Rantz: Seattle school investigating antisemitism is hosting antisemitic conference
Oct 23, 2024, 5:55 AM
(Photo: Kate Stone)
Chief Sealth High School, already facing backlash after a teacher defended Hamas terrorism, is now hosting a weekend conference promoting antisemitic lesson plans. Jewish parents and community members are expressing outrage, calling on Seattle Public Schools (SPS) leaders to cancel or prevent the inclusion of these specific antisemitic workshops.
The Northwest Teaching for Social Justice Conference, a far-left event sponsored, in part, by the Washington Education Association, is intended to train area educators to better use their classrooms to promote partisan social justice causes. While the conference is framed around supporting left-wing educators, students are also allowed to attend and be indoctrinated in antisemitism.
The antisemitic Seattle conference will host over 40 workshops, including “It’s Big Fat Deal: How Schools Teach Contempt for Fat People and What We Can Do About It,” “Decolonizing the Oregon Trail: Anticolonial Teaching Strategies for Elementary Classrooms,” “Why are Schools, Parks and Libraries Free? Young Learners Critically Analyzing Capitalism,” and “Undoing the Myth of Professionalism: Oppressive Cultural Norms and Identifying Sustaining Practices.”
But it’s the anti-Israel workshops and keynote speakers that are concerning Jewish parents.
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What is antisemitic about conference at Seattle school?
Jewish parents have spent the past year watching their children targeted for their faith, enduring chants like “Gas the Jews” and witnessing Nazi symbols deface school property. Now, the prospect of Seattle Public Schools (SPS) hosting workshops that teach educators how to inject antisemitism into their curriculum feels like an even more intolerable betrayal. It’s another alarming step that crosses a line, leaving the community questioning the district’s values and commitment to that “safe and inclusive” environment they keep claiming to support.
“This conference contains discriminatory content that violates the district’s own stated policies and infringes on the civil rights of Jewish, Israeli and all students who identify as Zionists,” a letter from a concerned parent to SPS leadership said.
The afternoon keynote address is titled “Teach Palestine.” It features anti-Israel activist Dr. Alice Rothchild.
Using the specious argument that being anti-Zionism isn’t antisemitism, Rothchild’s activism includes labeling Israel a genocidal and apartheid state. A self-loathing Jewish member of the fringe Jewish Voices for Peace (JVP), she flimsily uses a Jewish identity to fight against a Jewish state. JVP is not a Jewish organization, though uses the term “Jewish” to appear legitimate.
While using Hamas propaganda, she posts her anti-Israel screeds on X, even implying that Israel is an aggressor, not “Hezbollah and other armed groups” in Lebanon. She’s best known for co-authoring a toolkit for educators accused of antisemitism. It claims a cabal of “right-wing Jews” are weaponizing accusations of antisemitism against educators and “are acting in their own racist political interests–not in the interests of Jews or liberation for all.” In other words, the toolkit accuses Jews of precisely what antisemitic educators are doing.
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Antisemitic workshops meant to teach children to hate Jews
Rothchild is also teaching one of the workshops at the antisemitic Seattle conference: “Incorporating K-12 Literature About Palestine — Preparing for False Allegations of AntiSemitism.”
The workshop vows to “bring culturally respectful literature about Palestinians into our classrooms and libraries.” But it’s merely a workshop offering tips to justify antisemitism and to bring “an antiracist, anticolonial approach to history” into the classroom.
As objectionable is a workshop by Zinn Education Project co-director Bill Bigelow, titled “Teaching the Seeds of Violence in Palestine-Israel.” The intent appears to be teaching students the terrorist attacks on October 7 by Hamas were justified.
“(T)he roots of today’s violence can be seen much earlier — from the first years of Zionist immigration and land purchases in Palestine in the late 19th and early 20th century, the expulsion of Palestinian peasants, the Zionists’ partnership with the British Empire to effect its goal of ‘a national home for the Jewish people,’ and Palestinians’ gradual recognition of the sweeping nature of the Zionists’ ambitions,” he claims.
Bigelow presents his skewed and biased narrative to fit neatly into a progressive agenda, conveniently ignoring critical context in favor of perpetuating the idea that Israel is the primary aggressor in the ongoing conflict. It attempts to create a false equivalency between Jewish efforts to establish a homeland — driven by centuries of persecution and the horrors of the Holocaust — and Palestinian “resistance,” which is framed in this curriculum as reactionary and justified. It downplays the existential threats Israel faced and faces, both in its formation and its survival, by focusing on British policy and land purchases without adequately acknowledging the deep antisemitism and violence directed toward Jews in the region. This is intentional and ahistorical.
The lesson, as outlined, omits or glosses over the broader context of Arab rejectionism — a refusal of Arab states and Palestinian “leadership” to accept Israel’s right to exist. By choosing not to engage with these facts, the Zinn Project reinforces a one-sided blame game against Jews. This curriculum is not about education but about indoctrination. It’s already being used in Washington, including the Renton school district.
Parents pushing back
Stop Hate In Schools is helping parents to submit letters to SPS leaders and the school’s principal. Their ask? “Cancel the conference or remove all discriminatory workshops and plenary sessions.” And it’s not just parents speaking up.
“As event hosts, I urge the Seattle Education Association and the Washington Education Association to consider the message your endorsement of this conference is sending to your Jewish membership. Unions should represent ALL our membership. Lending your credibility to a conference that disregards the stories, experiences and discrimination of ANY group is irresponsible and unethical,” one local 23 year Social Studies teacher wrote.
Is SPS or the teachers’s unions going to listen? Unfortunately, no.
Many Washington educators are radicals who don’t even recognize their teachings as antisemitic. And Seattle Public Schools, like many other districts, turns a blind eye to campus antisemitism until it’s too visible to ignore.
If any other group faced the same targeting as Jewish students, SPS would take swift action. But Progressives view Jews as wealthy, powerful oppressors — undeserving of protection from hate. It’s sickening. Educators pushing antisemitism see themselves as heroes and, when called out, play the victim, claiming “the evil Jews” are out to get them. It’s twisted and hateful.
Chief Sealth High School in Seattle is a fitting location for this antisemitic conference
Chief Sealth High School, where this antisemitic Seattle conference is being held, has allowed one teacher to promote antisemitic ideas until the spotlight became too much to handle. Indeed, Ian Golash, a teacher at the school, remains employed by the school despite defending Hamas terrorism against Jews.
In a Jan. 27 Facebook post, Golash defended Hamas: “Yes, I believe that resistance against colonialism — and yes I believe Israel is a settler colonial state — and all forms of oppression is justified. People who are being oppressed get to decide what forms of resistance works best for them, not me or anyone else — especially not the oppressors.”
When confronted by Adam Guillette of Accuracy in Media, Golash denied Israeli women were raped by Hamas terrorists, twice asking, “Where’s the evidence?”
Guillette then asked Golash, “Were women murdered at the Music Festival?”
“They were,” Golash admitted.
“Was that justified?” Guillette asked.
After three seconds of pause, Golash said, “Yes.”
“The murder of innocent women just attending a music festival, that was justified in your opinion?” Guillette countered.
“No, I think resistance against Israel is justified. Yes,” Golash said.
“Do girls attending a music festival count as Israel?” Guillette asked before Golash dismissed the questions as “a pointless conversation.”
In any district that truly takes antisemitism seriously, Golash would have been fired by now. It wouldn’t be much of a punishment — he’d probably land a job with the Zinn Education Project, leading their curriculum on Israel. But in Seattle, this behavior isn’t just tolerated — it’s embraced. So, should we really be surprised that Chief Sealth High School is hosting an antisemitic conference? It’s another symptom of a broader issue, where antisemitism is ignored or even rewarded.
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