This has been an incredibly challenging year for many people in educational spaces. Since the Hamas terrorist attacks on Israel on October 7th and the resulting war in Gaza, antisemitism and Islamophobia have spiked to horrendous levels in the U.S.
Members of school communities who have familial, religious, cultural, or emotional connections to Israel and Gaza—Jewish, Muslim, Israeli, Palestinian, Arab—are hurting, scared, and angry. Social media is feeding students false narratives, facts lacking context, and a steady diet of outrage. And many students, administrators, and faculty don’t have the knowledge they need to engage in informed conversations about the conflict and the way it has fanned the flames of hatred around the world.
Students want to talk about what they are experiencing and what they are seeing in the news, whether in the Middle East or closer to home. Parents often want schools to provide education about October 7th and its aftermath, as well as its impact on American society, but may be uncomfortable with the inclusion of perspectives and narratives they find threatening to their own. In this maelstrom, it’s not surprising that administrators and faculty members are feeling anxious and uneasy about addressing current issues.
However tempting to avoid or shut down conversations around this topic, we cannot. Our role as educators is to give our students the knowledge and skills they need to engage with the world around them. By avoiding complex and difficult conversations about antisemitism, Islamophobia, and the Israel-Hamas war, we are ceding our role to Instagram and TikTok, where misinformation thrives, and our students face staggering amounts of identity-based bullying and hatred.
With 17 years of teaching experience, I now work with independent schools to help them confront antisemitism. To effectively meet this moment, I would like to offer some suggestions to help schools approach the coming school year with the tools they need to support teachers, parents, and students through this challenging time. Because combatting antisemitism is my area of expertise, that’s what I’ll focus on here, but I hope my suggestions will help schools confront any form of hatred.
Respect Identities and Holding Space
The Jewish community is one of the groups impacted the most by this conflict. Jews make up 2.4% of the U.S. population, and there is often a fundamental lack of understanding of the complexities of Jewish identity in school spaces. For example, Judaism is a religion, but not all Jews are religious. Indeed, there are atheist Jews who have strong Jewish identities that include powerful connections to Israel. In fact, 80% of American Jews say caring about Israel is an essential or important part of what being Jewish means to them. A lack of understanding of the connection between American Jews and Israel can lead to minimization of Jewish feelings about October 7th and misunderstanding of antisemitism.
Adding to these challenges, in a 2023 survey of American Jews, nearly half (47%) reported feeling that antisemitism was taken less seriously than other types of hate. This can lead to Jews self-censoring the very real antisemitism they are experiencing. Studies show that Jews vastly underreport antisemitic incidents they experience.
So, how can schools support their Jewish communities? Administrators and faculty members don’t have to be experts on Judaism to hold space, or to listen and respond to concerns attentively and empathetically.
Centering conversations about the Israel-Hamas war on how members of the school community feel shows that schools prioritize empathy and care for community members. For example, school administrators might decide that there cannot be any rallies, vigils, or walkouts for Gaza or for Israel in a school where there are Jewish students with family or friends in Israel or Palestinian students with family or friends in Gaza.
It’s also important to think about how students are experiencing this conflict outside of school. Administrators should talk with students and faculty about social media and its power to hurt and frighten people. Clarify school rules about social media use and urge students and faculty to think twice before posting polarizing material, even if it does not break school rules.
Build Nurturing and Brave Classrooms
Today, many schools, parents, and students call for “safe” classrooms. We must, of course, have physical safety in school, but centering “safety” as a value for our learning spaces does a disservice to our students. When educators use the term “safe” to describe the ideal classroom, they typically mean that students feel emotionally protected and supported so they’re able to learn to the best of their ability. However, the word “safe” also implies being protected from risk or challenge, and without taking risks or being challenged, our students cannot learn.
I prefer to use the term “nurturing” to describe the ideal classroom, a place where students receive the support and care they need to grow. When educators foster nurturing and brave classrooms––places where students and teachers alike are encouraged to be open to new ideas, and to embrace vulnerability by being open to being wrong or needing more information—growth happens.
Schools can build nurturing and brave spaces to negotiate challenging conversations when they:
Model and teach students to ask curious questions. Too often, we default to asking rhetorical questions to advance our own arguments. Instead, we need to ask questions that sincerely seek more information or insight into how others think or feel about a particular issue. For example, instead of asking, “How can you be a Zionist when it is a philosophy built on Palestinian oppression?”—a question that embeds the questioner’s hostile, fixed, and one-sided opinion about Zionism—a curious question would be, “Tell me about what Zionism means to you and your family.”
Model and encourage openness and vulnerability. I often think of Brené Brown’s words, “I am not here to be right; I am here to get it right.” Show students that learning means being open to having opinions and perspectives challenged. This helps us refine our own thinking and might end up shifting our views.
For example, if a student says Israel is a settler-colonialist state, a teacher cultivating a brave classroom might ask what the term “settler-colonialist” means and then engage the class in critical thinking about whether this term is appropriately assigned to Israel. Such thinking would expand students’ framework of understanding beyond the narratives they commonly encounter and would include a basic understanding of the ancient and ongoing Jewish historical and religious connection to the land of Israel as well as the background of Jews who immigrated to that land, whether before or after Israeli statehood was declared.
Respect lived experiences. Ensure that students do not belittle or dismiss the lived experiences of classmates whose identities they may not fully understand. For example, assumptions that all Jews are white and privileged, and therefore do not experience exclusion, hate, or violence, erases many Jews’ identities and the very real experiences that Jews are living through right now.
Seek outside guidance. No one was fully prepared for this conflict, but there are experts, such as those from American Jewish Committee’s Center for Education Advocacy, who can help school leaders think through how to build nurturing and brave school spaces that have no tolerance for hate.
It’s not easy but building school spaces that are better equipped to manage difficult conversations is an imperative, not just for challenging moments like this, but for educating students to be bridge-builders and engaged citizens of the future.