Annette Poisoner
Times of Israel, July 27, 2022
“We are learning about … students, forced to write papers that parrot the ideologies taught in school, finding themselves betraying their Jewish values or risk being mocked for expressing perspectives which differ from the school party line.”
A recent study analyzes the Twitter feeds of 741 Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) staff at 45 American universities and finds 96 percent of their tweets about Israel to be critical of the Jewish state, while 62 percent of their tweets about China were favorable! The researchers, in their article entitled “The Inclusion Delusion,” report that the attitudes espoused vilify the Jewish state in a manner reminiscent of the antisemitism of old, easily constituting antisemitism.
At age 59, I didn’t expect to revisit campus activism. Then again, when I went on the flagship Jerusalem Fellowship mission 35 years ago, no one promised that the enemies of the Jewish people – and their values – would quietly settle down. I’ve used what I learned on that trip. And draw on the lessons now when activating to defend Jewish values – and to address problems in my field.
What problems? How about the fact that social work programs today – which teach every form of anti-racism in exquisite detail – omit the study of antisemitism and how to counter it? Or that some social work readings are perpetuating and advancing antisemitism. Or that social work education is a nightmare for Orthodox Jews attending social work schools. And other problems.
There’s an old expression, “that which gets inspected, gets respected.” Concern about what is going on in social work schools, particularly relating to the experiences of Jewish students, prompted me to launch a research project – to learn what Jews studying social work are dealing with. I thought it would be important to bring forward the reports. … SOURCE