Back in the day, when I was a mesivta rebbi, there were times when a piece of chalk I was using to write on a blackboard (if you don’t know what those things are, young’uns, ask your grandparents) broke on me. When it did, I would glower at the piece on the floor and growl in Yiddish, “AnteseMIT!”
It was my little joke (and lesson) about how silly it is to see Jew-haters under the bed (or blackboard).
It still is, of course. Alas, though, these day, there are all too many other places where anti-Semitism lurks, some of it loud and in the open, some of it, if not quite in broken pieces of chalk or under beds, less blatant, even subliminal. But, all the same, all too real.
That memory was conjured by the controversy over the assignment of a book as required reading to first grade public school students in Montgomery County, Maryland, which adjoins Washington, DC, and includes the cities of Silver Spring, Bethesda, Germantown, Rockville and Gaithersburg.
The book is called Tunjur! Tunjur! Tunjur! A Palestinian Folktale and recounts the story of an animated pot. A woman “prayed to All-h” for a child and instead received the pot, which acts like an unruly child and steals things from others.
In the end, the pot gets its comeuppance and is filled with refuse from a goat pen.
“I hope you’ve learned your lesson,” the pot’s mother tells it. “You cannot take things that do not belong to you.”
Some Jewish community members have registered objections to the inclusion of the book in the reading curriculum.
Now, including an Arab folktale in a grade school curriculum shouldn’t in itself raise any hackles. It should be no less acceptable than a Greek or American fable. And the lesson of the story is one that is most certainly appropriate for first graders.
As Guila Franklin Siegel, COO of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington, put it: “It will be a shame if Jewish people wind up objecting to books only because they have protagonists who happen to be Palestinian.”
But Ms. Franklin Siegel overlooks the inclusion of “All-h”—a name that clearly telegraphs Islam. And religion is generally not seen as appropriate in a public grade school. Were the reference to an explicitly Christian or Hindu word for an object of veneration, there would likely be objections, and reasonably so.
But there is something more here, and, at least to me, subtly objectionable: the juxtaposition of “Palestinian,” “All-h” and stealing.
The political narrative of those who seek to remove Jews “from the river to the sea” contends, against all historical fact and contemporary reality, that “the Jews” have “stolen” land that belongs to Arabs. And that Israel is, therefore, an illegitimate state.
The story of the purloining pot, of course, has nothing to do with politics. It predates Israel’s establishment and simply seeks to convey an ethical message. I’ve no problem with the story (though All-h’s odd response to the woman’s plea for a child, and the scatological denouement leave me less than enthusiastic about it).
But its inclusion in a public school curriculum at a time when anti-Semitism in the guise of anti-Zionism is rampant is irresponsible. As every cogent teacher knows, some of the most lasting lessons are imparted subtly, even subliminally.
Jews have been assaulted by people claiming to act on behalf of “Palestinians.” Public demonstrations, with participants shouting anti-Israel slurs, have become commonplace.
Vandalism of shuls and Jewish institution buildings is no longer even newsworthy.
In fact, Montgomery County schools, including three elementary ones—have been vandalized with anti-Semitic graffiti since 2023.
Am I, by seeing anti-Israel sentiment in the promotion of an old folktale, being the sort of paranoid I mocked when I called a piece of chalk anti-Semitic? Some would surely say so.
But times and circumstances change. And so do expressions of disdain for Jews and calls for action against us.
Jew-hatred mutates and adapts to the times. And society does well to spy its mutations where they lurk.
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