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Seems there's a lot of confusion around why Jews were not initially included in the California ethnic studies curriculum. Here's a thread based on Gabi Kirk's reporting for @JewishCurrents
Ethnic studies developed as a discipline in the 60s and 70s as a political education effort to "make legible how histories of colonialism, imperialism, and nationalism shape the contemporary moment" (Keith Feldman, professor of ethnic studies, UC Berkeley) https://jewishcurrents.org/attacks-from-pro-israel-groups-threaten-californias-ethnic-studies-curriculum/
There was broad alienation of Zionist Jews energized by the 1967 War, in which Israel began its occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, from radical movements around this time. But that is not why Jews were not "included" in ethnic studies.
It has more to do with the development of these disciplines within the academy. Very roughly, Jewish studies was oriented largely around religious studies & Jewish European history—not oriented around frameworks of colonialism, imperialism, & nationalism like ethnic studies.
Many ethnic studies professors and Jewish studies professors agree that it is important to think about Jews and antisemitism within the context of ethnic studies for the benefit of both disciplines.
But some Jewish Studies educators say JS has to do the work within the discipline first—in ways that would necessarily transform it—to make space for marginalized voices and new/underexplored points of connection. Max Greenberg, PhD candidate in Chicano/a Studies at UCLA:
This is important work for Jewish studies, which has largely not reckoned with marginalization of minorities within Jewish life as well as its various relationships to colonialism.
Sephardi/Mizrahi experience seems a natural bridge to ethnic studies, so it seems logical that the new curriculum draft contains a lesson plan from the S/M group JIMENA. But this lesson plan is a perfect encapsulation of how Jewish groups are using ethnic studies to undermine it
The lesson plan says its aim is to help students understand experiences of discrimination faced by Sephardi/Mizrahi Jews but it makes no mention of Islamophobia or marginalization within Jewish society by Ashkenazi Jews, two primary experiences of S/M Jews https://jewishcurrents.org/authors-of-california-ethnic-studies-curriculum-decry-cuts-to-arab-studies/
Most of the resources in the curriculum are about antisemitism *in general*, not S/M experience. It also seeks to include the IHRA definition of antisemitism, opposed even by liberal Zionist groups on the grounds that it shuts down criticism of Israel. https://www.reconstructingjudaism.org/news/progressive-israel-network-groups-oppose-codification-ihra-working-definition-antisemitism
Here's professor of Sephardic studies Devin Naar, whose work constitutes the only examples of Sephardi/Mizrahi-specific content in the curriculum:
In the meantime, despite claims that Jews are being "cleansed" from ethnic studies (language that plays on Jewish fear of annihilation) what has actually happened is, under pressure from "pro-Israel" groups, Arab Am Studies has been vastly diminished & Palestine has been erased
Israel advocacy groups objected to the mention of the Nakba, the mass expulsion of Arabs from their homes during the 1948 War, as well as a mention of BDS, and even to the use of the word "Palestine" as a place (preferring "Palestinian territories").
There was also objection to the lesson for including Representative Rashida Tlaib, the first Palestinian American woman in Congress, because she publicly supports BDS.
The dispiriting thing in all this is that there is plenty of goodwill to find bridges between these academic disciplines. Instead, as Kirk's reporting shows, groups focused on Israel advocacy & hostile to the entire project of ethnic studies are driving the public conversation.
Just adding a very important point from @brat_skoff about the formation of Jewish Studies https://twitter.com/brat_skoff/status/1357452057192525826?s=20
