There’s a new statewide initiative for public schools in Wisconsin to teach students about Jewish identity and to combat antisemitism. It’s called J-HUB.
It’s being piloted by several departments within the Milwaukee Jewish Federation.
WUWM’s Maayan Silver spoke with Samantha Abramson to learn more. She’s director of J-HUB at the Milwaukee Jewish Federation and is also executive director of the Holocaust Education Resource Center.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Maayan Silver: In 2021, Wisconsin state law mandated Holocaust education. So last year, the Holocaust Education Resource Center commissioned a study of 400 Wisconsin social studies teachers. How did that lead to what you're doing now with J-HUB?
Samantha Abramson: When we commissioned the study last year, we wanted a good pulse check on how our schools were doing. And we got that pulse check. So many educators have successfully partnered with the Holocaust Education Resource Center. We're in over 400 school districts across the state, and helping those school districts get everything they need to teach about the Holocaust responsibly and respectfully.
What we learned, though, is that Jews are not always being taught in their full identity as part of that curriculum. And the study showed us that teachers were not feeling equipped to confront contemporary anti-Semitic incidents when they took place in their classroom, and they didn't know what lesson plans and resources existed to help alleviate this challenge.
So, the work we are doing is really putting those resources that are vetted, they're coming from trusted partners, both locally and nationally, putting those resources in the hands of the educators so that they can help teach about Jewish identity in these spaces.
And what are some of the most innovative ways that you're thinking about teaching about Jewish identity?
I'm a historian of American history as well, so I'm very excited right now that we're about to celebrate the 250th anniversary of this country. And there's a lot of opportunity for us to talk about how Jews have been here. I think that there's often a misconception about when Jews arrived in America, but Jews have been here since 1654, before we had a formal United States of America.
And Jews have been here in all of the different wars and social movements and all the different pieces that have become part of our American tapestry. So I get very excited when we can go into a social studies classroom or we can welcome students and teachers into a museum space and help give them those resources that really shine a light on the many dimensions of Jewish identity, including here in America.
What are the ways that you think that this will help counter stereotypes about Jewish identity?
I think that Jews are so misunderstood, and we are seen sometimes as a race, as an ethnicity, as a religion, as a culture, as a nationality. And Jews are not a race. It's important that if anyone, if you walk away with anything today, Jews are not a race.
And Jews are diverse in so many ways. We have Jews in our community, even here in Wisconsin, who descend from Jewish communities in Ethiopia, who descend from Jews in Mexico, Jews, of course, from Poland and Russia.
And Jewish identity is so richly diverse because the Jewish people have been around for so many thousands of years. And I think that the more we can expose the community, the non-Jewish community, our neighbors, to the diversity of this community and to really appreciating the complexity of what it means to be Jewish, that helps us counter antisemitism in a very meaningful way.
You've said that antisemitism is on the rise. Why is teaching this Jewish identity going to help counter that in a more meaningful way?
Antisemitism percolates in societies that are experiencing political, social, or economic upheaval. I think we can all agree we're definitely in one of those moments, certainly in America and really as a global community as well. And antisemitism takes root when there's a lack of understanding. And the more that we can be proactively teaching about Jewish identity as we're seeing those antisemitism statistics go up, it helps not only prevent antisemitism in the current moment, it helps prevent antisemitism for decades down the road.
Are you ever concerned that antisemitism is being used as a way to police other forms of speech?
You know, I'm a Holocaust educator. I know the risk and the dangers that antisemitism poses, and it breaks my heart when antisemitism becomes politicized. Because in my view, and in the view of those of us who have studied Holocaust history, we know that antisemitism is too dangerous of a form of hate to be politicized, that we can have intellectual conversations about antisemitism and its history and how it shape shifts, and we should have those conversations. But at the end of the day, antisemitism is a form of hatred, and it shouldn't be controversial to say we stand against it.
According to the Milwaukee Jewish Federation’s Jewish Community Relations Council, there has been a 459% cumulative increase in reported antisemitic incidents reported in Wisconsin since 2015. Antisemitism can come from the political right and the left. Not everybody agrees on what’s antisemitic, including from the left.
The Trump administration has signed two executive orders with the alleged aims of combatting antisemitism. These orders have been controversial. The Southern Poverty Law Center argues they are a way to stifle dissent from people, such as students, protesting Israel’s government’s policies after the Hamas attack in southern Israel on October 7, 2023.
They write that “the order has been used by the Trump administration to weaponize antisemitism and to use it as a pretext to advance its political agenda; examples include canceling or suspending billions in government grants and contracts to universities; censoring and restricting First Amendment-protected political speech on college campuses; justifying attacks on diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility (DEIA) programs; and arresting, detaining and deporting legal permanent residents and foreign students.”
