San Rafael parents concerned over the required reading of a book they claim glorified Jesus and vilified Jews are breathing a tentative sigh of relief.
Three members of San Rafael’s five-person Board of Education declared at a Dec. 11 meeting that a more suitable book than “The Bronze Bow” could be used in classrooms.
The board didn’t officially say it would remove the Newbery Medal-winning book from the required list by next year, but after suggestions for alternative texts are submitted by an ad-hoc panel of parents, teachers and clergy, its exclusion is all but a fait acompli.
“The school board tells us the book is gone, it’s just a matter of [undergoing] a process that’s a partnership between parents and teachers to come up with recommendations for an alterative,” said Tom Allen, a father of two children in the school system who lobbied against the book.
A group of predominantly but not exclusively Jewish parents has been pushing the school system for several months to take the 45-year-old novel out of classrooms. “The Bronze Bow” was intended to teach San Rafael middle-schoolers about life in Roman times, but was, in fact, originally penned by author Elizabeth George Speare to help her Sunday school class better understand the life of Jesus.
“The more I read it, the more my eyes began to bug out because the basic premise is that every time Jesus appears it’s as if you’re watching the religious movies they used to show on TV on Sunday when I was a kid,” parent Leonard Levy told j. in October.
“He’s bathed in light, he has powerful eyes and everyone is astounded by him. It’s as if a chorus of angels is showing up. Jesus is incredible and depictions of anything that has to do with Judaism are unredeemingly negative.”
“The Bronze Bow” will still be available in school libraries, even if it is removed from required reading lists.