{"id":44457,"date":"2024-06-14T01:53:29","date_gmt":"2024-06-14T08:53:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=44457"},"modified":"2024-06-13T08:56:18","modified_gmt":"2024-06-13T15:56:18","slug":"bctf-nixes-antisemitism-efforts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2024\/06\/14\/bctf-nixes-antisemitism-efforts\/","title":{"rendered":"BCTF nixes antisemitism efforts\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

A group of public school teachers who are pressing for resources and\u00a0 <\/span>supports to help educate about antisemitism and the Holocaust have been rejected by the provincial teachers\u2019 union.<\/p>\n

The recently formed Holocaust and Antisemitism Educators Association was informed earlier this month that their application for recognition as a provincial specialist association has been rejected by the relevant branch of the BC Teachers\u2019 Federation.<\/p>\n

Provincial specialist associations (PSAs) support the development of teaching resources and host professional development sessions on specific subject areas. They receive funding from the BC Teachers\u2019 Federation (BCTF) to do so.<\/p>\n

The Holocaust and Antisemitism Educators Association (HAEA) was created in response to the Government of British Columbia\u2019s decision last October to make Holocaust education a mandatory part of the BC curriculum.<\/p>\n

Eyal Daniel, the president of the HAEA, said he is shocked by the decision and is hoping the BCTF executive will reverse it.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe letter I received said that we should work with other PSAs \u2013 which is confusing because the formation of our group was specifically supported by the relevant PSA, the social studies group, as being important and necessary,\u201d Daniel said in a media release.<\/p>\n

Ginaya Peters, the founder of BC Teachers Against Antisemitism, expressed dismay.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI am trying to comprehend this and am failing,\u201d she said in the same release. \u201cWhen the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre tells the BCTF that our PSA is needed in order to implement the mandatory Holocaust curriculum that they are helping to develop, they are literally ignoring the voices of experts in the field, and they are denying us the resources to teach the topic properly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ezra Shanken, chief executive officer of the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver, said the decision seems to confirm reports heard by members of the Jewish community recently.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have heard a number of disturbing rumours in the past few weeks about people fighting against the formation of this teachers\u2019 specialist association \u2013 including that people believe that antisemitism isn\u2019t related to the Holocaust,\u201d said Shanken. \u201cIf this is their rationale, it is a form of Holocaust denial and flies in the face of what we have been told by Premier David Eby and his minister of education.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe HAEA has told me that they met every single requirement to be recognized by their union, and that no one can remember a time when a PSA that met every requirement was turned down,\u201d said Nico Slobinsky, vice-president of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs.<\/p>\n

\"screenshot<\/a>
A social media post shared by the Anti-Oppression Educators Collective, a provincial specialist association of the BC Teachers\u2019 Federation, which mentions Samidoun, which is linked to a listed terror organization and has organized events that glorify the murders and rapes that took place on Oct. 7.\u00a0(image from BCTAA)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Jonathan Dyck, the chair of the BCTF Provincial Specialist Association Council, informed the HAEA of the decision last week, following a meeting of the council where the decision was taken June 4. According to the HAEA, he provided no rationale for the decision to recommend that resources and recognition not be provided to HAEA but was \u201cstrongly of the opinion that they would like to find ways to help members of your association feel valued and included.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a separate statement, BC Teachers Against Antisemitism lamented the absence of any explanation for the rejection.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are confused by the BCTF\u2019s statement \u2026 as the statement fails to give any indication why a PSA dedicated to developing teaching resources and professional development around soon to be mandatory Holocaust education was rejected.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs well, as of today there are no teaching resources available on the Holocaust or antisemitism available on the BCTF\u2019s TeachBC site.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a series of social media posts on the BCTF\u2019s X (Twitter) platform, the union outlined the standards aspiring PSAs must meet \u2013 but did not indicate any areas where the HAEA had fallen short.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe tweets listed all the conditions which must be met for a PSA to be approved by the PSA council,\u201d BC Teachers Against Antisemitism said in their statement. \u201cThe HAEA met these conditions, yet the council refused to recommend that the PSA be approved. The only condition not met was approval by the PSA council. This is surprising as no one can remember a PSA that met all the criteria ever being turned down before.\u201d<\/p>\n

The suggestion that the Holocaust and antisemitism educators instead work with existing PSAs is problematic and perplexing, they wrote, because the BC Social Studies Teachers Association recommended that the new PSA be approved, as did the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre. Moreover, antisemitism has not been addressed by any other PSA. In fact, BC Teachers Against Antisemitism accuses the Anti-Oppression Educators Collective of promoting antisemitism, including by sharing posts on social media that include mention of Samidoun, which is linked to a listed terror organization and has organized events that glorify the murders and rapes that took place on Oct. 7.<\/p>\n

Confounding matters further, the statement on BCTF\u2019s website regarding the PSA vote, and antisemitism and Holocaust education, says, \u201cIt is our understanding that the council determined that existing PSAs already can and do support the proposed work.\u201d However, separate searches of BCTF\u2019s website for classroom resources on antisemitism and the Holocaust yield the results: \u201cNo resources matching the current search criteria were found.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"screenshot<\/a>\u201cThe arguments that the HAEA work with existing PSAs to create Holocaust and antisemitism materials seems to fly in the face of established BCTF practices,\u201d the BCTAA statement states. \u201cThe BCTF cannot present a valid reason for denying the approval of our PSA dedicated to helping educators deliver critical lessons on the Holocaust and antisemitism. We ask the BCTF to reverse its decision so we can move forward like other established PSAs and work with likeminded colleagues on supporting educators in BC.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2013 Information from Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver, BC Teachers Against Antisemitism and BC Teachers Federation<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A group of public school teachers who are pressing for resources and\u00a0 supports to help educate about antisemitism and the Holocaust have been rejected by the provincial teachers\u2019 union. The recently formed Holocaust and Antisemitism Educators Association was informed earlier this month that their application for recognition as a provincial specialist association has been rejected […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[23241,23270,23276,23271,3076,5094,4280,23242,23280,23279,23277,5285,23278],"class_list":["post-44457","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local","tag-bc-teachers-against-antisemitism","tag-bc-teachers-federation","tag-bctaa","tag-bctf","tag-education","tag-eyal-daniel","tag-ezra-shanken","tag-ginaya-peters","tag-haea","tag-holocaust-and-antisemitism-educators-association","tag-jonathan-dyck","tag-nico-slobinsky","tag-provincial-specialist-associations"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44457","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44457"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44457\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}