The National Council for the Social Studies is an inclusive body that values its diverse membership and has always stood in opposition to hate.

NCSS opposes all forms of Antisemitism and Antisemitic Violence and all forms of bigotry and discrimination based on race, religion, national origin, ethnicity, and sexual preference and identity. 

On May 26, 2016, the International Holocaust  Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) Plenary in Budapest adopted the following working definition of antisemitism: “Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.”

Recently, the subject of antisemitism, and combating antisemitism and its impact today, has been increasingly addressed by a number of professional associations and publishers through informative conferences, webinars, and excellent classroom teaching materials. Because of an increase in antisemitic attacks, this must be addressed as a major Social Studies issue.

The 2020 National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) House of Delegates (HOD) passed Resolution # 20-04-8 “Against Antisemitism and Antisemitic Violence,” which was approved as policy by the NCSS Board of Directors in 2021.  

In light of rising incidents in 2020, the NCSS 2020 Resolution called for education against Antisemitism and Antisemitic Violence and the issuing of a Position Statement by NCSS on antisemitism and bigotry and discrimination based on race, religion, national origin, ethnicity, and sexual preference and identity. 

As a professional association of educators, NCSS believes the best weapon of defense against Antisemitism, Antisemitic Violence, and all forms of discrimination is “Education.” We as Social Studies Educators must be in the forefront of such Education.

Interestingly, Antisemitism encompasses discrimination based on almost all of the list: discrimination and bigotry based on race, religion, national origin, ethnicity, and identity.  

Interestingly also, for the purposes of this Position Statement, it should be noted that some branches of Judaism have been fighting from within against gender discrimination and sexual preference and identity discrimination, and have embraced policies that recognize equality in terms of gender and sexual preference and identity.

Antisemitism has taken on several forms depending on the culture, location, and historical context.

By looking at the list of prejudices in the Resolution mandate, we can look at how fighting against Antisemitism is entwined.

This will help us better understand how discrimination and bigotry has been hurting many groups of people.

Antisemitism is continuing to rise in the United States and around the world. The Anti Defamation League (ADL) has created a HEAT Map (Hate, Extremism, Antisemitism, Terrorism) tracking incidents in every part of the United States and around the world.  Such incidents must be swiftly reported, investigated and prosecuted as hate crimes. In 2020 and 2021 alone there were 12,348 reported incidents of extremism or antisemitism in the United States, according to the HEAT Map.

The United Nations General Assembly, designated January 27, the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, as International Holocaust Remembrance Day. On January 20, 2022, as reported in the January-February 2022 issue of the American Society for Yad Vashem newsletter “Martyrdom and Resistance,” the UN General assembly unanimously condemned Holocaust Denial and the Distortion of the Holocaust.

NCSS for a long time has been in the forefront of Holocaust Education. The Holocaust is the most known form of Antisemitism.

But Antisemitism and Antisemitic Violence did not begin and end with Hitler and Nazism. 

The enormity of the Holocaust makes it unique in Jewish History, but teaching about the Holocaust, should include the study of the history of Antisemitism in the past and the study of Antisemitism today.  

Also, it should be remembered that Antisemitism has not been unique to Europe and the United States.  It has also occurred in North Africa and the Middle East, and at different times, in many places where Jews have lived as minorities.

The study of Antisemitism must begin first with an understanding of what is Judaism and who is Jewish.

Judaism is both a religion and a culture. As such it is entwined with religion, race, identity, ethnicity, and national origin.

Race

Judaism has been described as a race, particularly in the context of the Nazi Nuremberg Laws, 1935, where if you had three or more grandparents born into the Jewish religious community you were considered Jewish by law (with subsequent legislation affecting people having only one or two grandparents born into the Jewish religious community), and, therefore, a member of an inferior race. This despite the fact that there are Jews of Arab, Black, and Asian heritage in addition to the better known white European Jews.  Identifying Jews as a Race is a form of Antisemitism. Jews are not a Race. Jews originated in the Middle East, have a shared culture and history, and encompass a mosaic of people of many complexions.

Identity

Jews will self identify as Jews, accepting various belief systems, or their own conscience.  According to Jewish Law someone is Jewish if their mother is Jewish. Conversion to Judaism as a religion in its various forms is also possible.  

But Judaism as a culture is inherited through family and community and may be the most consequential element for self identification independent of religious practice or lack of practice.

Ethnicity

Judaism is sometimes culturally identified by language, dress, dietary laws, and particular religious observances, but assimilated modern Jews may not adhere to these in current practice.

Collective Memory connects the Jewish People, as seen in the discussion of the Exodus in the Torah and at the Seder meal in the  yearly celebration of Passover. The most important Jewish religious holidays are Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement) and Rosh Hashanah (the New Year). The most celebrated Jewish holiday among both observant and secular (non-observant) Jews is Passover (the Exodus from Egypt). Purim (Book of Esther) and Hanukkah (Victory of the Maccabees) are also holidays.

Both religious observance and cultural identity have taken many forms among Jews.

The majority of Jews in the United States are of Eastern European or German background and are called Ashkenazi (Eastern) Jews.  In Eastern Europe they spoke Yiddish, a West Germanic language. In religious observance Ashkenazi Jews are divided in observance as Orthodox, Modern Orthodox, Chassidic, Conservative, Reform, Reconstructionist, Non-affiliated and Secular, and even more. Also in the United States are Sephardic Jews, Central Asian Jews, and other ethnic/national groups. (See below for further discussion of Sephardic Jews and other Jewish ethnic / national groups.)

National Identity

After the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem, Jews moved to many parts of the Roman Empire.

In the Middle Ages, Jews lived during a “Golden Age” in the Iberian Peninsula under Muslim rule until the Muslim defeat by the Catholic kings. Spanish Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492 and shortly thereafter from Portugal in the Catholic Inquisition. They moved into North Africa, the Middle East and parts of Western Europe, and even to the new colonies of North and South America. Some outwardly converted to Catholicism but remained secret practicing Jews called Marranos. These Jews, called Sephardi (Spanish) spoke Ladino, a form of Spanish, and unique Spanish-Arabic-Hebrew languages, depending on their location.

The transplanted Jews were received in various ways: they were welcomed, accepted, restricted and taxed heavily, persecuted, killed, and eventually forced to migrate. But they clung to their Collective Memory, and found joy in their religion and culture.

During the Middle Ages some of those Jews in German speaking areas, the aforementioned Ashkenazi, moved to Eastern Europe where they were welcomed in the new towns in recently cleared forests, bringing their Yiddish language with them. Later, they too faced restrictions.  By the 19th century Eastern Europe contained the largest collective population of Jews in the world, sometimes referred to as the Pale of Settlement within the Russian Empire, 1791-1917.

Meanwhile, going back as far as biblical times, Jewish  merchants and traders formed pockets of Jewish communities in the Middle East, Central Asia, Persia, Afghanistan and India, even China and Ethiopia and Biafra (Nigeria) in Africa.  Each formed their own unique Jewish customs and cultures, and as in other places, the transplanted Jews, were received in various ways: they were welcomed, accepted, restricted and taxed heavily, persecuted, killed, and eventually forced to migrate. But, here too, they clung to their Collective Memory, and found joy in their religion and culture.

In modern times, descendants in some of these Jewish communities experienced mass expulsions, such as in Syria in the mid-nineteenth century, and in almost all Muslim countries after the establishment of Israel as a Jewish state in 1948, following the Holocaust. 

Many Ashkenazi Jews moved to large cities all over Europe and to the United States in the 19th and early 20th centuries. When migration laws in the United States became more restrictive in 1924, European Jews migrated to South America to escape persecution and to escape the Holocaust. Many Holocaust survivors moved to Israel and the United States.

Through these many upheavals, Jews were forced to flee in fear, and today most Jews live in Israel and the United States.  Many countries that have had large numbers of Jews as part of their population now have none.  Some countries, in addition to Israel and the United States, with identifiable large communities of Jews are Ukraine and Morocco.

Jewish Unity

Overall, there are certain elements that are unique to all Jews.

It is the collective memory of the Jewish People that has determined their continuity. The story of Passover, the annual telling at the Seder, solidifies the collective memory.

This particular collective memory may be viewed as specific to the Jewish People. Throughout history, Jews have suffered persecution and genocide.  Note that Jews were seen as outsiders where they lived, not only as observers of a particular religion, but as possessing their own culture.  Jews experienced joy as participants in their own culture and religion, including their collective memory, their history, ethnicity, language, food, dress and occupations. Jews survived by feeling they were in a shared supportive community, and by the telling of their collective memory, by telling and re-telling their story, through tradition and cultural values.

A Note on Gender Equality and Gender Preference and Identity

As stated above, some branches of Judaism have worked from within to embrace gender equality and sexual preference identity and equality.

The Universal Message of the Jewish Experience

Looking at the Jewish Experience, we can see how it can translate to all peoples.

The story of Passover has a universal message. It is the movement from slavery to freedom, of survival over evil.  The memory of that story calls to all humankind.

The Collective Memory of all peoples should be against bias, hate, and evil.

In addition, understanding the history and culture of Jews and Judaism will create a platform and notable interest in, respect for, and appreciation of the Jewish people, their history, and the influence of Judaism, particularly on the part of a non-Jew. Histories of peoples can be integrated into social studies lessons through acknowledgement of multi-cultural minorities and oppressed minorities within the standard social studies curricula.

NCSS sees the fight against Antisemitism as the fight against hate, the fight against racism, the fight against suppressing cultural and ethnic expression, the fight against religious persecution, the fight against the suppression of ideas, the fight against evil.

NCSS stands not only against Antisemitism, but all forms of racism and discrimination based on race, religion, ethnicity, national origin, and sexual preference and identity.

NCSS urges its members to utilize the many anti-discrimination and anti-hate teaching materials, such as those called for in the NCSS Resolution 18-03-01 “Advocating  Improved Holocaust Education and the Provision of  Necessary Resources,” and other NCSS Resolutions and Position Statements (See NCSS Resources below). 

NCSS applauds increased attention to the subject of Antisemitism, and combating Antisemitism today, by a number of professional associations and publishers through informative conferences, webinars, and excellent classroom teaching materials, and urges NCSS Members to seek these out and utilize them.  They are easily found online.

In addition, Studying Bigotry and Discrimination against all groups of people has a wide range of resource material. They too, are easily found online. NCSS urges Educators and their students to seek them out.

Resources

The Board of Directors of NCSS has previously approved Resolutions and Position Statements concerning Bigotry and Discrimination, which are available on the NCSS website.  Each contains a bibliography and resources.  They are:

NCSS Resolutions

NCSS Resolution 16-02-4
Resolution for the Explicit Support of NCSS for the Inclusion of LGBTQ+ Issues in the Social Studies Classroom (2016)

NCSS Resolution 16-02-5
NCSS to Support Greater Inclusion of and Emphasis on Indigenous Peoples and Nations in Social Studies Education (2016)

NCSS Resolution 18-03-01
Advocating  Improved Holocaust Education and the Provision of Necessary Resources (2018)

NCSS Resolution 20-03-01
Supporting the Teaching of Black Histories (2020)

NCSS Resolution 20-04-03
Making “Black Lives Matter” in Our Schools (2020)

NCSS Resolution 20-04-8 
Against Antisemitism and Antisemitic Violence (2020)
 

NCSS Position Statements

Toward Responsibility: Social Studies Education that Respects and Affirms Indigenous Peoples and Nations
Approved by the NCSS Board of Directors in March 2018.

A Response to Anti-Asian Harassment and Violence during COVID-19
Approved by the NCSS Board of Directors on May 18, 2020

Human Rights Education 
Approved and published by the NCSS Board of Directors in 2021

The Study of Religion in the Social Studies Curriculum
Approved and published 2021

NCSS Statement in Support of Trans Youth, Trans Educators, and Our LGBTQ+ Community 
Approved and published March 24, 2022

Other Resources

International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) Plenary, “Working Definition of Antisemitism” (May 26, 2016) https://holocaustremembrance.com/resources/working-definitions-charters/working-definition-antisemitism

Anti Defamation League (ADL) “HEAT Map (Hate, Extremism, Antisemitism, Terrorism)” https://www.adl.org/resources/tools-to-track-hate/heat-map

American Society for Yad Vashem newsletter “Martyrdom and Resistance,” (January-February 2022) https://www.yadvashemusa.org/martyrdom-and-resistance/

ADL, USC Shoah Foundation, Yad Vashem, “Echoes and Reflections” (2005) www.echoesandreflections.org