Only someone waking up from a decades-long hibernation, perhaps in Patagonia, would be unaware of the worrisome anti-Jewish, not just anti-Israel, hostility in our part of the world. Vile manifestations of antisemitic and anti-Israel hate have insidiously encroached onto campuses, into social media, and have even found expression in attacks on individuals and synagogues.
Even well-meaning individuals often succumb to the unceasing barrage of anti-Israel information, images and polemic in the media to form conclusions about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that are founded on falsehoods, distortions, omissions and brazen manipulations of fact, history and emotion. One of the most recent examples of this kind of self-righteous betrayal of truth and morality was the declaration this week by the Mayor of Barcelona, Ada Colau, that the city will no longer twin with Tel Aviv, citing claims that Israel is guilty of “apartheid”.
The charge of apartheid against Israel is usually the first in a string of charges all of them combining to an inter-lacing of droplets of aromatic poison whose ingestion baffles and bruises the minds of the young – idealistic, and eager to express and affirm their budding sense of fresh, meaningful purpose. But these youngsters usually lack knowledge of the past and present of the conflict as well as an understanding of how the conflict is presented to them by the ubiquitous purveyors of information and opinion.
Innoculating our youth against this poison requires education. They must learn the facts and develop the skills to understand and marshal those facts for thoughtful, respectful discussion, and, if necessary, debate with the demonizers of the only Jewish state on earth. Our youth must have the education that will enable them to stand up and “fight back” against the wilful plotters against Jews and Israel.
To help students do just that, ADRABA has created a Media Studies program. ADRABA is the hands-on, hybrid, on-line school that offers Ontario high school credits to its students. From time to time, GAJE has written about the school in this space.
ADRABA (adraba.ca) explains why the school developed the new media course.
“For us, Israel matters. And we want to learn more about it. But, oftentimes, learning about the context for and coverage of Israel-Palestine ends up with superficial talking points or talking past each other. In Media Studies, we’ll learn how the media works, how to unpack its messages and how to understand Israel-Palestine critically and thoughtfully. We’ll analyse how events in recent history have been covered, with a watchful eye on which narratives get attention and which are relegated to the margins. And we’ll try to wrap our heads around how everything changed with the advent of TikTok.”
ADRABA’s Media Studies course is aimed at providing our teens “with a deeper understanding of how traditional and new media operate, as well as how to identify bias and misinformation – particularly when it comes to the Israeli Palestinian conflict.”
Rather than simply lament how vulnerable our children are to the skilful malevolence of the anti-Israel and anti-Jewish proponents, ADRABA has decided to overcome it by equipping our youngsters with the ability to call out and to answer the bias and the misinformation.
GAJE considers this an entirely laudable effort.
For more information about the Media Studies course, consult: adraba.ca/mediastudies
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If you wish to contribute to GAJE’s lawsuit for fairness in educational funding, please click here.
For further information, please contact Israel Mida at: imida1818@gmail.com
Charitable receipts for donations for income tax purposes will be issued by Mizrachi Canada. Your donations will be used for the sole purpose of underwriting the costs of the lawsuit.
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Shabbat shalom
Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education (GAJE)
February 10, 2023
Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education 