Love to Learn, Learn to Love.

Lesson #68: The Jewish system of education

What the fuck do I have to do to get you out of your lethargy? Put a picture of your kid or some inane comment on Facebook, get thirty likes and at least fifteen comments. I post stuff which I feel is interesting as well as opinionated and provocative and get nothing. I have been getting what I would classify as a satisfactory amount of hits on my blog but I ask myself what you think about the subjects I discuss and what you have to say about them. I now am asking myself not only what you think but also if you do at all about certain subjects.

Yesterday due to an old student, Danny Schwartzberg, making a point regarding the agreement made with Iran calling it a FUCKING BAD DEAL, I reacted with, among other things, a scathing condemnation of the Jewish school system for hijacking and brainwashing its students who seem to believe, as adults, just about unanimously, that Israel can do nothing – and has never done anything – wrong which is a ridiculous tenet. Countries, like people, are never always right or always wrong. I posted my negative remarks on both my website and Facebook and received no comments, no likes, nothing. Piss me off.

How does the Jewish educational system brainwash its students? By censoring certain information which it feels is detrimental to the cause. For example when I first started at Bialik, I put picture of the founder of the Palestine Liberation Organization and an avowed enemy of the Israeli state, Yasser Arafat, on the bulletin board at the back of the classroom in which I taught all of my classes but in which other teachers taught as well. One of this latter smallish group complained and I was called into the office of our Vice Principal, Shlomo Jacobi and told that I would have to remove the photo which had been mailed to me by an organization that specialized in supplying educational materials to teachers, specifically “backgrounders”, a bi-weekly series highlighting political and international news of the day. By the way, this wasn’t the first time that I posted one of these backgrounders which I would leave up for a few days and then remove.

Turns out one of the teachers who shared the classroom in which I taught had complained to the office about the the presence of Arafat’s picture. The complaintant in this case was an Israeli-born and brought up woman who worked in the Jewish Studies department, teaching Hebrew and Tanach (bible). I never held a grudge against her for having complained about the Arafat picture and for some inexplicable reason did not care that she had taken her concern to the office; however, I would have preferred it if instead of going over my head, she had come directly to me in which case I would have been more than happy to remove the offending photo. I would not have given her a hard time about this. Trust me on that.

But she decided to go to the office instead. Either she was afraid to come directly to me or believed that I would not have taken the complaint, if it had issued from her, seriously enough to do something about it. There is a third and less palatable reason for her taking it to the office and that was to blow her own horn at my expense.

Regardless of why she had decided to complain to the office that is where I ended up. Jacobi, who was a complete joke as the vice-principal in charge of Jewish Studies – he was famous for having advised students not to ski in the trees while he was chaperoning a ski trip – told me that he was sorry but that so-and-so (that so-and-so) had complained – surprisingly enough he actually named the teacher – and therefore that he had no choice but to tell me to remove Arafat’s picture.

I agreed to do so and turned on my heel readying myself to take my leave when he interrupted and asked me if I wanted to know why he had ordered me to take Arafat down (aside from the fact that this photo was obviously making one of my colleagues uncomfortable) and when I answered his query affirmatively in order to appease him even though I couldn’t have cared less this was the reason he gave…because Yasser Arafat had supposedly suggested that it was okay to shoot Israeli kids on their way to and from school.

There was no pretense at giving our charges an objective learning experience where and when Haaretz (Israel) was concerned. What do I mean by this? Let me explain it this way: Suppose in studying World War II we get a book from the library which says something like the following: “The scum of the earth joined the Nazi Party” as opposed to listing the educational backgrounds as well as the socio-economic status of Nazi Party members and allowing students to draw their own conclusions about the composition of the membership of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party. The school hitched its wagon to the former while I preferred the latter.

Therefore by employing a type of censorship in addition to eschewing objectivity in its teachings related to Israel, the Jewish schools successfully create blind adherents to the Jewish state, right or wrong.

Don’t get me wrong. The school in which I worked for twenty-four years is a Zionist school and makes no bones about strongly supporting the Israeli state and I agreed to abide by school policy in this and all other regards. However I am firmly of the opinion that brainwashing kids to whatever end and for whatever reason is the wrong way to proceed. It just rubs me the wrong way. That’s it. That’s all except for the following email from an ex-student regarding my blog about the Jewish school system and Israel I posted yesterday… the one with the ostrich:

Jerry,
You nailed it on that one. Bialik produced many, many students who went on to develop an ideology characterized by blind allegiance to Israel, regardless of its behavior. I can add the following – our forced participation in the grade 10 “I love Israel” competition. Not the “what do you think about Israel?” competition. Not the “how to think critically about Israel” competition. The “I love Israel” competition. Forced participation, no less.

The only other edit – the “G-d rest his soul” addition after Wilchesky’s name. I’ll leave “God” out of it for now, but it is not hard to gather neuroscientific research that (collectively, when put together) argues clearly against the existence of an “immaterial” soul.
Good stuff…
Gary

I responded with a statement that I had invoked the name of G-d because I was going to do a number on a deceased person. I continued by telling him that faith is the element which allows us to believe in what he calls “an immaterial soul” in the absence of “neuroscientific research that …argues clearly against the existence of an ‘immaterial’ soul.” I finished off by asking him if he had ever heard of Blind Faith. See tomorrow’s JuicyLesson for his answer.

Peace.

9 Comments

  • Jerry Cohen says:

    Alan, I still haven’t taken the time to deal with your comment but rest assure that I will do so ASAP.
    Jerry

  • Alan says:

    Critical thinking is just that. In order for it to be effective however it has to be to the point and offer some counter point. Your posts/rants sound more like disgruntled complaints. Reactions to something you felt strongly about and have reacted against. I need something more directive to sink my teeth into.

    • Jerry Cohen says:

      Testing one… Two

    • Jerry Cohen says:

      First of all I appreciate your input. You said that I should blog about the world’st resource shortage. There is no shortage, Alan, it is a problem of distribution. Too few have too much and too many have too little. What will it take for the elite to share their wealth like Bill Gates and Warren Buffet are doing?

      Next yes my rants are “disgruntled complaints” to some extent but there are some that you call “directives”. For instance I tell the Jewish schools to stop brainwashing their students, and have said that Rob Ford should step down and have gone to great lengths to try to tell people how they should live their lives – be generous, sharing and caring.

      • Jerry Cohen says:

        Some of my JuicyLessons are not rants at all; they are stories pure and simple, e.g. JuicyLessons 37, 38 & 39 recount my first trip to the East. You may find these interesting as well as informative. Keep inputting.

      • Joan Hoyte says:

        Yes, Rob Ford (Toronto mayor) got to go. Got to go to therapy and get straight like Paul did on the road to Damascus. You remember him right?

  • bob nathan says:

    Hi Jerry,

    I remember the story well but you can’t call Schlomo “a joke as a vp”. You can’t insult people on facebook. It is public. I don’t know why, after all this time, you have a need to trample all over Bialik and the people who run the school. You must still be very angry and that is unfortunate.

    Bob

    • Jerry Cohen says:

      Don’t worry about me, Bob.

    • Jerry Cohen says:

      Bob,
      Further to what you say, I do appreciate the feedback. However I’ll take my chances with FB and it’s not up to you tell me what I can and can’t do. Who appointed you as my conscience? By the way, I was smiling when I wrote about that useless piece of shit.

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