals who joined JIMENA’s call to create a comprehensive Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum by including our lesson plan, “Antisemitism and Jewish Middle Eastern-Americans.” That lesson adds Jewish Americans from the Middle East, a large and vital part of California’s diverse ethnic composition, to our State’s new Ethnic Studies framework. The inclusion of our lesson helps ensure that the curriculum does not replicate discriminatory hierarchies in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). At least 60 percent of California’s diverse MENA population were in danger of being excluded from this curriculum, which is why JIMENA and other Middle Eastern groups advocated for the ESMC to accurately represent the rich and vibrant diversity of our state’s Middle Eastern ethnic minorities. “We are so deeply grateful that the lived experiences of so many minorities, including American Jews from the Middle East, are one very important step closer to being taught in California’s classrooms,” JIMENA Executive Director Sarah Levin said. JIMENA’s lesson plan and the lesson drafted by the Institute for Curriculum Services help fill a gap in content the State provides teachers — content on contemporary antisemitism — during the time of an unsettling and unprecedented rise in antisemitic acts in California and America. Jews, who comprise just 2 percent of the population, are the target of 60% of religious-based hate crimes according to 2019 FBI statistics. We thank California State Superintendent Tony Thurmond, IQC Executive Director Shanine Coats, and the members of the IQC for their strong leadership, hard work creating impactful curriculum, and standing tall against bigotry and hate. We are also grateful to our community and allies for advocating on our behalf.
Dear California State Superintendent of Public Education Tony Thurmond, In light of recent events, JIMENA would like to share four core principles that we ask you to consider in the development of the California Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum. We believe these principles will be vitally important in producing an Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum that is representative, equitable and free of bias. 1. California’s diverse Middle Eastern populations should be fairly and equitably represented. As you know, JIMENA has simply asked the California Department of Education to follow the State Board’s standards and guidelines, which require the curriculum to be balanced and portray peoples proportionately if they are represented. Therefore, if Arab Americans are included in the curriculum, the ESMC should also include Mizrahi Jews and other Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) groups as part of the “broadly defined umbrella of Asian Studies”. Non-Arab Middle Easterners – which account for more than 60% of California’s MENA population – have built a broad coalition called Advocates for Inclusive Middle Eastern Education (AIMEE) to ensure that our stories are told. The State of California must uphold its promise of transparency and public input in reviewing the Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum. We are deeply troubled by the CDE’s recommendation that the public will not be allowed their rightful opportunity to review and comment on any new Arab American Studies lesson plan or content to be added to the curriculum, per standard procedure as defined in AB2016. We believe it is critical that the curriculum focuses on the lived experiences of communities here in the United States of America. As the only Jewish organization which provided the California Department of Education with a comprehensive lesson plan for inclusion in the Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum, JIMENA’s focus is sharing the lived experiences of Middle Eastern and North African Jews IN North America, many of whom have been racialized and have experienced one of the worst forms of bigotry – antisemitism. Our lesson plan, “Antisemitism and Middle Eastern-American Jews” centers Mizrahi Jewish experiences in a lesson plan on antisemitism in the United States. The State of California must draw clear redlines against antisemitism and discrimination. The Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum must not include the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Movement, and other highly politicized conversations about Middle Eastern conflicts that create unsafe classrooms for Jewish and Middle Eastern minority students throughout California. Thank you, Gina Bublil-Waldman, President Sarah Levin, Executive Director cc. Governor Gavin Newsom State Board of Education President Linda Darling-Hammond Chief Deputy Superintendent Stephanie Gregson
On Thursday, August 13th the Instructional Quality Commission (IQC) of the California Department of Education (CDE) met to review the second draft of its revised Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum (ESMC). JIMENA is deeply troubled by last minute recommendations by CDE to include an Arab American lesson plan, which will not be available for public review. While JIMENA supports the inclusion of Middle Eastern-American experiences, it is our hope that the revised Ethnic Studies Curriculum will make clear that under the “broadly defined umbrella of Asian Studies” are Mizrahi Jews and other Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) groups which represent 60% of California’s Middle Eastern community but have been excluded from both drafts of the ESMC. During the IQC meeting, JIMENA’s Executive Director Sarah Levin noted that, “We need an Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum that is balanced and equitable for all Middle Eastern and North African school children – including Mizrahi Jews and the 500,000 Middle Eastern Californians who were excluded from both drafts of the curriculum.” These concerns are shared by the ten members of the multi-ethnic Middle Eastern-American Coalition, “Advocates for Inclusive Middle Eastern Education (AIMEE)” who continue to request inclusion of their stories in California’s Ethnic Studies Curriculum. AIMEE collation member, Peter Warda who serves as President of the Assyrian American Association of Southern California noted, “At present, our countries of origin are quickly becoming homogenous due to policies that either lead to the expulsion of minority groups or force them to conform to majority expectations. Our experiences as persecuted, indigenous minorities attest to this. We fear that our exclusion from a curriculum would contribute to the ongoing cultural genocide and erasure of minority voices from the Middle East and North Africa.” These sentiments were shared by over 20 Mizrahi Jews who called into the IQC meeting Sapir Taib, JIMENA’s Program Director noted to members of the IQC that, “My grandparents fled antisemitic religious persecution in Libya and Tunisia and as a Mizrahi Jew, I was disappointed to see my indigenous Middle Eastern community completely omitted from the revised Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum. As a Jewish person of color, and as an immigrant, it was troublesome to me that the primary reference to Jews in the curriculum was in the context of our communities being the beneficiaries of white privilege.” Echoing the sentiments of Stand With Us and Israeli American Council, many of the Mizrahi Jews who called in requested that JIMENA’s lesson plan, “Antisemitism and Middle Eastern-American Jews” be added to the curriculum. JIMENA is seeking not only inclusion of materials reflecting Southwest Asian and North African demographics in California, but transparency in the process of the curriculum’s development. We implore the California Department of Education to ensure that new materials added to the curriculum, goes through the 45-day public comment periods, in accordance with AB 2016.
My name is Sarah Levin and I serve as the Executive Director of JIMENA: Jews Indigenous to the Middle East and North Africa, an organization representing the interests of Jews from North Africa and the Middle East – also known as Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews. We have a very large constituency base in the Los Angeles Unified School District – including many Iranians. I’m here to appeal to you, not only in my official role, but as a concerned mother who is a product of, and a firm believer in public-schools and in ethnic studies. My sons come from a Jewish background that includes Iraqi, Turkish and Israeli heritage. We are two of the more than 500,000 Californians of Middle Eastern heritage who were completely omitted from the Arab American Studies Course of the Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum. With a coalition of Mizrahi Jews, Assyrian Christians, Coptic Christians, Kurds and Iranians of various faiths – we are asking you to please focus on supporting the revision process mandated by the State Board of Education, and do not even consider a vote endorsing the first draft of the Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum. Like you, I am looking forward to our schools and students receiving the highest quality, most rigorous curriculum – which is surely not the Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum which State Board of Education President Linda Darling-Hammond, State Superintendent Tony Thurmond, Governor Gavin Newsom, AB 331 author Jose Medina, and many other officials strongly criticized. Thank you.
Re: Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum – Middle East and North Africa We, the undersigned organizations are writing to request revisions be made to the draft Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum (ESMC). Together our groups comprise a minority-majority coalition representing an estimated combined total population of over 500,000, or at least 60%, of the Middle Eastern diasporic population in California (4,5). Our communities are racially, ethnically, culturally, and religiously diverse yet we all identify as groups indigenous to the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) (1) – most of whom fled oppression and persecution to ultimately settle in our beautiful State of California. Despite our high numbers, our communities and stories were omitted from the Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum. The curriculum, as it was written, does not reflect Middle Eastern pupil demographics in the State of California nor “allow school districts to adapt their courses to reflect the pupil demographics in their communities” as AB 2016 (CA Education Code Section 51226.7(b)) requires. The Middle East and North Africa, which was once one of the most ethnically and racially diverse areas of the world, is quickly becoming homogenous as a result of the types of oppressions that an Ethnic Studies pedagogy is committed to teaching. Our Middle Eastern and North African diasporic community’s experiences as persecuted, indigenous, minorities – and later as refugees and immigrants attests to this. Much of the MENA region continues to be plagued by civil war and social strife. With high levels of female unemployment (~40%), nearly half of MENA’s population lives on less than US$5.50 per day. (2) As refugees and immigrants, many of us continue to face discrimination in this country, at school, and in our communities with our centers frequent targets of hate crimes. We fear that our exclusion from a curriculum, which we support, would contribute to the ongoing cultural genocide and erasure of minority voices from the Middle East and North Africa. Our inclusion in the curriculum would affirm the important and compelling minority voices from the MENA region. While the ESMC has a lesson on students mapping the MENA region (3), it only explores in depth one, non-representative, regional ethno-religious group leaving educators and students to falsely conflate all Middle Easterners as “Muslims” and “Arabs.” In fact, of the estimated 720,000 individuals of MENA origin in California, 54% are not Arabs and an estimated 31% are not Muslim. (4,5) The ESMC’s current narrow and misleading focus deprives students of a critical framework for learning about the full panoply of MENA Americans’ experiences. At a time when there is great need to provide our students with the highest-quality education related to race, ethnicity, and nation our hope is to see the ESMC include us. We suggest changing the “Arab American Studies” course outline to “Middle Eastern American Studies” so the vast majority of Middle Eastern and North African children can see themselves reflected in the California curriculum and their classmates can learn their family and communal stories too. We’d like to reference the California State Board of Education’s 2013 “Social Content Standards” (6) as they were so beautifully written and if taken into consideration would provide a wonderful reframing for a Middle Eastern American Studies Course that is inclusive of diverse MENA communities. These standards are focused on diversity and proportions of portrayals — that “help end stereotyping [by] portray[ing] accurately and equitably the cultural and racial diversity of American society [including] women and minorities in other societies.” Similarly, the State Board of Education’s approved Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum Guidelines require “balance” and that it “validate students’ lived experiences,” and be “inclusive.” (7) The relevant Social Content Standards include (6): 1. Ethnic and Cultural Groups. To “instill in each child a sense of pride in his or her heritage, develop a feeling of self-worth [and] eradicate the roots of prejudice:” 2. Proportion of portrayals. “must portray accurately, to the extent possible, the roles and contributions of a fair proportion of diverse ethnic groups.” 3. Religion. To “enable all students to become aware and accepting of religious diversity while being allowed to remain secure in any religious beliefs they may already have …without displaying bias toward or prejudice against any of those beliefs” Employing these required standards will produce an ethnic studies course that teaches students about the communities most likely enrolled in their schools. For instance: Palestinian-Americans, who comprise an estimated 3% (4) of California’s MENA population (7), are featured in the Arab American Studies course outline and mentioned in the Introduction as well as the Glossary. Yet, the two largest MENA groups in California – Iranians, who comprise 26% (4) of California’s MENA population; and Israelis and Jews of MENA descent, who comprise 28% (4,5) — are not mentioned at all. Also not mentioned are MENA Christians (Assyrian Christians, Coptic Christians, and non-Muslim Middle Eastern Christian) who also comprise a sizable portion of California’s MENA population. We ask that the California Department of Education consider the inclusion of lesson plans, or educational content, written by scholars from the following religious and ethnic communities; Zoroastrians, Coptic-Christians, Assyrian-Christians, Mizrahi Jews, Baha’is, Yezidis, Iranians, and Kurds. We commend the California Department of Education and the ESMC writers and advisory committee members for their hard work and desire to provide our students with a high-quality Ethnic Studies curriculum. We stand ready to support you in developing this curriculum to provide accurate, balanced, high-quality content addressing our histories and cultures, as well as racism, justice, and equality, to empower all of our State’s students. Thank you, 30 Years After Assyrian Association of Southern California Assyrian Foundation of America Coptic Solidarity JIMENA: Jews Indigenous to the Middle East and North Africa Kurdish Community of Southern California Los Angeles Baha’i Center Public Affairs Alliance of Iranian Americans Zoroastrian Association of California Footnotes: 1. Algeria, Bahrain, Djibouti, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Malta, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syrian Arab Republic, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, West Bank and Gaza, and Yemen. 2. https://www.worldbank.org/en/region/mena/overview 3. ESMC Chapter 2, pages 237 and 275. 4. 2018 US Census Data, People Reporting Ancestry. https://bit.ly/2YeEDAh 5. Berman Jewish Databank, US Jewish Population, 2018 (with MENA Jews accounting for an estimated 25% of California’s Jewish population) https://bit.ly/3hGTqvl 6. Content Standards https://www.cde.ca.gov/ci/cr/cf/lc.asp 7. ESMC Guidelines. https://www.cde.ca.gov/ci/cr/cf/ethnicguidelines.asp
In 2016, the State of California passed legislation, AB 2016, requiring the State Board of Education to adopt an Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum for high school students. Unfortunately, their first draft of the model curriculum completely ignores the experiences of Jewish American, promotes a boycott of Israel, and ignores antisemitism. Furthermore, in conflict with its stated guidelines, the Model Curriculum erases the histories, voices, and experiences of American minority communities from the Middle East and North Africa – including those of Mizrahi and Sephardic Jews. To the Instructional Quality Commission of the California Board of Education: We, the undersigned Sephardic and Mizrahi Jewish organizations and synagogues in communities throughout California commend Governor Brown for signing AB 2016, requiring the State Board of Education to adopt an Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum. Like California’s Department of Education, we too believe that a strong state requires excellent educational opportunities that include culturally meaningful, inclusive content that promotes civic responsibility, self-empowerment, cultural competency, and critical thinking. As a sub-ethnic group indigenous to the Middle East and North Africa, these values are core to our community and we are pleased to see them so well-articulated in the Ethnic Studies Curriculum Guidelines. We offer our feedback to the Advisory Committee in good-faith that the model curriculum can be improved to positively impact students, educators and schools throughout our state of California. We would like to open our review by providing context on who we are as a community. To begin, Mizrahi Jews are an indigenous group from the Middle East, whose ancestors lived continuously in the region for over 2,500 years. Sephardic Jewish communities from Spain integrated into North African and Middle Eastern Jewish communities as a result of the Spanish Inquisition and today there is much overlap between Mizrahi and Sephardic Jews. In the mid to late 20th century, state-sanctioned antisemitism, frequently taken under the banner of anti-Zionism, led to the ethnic cleansing and displacement of close to one million Mizrahi and Sephardic Jews from countries throughout the Middle East and North Africa. 650,000 of these Jews fled to Israel as stateless refugees and the remainder scattered to countries around the world, including the USA. Today, Mizrahi and Sephardic Jews comprise over half of Israel’s Jewish population. Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews are a racially diverse ethnic sub-group that is both proudly Jewish and proudly Middle Eastern. This intersection provides us with a unique vantage point and we share our concerns about the proposed Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum, bringing our full identities and experiences to the conversation. We would like to frame our comments by quoting directly from the statutory guidelines in the curriculum. The very first requirement states that, “The model curriculum shall be written as a guide to allow school districts to adapt their courses to reflect the pupil demographics in their communities.” We estimate that the state of California is home to some 236,000 Jews of Middle Eastern and North African descent. Our families arrived in California as Arabic, Farsi, Judeo-Spanish, Turkish, and Hebrew speaking refugees and immigrants from Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Turkey, Yemen, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Iraq and Iran. Notably, the Iranian Jewish community in Los Angeles comprises an estimated 60,000 individuals, making them one of the largest Middle Eastern diasporic communities in the United States. Despite our community’s numbers, we have been completely erased from the Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum, most notably from the Arab American Studies Course outline. There is no possible way that the Arab American Studies Course curriculum, as it is currently written, can adequately reflect Mizrahi demographics, needs and interests in the state of California. The Arab American Studies Course Outline within the curriculum is deeply problematic. It is highly politicized and not built on foundational scholarship necessary for the quality education our students deserve. It lacks cultural competency, nuance and sensitivity to student demographics. While the Middle East and North Africa is one of the most ethnically and religiously diverse regions in the world, within the model curriculum the term “Arab” is never defined leaving educators and readers to easily conflate “Arabs,” “Muslims,” and “Middle Easterners.” Minority groups and experiences from the Middle East and North Africa are totally erased from the curriculum portraying Arabs as a homogenous, Muslim group. The Arab American Studies Course violates a number of the Ethnic Studies Curriculum Guidelines. It is not written in a language that is inclusive and supportive of multiple users as it excludes and erases the experiences, perspectives, and voices of diverse Middle Eastern communities – including Mizrahi Jews indigenous to the region. If the curriculum is to be consistent with an intersectional frame that is supportive of multiple users, then it must identify the histories, perspectives, voices and oppression of diverse Middle Eastern communities – including those that diverge from dominant Middle Eastern narratives. The Arab Studies Course erasure of Jewish and minority Middle Eastern perspectives perpetuates a legacy of oppression and cultural genocide of non-Muslim Middle Eastern groups who fled persecution to find sanctuary in the Unites States. It will fail in promoting self and collective empowerment of Coptic students, Bahai Students, Mizrahi Jewish students, Assyrian students, Iranian students, Kurdish students, Yazidi students and non-Muslim Middle Eastern students who together constitute a sizeable Middle Eastern demographic in California yet are entirely erased in the curriculum. The course presents only one Middle Eastern experience – that of Arab Muslims. By only exploring the experience of the dominant ethnic – religious group from the Middle East, the course will fail to promote rigorous analysis of history, systems of oppression, and the status quo in an effort to generate discussions on futurity, and imagine new possibilities. The inclusion of diverse Middle Eastern experiences and perspectives is essential for a full and rich understanding of Middle Eastern American identity, and it necessary in avoiding an essentialist understanding of “Arabness.” It is also essential in understanding current events in the Middle East such as the Syrian Civil War, and the ongoing oppression and cleansing of Coptic Christians, Assyrians and Yezidis from the region. Furthermore, as an integral part of the larger Jewish community, we are writing to express our deepest concerns that the Model Curriculum excludes any reference to antisemitism and its current manifestations. As 2018 FBI statistics have noted, hate crimes against Jews have risen by 37% accounting for over half of religious-based hate crimes in the United States. It is at this time that the American Jewish community, particularly students and young adults, are in need of consideration, allyship, and support. At a time of increased vulnerability for American Jews, it is essential that the State of California do its best to protect the unique needs and sensitivities towards American Jewish students. This includes exercising extreme caution in public discourse and teaching of the Israeli Palestinian conflict. The over-emphasis of the Israeli Palestinian conflict and the definition of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) in the Model Curriculum are both framed entirely from the vantage of proponents of BDS and fail to adhere to curriculum guidelines that require content to be taught in a manner that is “balanced“, “inclusive“, and reflective of “different perspectives“. While Jews are an indigenous ethnic group to modern day Israel, our voices are omitted in all curricular references to the Israeli Palestinian conflict. This is deeply troublesome. The one-sided framing of the Israeli Palestinian conflict in the Model Curriculum creates a scenario where it’s not unlikely that Jewish students may be stereotyped, accused of dual-loyalty, harassed and forced to face social litmus tests. The Israeli-Arab conflict is an incredibly complex and fraught subject. We are concerned that teachers will not be prepared or able to teach and facilitate conversations on an incredibly complex conflict, and that the curricular guidelines encourage simplistic, one-sided approaches that fail to reflect the full panoply of experiences, perspectives, and interests essential to any critical discussion of the region. As a large Middle Eastern community in the State of California we recommend that the Arab American Studies Course be overhauled and re-written with the involvement and oversight of a representative committee of diverse Middle Eastern communities residing in California. We very much want to see Middle Eastern American Studies integrated into the Model Curriculum and would be delighted to work together with a diverse team of Middle Eastern curriculum writers, scholars, educators and organizations to ensure that we are providing our students with the highest quality educational material on Middle Eastern American identity. We simultaneously believe it is critical to remove the unbalanced definition of BDS from the glossary of terms and to include a working definition for antisemitism. Thank you for your consideration, 30 Years After, Los Angeles Baba Sale Congregation, Los Angeles Bar Yohai Sephardic Minyan, Sunnyvale Congregation Magen David, Beverly Hills Iranian American Jewish Federation, Los Angeles JIMENA: Jews Indigenous to the Middle East and North Africa, San Francisco Kahal Joseph Congregation, Los Angeles The Karaite Jews of America, Daly City Magain David Sephardim Congregation, San Francisco Sephardic Education Center, Los Angeles Sephardic Temple Tifereth Israel, Los Angeles
Dear Mr. Bennett, As the November 30th Day of Commemoration for Jewish Refugees from Arab Countries and Iran approaches, we representatives of the international Mizrahi, Sephardic, and Iranian Jewish communities turn our attention towards education of Israeli and Diaspora Jews about our history and heritage. We commend your Ministry’s efforts to support this cause by creating curriculum and teaching materials relating to the history of Middle Eastern & North African Jewry. We are thrilled to have a Minister of Education in office whose values are so aligned with our own, in your championing of heritage studies, affirming the cultural diversity of Israel and recognizing the importance of Mizrahi history. So far, the Israeli government has left the teaching of Mizrahi history and heritage to the discretion of schools. We ask that you continue to support this initiative by ensuring that the Mizrahi history curriculum be made compulsory and that all schools observe the Day of Commemoration. As you know, Israeli students of all ethnicities and cultural backgrounds must be given the tools to gain awareness and understanding of Mizrahi history, as it is integral to the fabric and foundation of Israeli society. In order to help disseminate the Day of Commemoration curriculum internationally, we also request that the educational materials be translated into English. The upholding of the Day of Commemoration curriculum is vital not only to Israeli Jewry but also to those of us in the Diaspora who are not being exposed to the history of Jews from Arab countries and Iran. Israel will set the precedent for Jewish education and Israel advocacy in the United States and beyond. In western countries, students are not being exposed to the history of Jews from Arab countries and Iran. Most westerners, including Diaspora Jews, have a skewed understanding of Jews as a homogenous European people without roots in the Middle East. In turn, they lack an understanding of Israeli society and Israel’s role as a multi-ethnic safe haven for Jews from all parts of the world. It is vital for all students to learn that over 50% of Israeli Jews descend from Jewish refugees from Arab countries and Iran. By implementing Mizrahi heritage studies, students in the Diaspora would be far better equipped to advocate for Israel. In order to effect this change, and influence our Jewish institutions, we depend on Israel to lead by example. We have greatly appreciated all that you have done so far to carry out this initiative, and look forward to your continued partnership. Sincerely, Sam Yebri, President30 Years After David Dangoor, PresidentAmerican Sephardic Federation Maurice Maleh, ChairmanAssociation of Jews from Egypt (UK) Andre Dehry, PresidentFederation des Associations Sepharades de France Lyn Julius, PresidentHARIF: UK Association of Jews from the Middle East and North Africa Susan Azizzadeh, PresidentIranian American Jewish Federation Levana Zamir, PresidentIsraeli Association of Jews from Arab Countries Gina Bublil-Waldman, PresidentJIMENA: Jews Indigenous to the Middle East and North Africa Rabbi Ellie Abadie, PresidentJJAC: Justice for Jews from Arab Countries Rabbi Daniel Bouskila, International DirectorSephardic Education Center Yehuda Azoulay, FounderSephardic Legacy Project