In the film “School Ties,” actor Brendan Fraser plays David, a Jewish football recruit at an all-Christian private high school. Strong, good-looking and witty, David is the guy boys want to be and girls want to date.
But the kids tell nasty anti-Semitic jokes and spread the belief that Jews are inferior. So when his coach suggests that David hide his Jewishness, and his father advises him to “fit in,” David chooses to keep his roots to himself.
The 1992 film may have been set in the ’50s, but the phenomenon is hardly passé, according to Anti-Defamation League representatives. Resurgent anti-Semitism is a fact of life for local youth here, especially at the high school and college level, where anti-Zionism and pro-Palestinian nationalism often dominate the liberal agenda.
Addressing those issues, the ADL recently hosted an event at San Francisco’s Congregation Beth Israel-Judea, where educators Marc Engel and Nina Grotch challenged sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders and their parents to look beneath day-to-day assumptions about being a member of a minority faith.
While U.S. anti-Semitism was widespread in the ’50s, it ebbed in the ensuing decades. Today, Bay Area Jewish youth may encounter anti-Semitism more often than their parents, and many don’t tell their parents about those experiences, they pointed out.
“Part of the reason we’re here right now is because of the 900 percent increase in reported incidents of anti-Semitism in the Bay Area, ” said Engel, who co-chairs the ADL’s education committee.
Beth Israel-Judea was also a particularly apt location for the discussion. It was there, shortly before Pesach 2002, that employees discovered a can of incendiary materials stashed on the roof — breaking up what many think was a carefully planned arson attack.
Grotch and Engel took turns taking the audience — a crowd of 40 or so students and a dozen parents — through often-revealing exercises designed to help give young and old more tools to tackle anti-Semitism.
“We do this program because a lot of the time kids or young adults don’t have a lot of tools about what anti-Semitism is, and if they hear it, how
do they address it?” began Grotch. “Often times when you hear it or react to a joke or see something that’s prejudiced, it makes you feel uncomfortable. The more equipped you are with tools and skills, the better you’ll be at dealing with it.”
At the board, Grotch drew the inverted pyramid of an iceberg and sketched in wavy lines to show a simple water line. Below the water line she stacked the words “bigotry,” “prejudice,” “stereotyping,” “insensitivity,” and, at the very bottom, “ignorance.” Above the water line she wrote “discrimination,” “harassment” and finally “hate crime” at the very top.
The drawing, she explained, shows how hate evolves from a foundation of insensitivity to a true criminal act.
“A hate crime is talked about, it’s seen. This doesn’t mean it’s not horrible. It is. But all this stuff,” she pointed below the water line, “is much harder to get at.”
Even though students are perceived as living in a halcyon world, they need to be alert to slights and slurs, and act independently to cut them short, said Grotch.
To help them, Engel explained, first, clarify the issue, using facts. Then insist on standing up for yourself. Finally, if you still feel uncomfortable about the situation or where it might lead, “Tell an adult.”
But the beauty of the iceberg principle, Grotch emphasized, is that one can change things by starting at its base. “It’s much easier to turn things around when it’s still early. This is why it’s important to stop things like jokes, and kids sitting only with the same kinds of kids. This is the only way things will change.”
One exercise was designed to help the students deconstruct myths about Jews — the kind of myth that fuels stereotypes. It was startling for youth to discover how contemporary myths — how Jews were forewarned about 9/11, or how Jews’ actions in Israel are just like what the Nazis did in Germany — fit in with other disturbing theories about Jewish control.
To most of the young people in the room, these myths and their answers, while useful as historical truths, are little ammunition for many schoolyard taunts. Cuts like “That’s so Jewish,” and “Don’t be such a Jew” aren’t just analytical arguments — they’re slurs, too.
“It’s such a prevalent sentiment that this is a common jargon that many people use,” said Engel. “Like ‘That’s so gay.’ …
“I mean what would happen if someone were to say, ‘That’s so Latino,’ or ‘That’s so Asian.’ People would be up in arms about that because it’s clearly not acceptable to say that about any group.”
With that in mind, the ADL has a number of booklets for parents and youth that can be downloaded or ordered through www.adl.org.