In 1962, a straight-A University of Alabama student named Melvin Meyer became a lightning rod of controversy when he published an editorial in the Crimson White, Alabama’s student newspaper, that countered the bigotry that was roiling the American south at the time. Meyer, a Jew from Starkville, Miss., was responding to the escalating tensions in…
A landmark State Department-funded study has cleared the Palestinians of demonizing Jews in school textbooks but contends that both Israeli and Palestinian teachers use classroom materials that distort the history of the Middle East conflict. The study, described by its authors as the first scientific analysis of incitement in Israeli and Palestinian textbooks, contradicts a…
In January 2012, Irit Pinkus was shocked to learn that her daughter’s Jewish day school would close at the end of the semester, leaving her and the parents of the school’s other 150 students with a tough decision: where to place their children next year. It’s a decision faced by an increasing number of families….
After 50 well-spent years inside urban public schools — as a teacher and principal, a parent, a school board member, an author and advocate — I’ve discovered that, given the chance, all children can receive a high-quality education. All we need are small class sizes, probably located in small schools. Lots of time for teachers…
It seemed to Michael Prosserman (aka Bboy Piecez) as though his world had stopped spinning when doctors found three congenitally fused vertebrae in his neck when he was 18. Breakdancing had been his passion since he was 12, and his signature move had been to turn continuously on his head in slow motion. Now, his…
The Pakistani teenage girl who was shot in the head for speaking out against the Taliban was honored at an Anti-Defamation League concert. ADL National Director Abraham Foxman dedicated Monday night’s 18th annual Concert Against Hate at the Kennedy Center in Washington to Malala Yousafzai, who spoke out for education for females. Foxman led an…
The single year I was a public school teacher, green and fresh out of college, was unquestionably hard. Sure, I was typical for my demographic — naïve, a poor disciplinarian — but the nightmare arose from circumstances beyond my own inexperience: waking up at the crack of dawn to commute, dealing with ever-fluctuating administrative directives,…
I am the grandchild of three Holocaust survivors. My grandfather had the line of numbers tattooed on his arm, and they all had the terrible memories, the terrible losses. During my middle school years, now a decade ago, many of us went through what we consider our Holocaust phase. I read every book on the…
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