Study: U.S. Textbooks Misrepresent Jews and Israel -Haviv Rettig
American elementary and high school textbooks contain many "gross misrepresentations" of Judaism, Christianity and Israel, according to a five-year study released this week by the San Francisco-based Institute for Jewish and Community Research.
In examining the 28 most widely-used history, geography and social studies textbooks in America, researchers Dr. Gary Tobin and Dennis Ybarra found some 500 instances of "errors, inaccuracies and even propaganda."
Among the "outrageous misrepresentations" was the statement in the textbook The World that "Christianity was started by a young Palestinian named Jesus." "Textbooks include negative stereotypes of Jews, Judaism and Israel," the authors write.
According to Tobin, "you're much more likely to learn about Jewish terrorism before the founding of Israel than about terrorism against Israel since that time."
Among the claims in the textbooks are that Arab countries never initiated wars against Israel, Arab nations desire peace while Israel does not, and that it was Israel that placed Palestinians in refugee camps in Arab lands, not Arab governments.
The publishers are not bigots, Tobin emphasizes. "I learned in graduate school that you should never try to explain something with conspiracy when you can account for it with incompetence."
(Jerusalem Post)
American elementary and high school textbooks contain many "gross misrepresentations" of Judaism, Christianity and Israel, according to a five-year study released this week by the San Francisco-based Institute for Jewish and Community Research.
In examining the 28 most widely-used history, geography and social studies textbooks in America, researchers Dr. Gary Tobin and Dennis Ybarra found some 500 instances of "errors, inaccuracies and even propaganda."
Among the "outrageous misrepresentations" was the statement in the textbook The World that "Christianity was started by a young Palestinian named Jesus." "Textbooks include negative stereotypes of Jews, Judaism and Israel," the authors write.
According to Tobin, "you're much more likely to learn about Jewish terrorism before the founding of Israel than about terrorism against Israel since that time."
Among the claims in the textbooks are that Arab countries never initiated wars against Israel, Arab nations desire peace while Israel does not, and that it was Israel that placed Palestinians in refugee camps in Arab lands, not Arab governments.
The publishers are not bigots, Tobin emphasizes. "I learned in graduate school that you should never try to explain something with conspiracy when you can account for it with incompetence."
(Jerusalem Post)
2 comments:
After reviewing some sources on the formation of this study, it seems their complaints had much more to do with the fact that when they wrote about Jews and Christians they used text that pointed out this was all conjecture, but with Muslims they reported it as fact, and also those mistakes quoted do not indicate if similar mistakes were occasionally found for the other religions as well. I am sure there were also many errors that have nothing to do with religion. In the end, our children will learn most about other religions at their own religious schools and from their parents, which may not be very comforting, but is more likely.
That's an exceedingly excellent point. Since most American's "get" the MidEast dynamic [as evidenced by their overwhelming support for Israel], we could be in good shape as far as parents teaching kids.
Some years ago I complained to my child's social studies teacher about her textbook's bizarre definition of "jihad." The teacher reassured me he was aware of the distortion and that the classroom communication was more accurate.
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