New Texas Curriculum Promotes Antisemitism Under the Cloak of Religion

Texas's new Christian nationalist elementary school curriculum includes a “game” about Jewish genocide. As someone with many family members who were murdered in the Holocaust, I'm appalled.

The Book of Esther tells the story of how a planned massacre of Jews throughout the Persian Empire was stopped by Esther, the young Jewish queen who bravely risks her own life to save the Jewish people. The massacre had been plotted by the king’s chief minister, Haman, and the date decided by casting lots.

In Texas’s proposed curriculum, a second-grade lesson on this biblical story "included a game in which teachers would ask students to choose a number and then roll a die to see if their number was called” (to quote from the New York Times).

This is truly horrifying.

How are we to understand what's driving this hateful curriculum, which could become a model for the rest of the country?

White Christian nationalism is a political ideology, not a religion. Its advocates blame Jews as responsible for the supposed dispossession and "victimization" of white Christians in America.

Conservative Christian leaders aren't just trying to expand the role of religion in public education. Theirs is a wildly racist, fascist, and antisemitic agenda that should be strongly opposed by all Americans who believe in democracy and human rights.

Genocide isn't a game. Schools should be educating students about antisemitism, not actively promoting it.