Teaching about the Holocaust, antisemitism: Schools need detailed plans, Regent Roger Tilles says
Regent Roger Tilles will speak Thursday in Brookville in favor of preparing a curriculum plan to deal with what he describes as "the rising tide of antisemitic hatred." Credit: Morgan Campbell
One of Long Island's leading educational policymakers is calling on the region's schools and colleges to step up their instruction on the Holocaust and how bigotry, left unchecked, can lead to deadly violence.
Roger Tilles, the Island's representative to the state's Board of Regents, will join others at 11 a.m. Thursday in Brookville to speak in favor of preparing a detailed curriculum plan to deal with what Tilles describes as "the rising tide of antisemitic hatred." The Regents are a 17-member panel that sets much of the state's scholastic policy.
Tilles, in a statement, explained that he was "seeking an initiative that ensures that each educational institution becomes a bulwark against a foreboding and lengthening shadow on our country."
Thursday marks the 85th anniversary of Kristallnacht, or Night of Broken Glass, when Nazi-led mobs ransacked and burned synagogues and Jewish-owned businesses throughout Germany. This year's anniversary comes during a time of rising antisemitic incidents in this region, including the appearance of swastika drawings and other graffiti in several local schools.
In response, local school officials have urged parents to denounce antisemitism, especially amid the Israel-Hamas war. Tilles is urging educational institutions to go further by coming up with a detailed curriculum plan for classroom lessons.
State law requires instruction on the Holocaust, the chain of events that led to the murders of approximately 6 million Jews in Europe during the 1940s. Last year, a statewide survey found wide variations among school districts in the amount of attention paid to the subject.
To underline the call for educators to step forward, Thursday's gathering will be held in a meeting room with chairs empty of people but filled with historic images from Kristallnacht. The site is the Tilles Center for the Performing Arts, which is named for members of Roger Tilles' family.
Other listed participants are Lorna Lewis, superintendent of Malverne schools and a former president of the New York State Council of School Superintendents; Frederick K. Brewington, a board member of the ERASE Racism advocacy group; and Gloria Sesso, president of the Long Island Council for the Social Studies.
Lewis, in a phone interview, said the Holocaust and related issues are part of her district's curriculum.
This year, fourth-graders in Lewis' district are reading a book about a Jewish woman in England who writes to the author Charles Dickens and takes him to task for describing Jewish figures in his novels in stereotypical ways. The book, "Dear Mr. Dickens" by Nancy Churnin, a children's writer, is based on an actual historic incident.
"Hate and bigotry in any form have no place in our schools," Lewis said.
John Hildebrand is Newsday's senior education writer and has covered school news and policy issues affecting Long Island for more than 40 years.
