A speech by Alex Koifman, President of RJCF at the Newton Public School board meeting where concerned Newton citizens gather to express disgust at the willful negligence of the Newton School Committee, at the continued teaching of bias against Israel that has been the focus of controversy in this leafy, heavily Jewish suburb for more than 5 years.

Good Evening, my name is Alex Koifman. I am a long-time Newton resident. My son graduated from Newton North. I am president of the Russian Jewish Community Foundation (RJCF).

I grew up in the Soviet Union where I was taught lies about Israel (and the US). Pretty much everyone in the Russian Jewish community agrees with my description of this Soviet reality. When the Soviet propaganda attacked Israel, everyone – Jews and non-Jews – understood that it was directed toward Jews. How many times I heard from non-Jews: Jews go to your Israel. Anti-Israelism and anti-Semitism are two sides of the same coin.

It is happening here - attacks on Israel are really attacks on Jews. We see it on college campuses. FBI statistics show that Jewish students are harassed more than any other ethnic group, hate crimes against Jews constitute over 50 %(!) of all ethnic hate crimes. This is not a new phenomenon, it has been going on for many years. A great deal of this hate comes from education or lack of it. Thus, when it comes to educational matters that concern Israel, we should be particularly sensitive. That is, special care should be taken to help students understand the truth regarding the current reality of Israel and to prevent them from making distorted or even anti-Semitic conclusions. This is one of the key reasons why the transparent history curriculum is needed in Newton that is home to a large Jewish community. Make no mistake about it, people who hate Israel, also hate America.

Yet, there is another reason, equally important. There have been several documented incidents, in which students in Newton schools already have been given information about the situation in Israel -- information that was presented as part of their curriculum-- that was misleading. In particular:
- Students were given a photo-shopped Hamas charter where in the phrase “to kill Jews” the word Jews was replaced with Israelis.
- Students were presented with maps showing Israeli “occupation” without telling them that these are actually the PLO propaganda maps.
- The list goes on and on.

We thought that anti-Israel propaganda is no longer happening in Newton. It is getting even worse and on a larger scale. Now, we have the movie Ismail that compares Jewish soldiers to the Nazis. I remember watching war movies in the USSR that showed German soldiers beating civilians with their rifles’ butts and yelling “schnell” (fast). Same parallels are being displayed in this fabrication that made look like a documentary. This is blatant anti-Semitism.

The State Department’s 2010 definition of antisemitism was formulated to fight what is referred to as “the new antisemitism.” Unlike the antisemitism of the first half of the 20th century which was directed against Jews as individuals, antisemitism today is increasingly expressed as hatred of Jews for their support for Israel – the collective Jew.
The State Department’s definition of Jew-hatred includes the de-legitimization of Israel’s right to exist, demonization of the State of Israel, including by likening it to Nazi Germany, and the use of double standards to judge Israel’s actions. It also defines as an expression of Jew-hatred the allegation that Jews are more loyal to Israel than they are to their countries of citizenship.

I have a question for the school committee. Why do you allow such a blatant anti-Israel propaganda? I do not think you are so naïve to believe in this garbage. I repeat my question, why do you teach against-Israel?

If current school administrators cannot fix the curriculum and make it transparent then it is time to replace them. We Newton residents pay them very high salaries and sure can find qualified ones.

Paradoxically, the Soviet Union collapsed, and the anti-Israel curriculum is now gone from the Russian school system, but still exists in Newton Massachusetts. We will not go away, we will continue to press for objectivity in our kids’ curriculum.

May, 2018

Also, read about a similar meeting on June 11, 2018