JTA — A quote from Nobel Prize-winning author and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel was briefly removed from the walls of a Philadelphia-area high school, apparently because it violated the school’s “neutrality” policy. the establishment.
Last week, the principal of a high school in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, ordered the school librarian to remove four posters featuring Wiesel’s quote.
“I have sworn never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. This quote is from Wiesel’s 1986 Nobel Prize acceptance speech.
Receive our free daily edition by email so you don’t miss any of the best news Free registration!
This went against a controversial new district policy prohibiting teachers from engaging in “advocacy activities” or displaying signs or symbols of “any partisan, political or social policy issue.”
“If I didn’t remove it, I knew there would be consequences that could affect me,” librarian Matt Pecic told local media. It was his daughter who originally emailed him the quote, saying she reminded him of him.
The district allowed Central Bucks High School South to hand over the posters the next day and released a statement noting that Wiesel’s memoir, The night, are an integral part of its program. The district also apologized “for any hurt or concern this may have caused, particularly to members of the Jewish community.”
Elie Wiesel, author, Nobel Peace Prize winner and Holocaust survivor, in front of a photo of himself and other inmates at Buchenwald concentration camp in 1945, during his visit to the Holocaust museum and memorial, Yad Vashem, in Jerusalem, December 18, 1986. (Credit: AFP/Sven Naxkstrand)
“We regret the decision to remove the posters has been made,” the district said. The statement adds that the administration asked the librarian “to present the quote in conjunction with Wiesel’s book to promote educational research and student interest in reading the novel, or to withdraw it.”
The incident is the latest example of how Jewish materials, particularly Holocaust teachings, have been washed away by right-wing attacks on public schools. Last year, a school board in Tennessee pulled the book Maus d’Art Spiegelman from his school curriculum because of a nude illustration and profanity in the book.
Several schools in Missouri have pulled children’s Holocaust history books, fearing retaliation from a new state law, and schools in Florida have pulled a picture book about a Jewish family with two fathers and a set of diversity-themed books, including one on Shabbat.
A public school in Texas also briefly pulled a graphic novel adaptation of Anne Frank’s diary, while lawmakers in several states have suggested that instructors remain “impartial” on issues such as the Nazis.
The cover of Elie Wiesel’s Holocaust memoir “The Night”. (Permission)
The origins of the unrest in Bucks County are similar to many of these cases. The district’s new “neutrality” law was passed by a board that includes several recently elected far-right candidates. Concerns about “critical race theory” and LGBTQ identity in public schools have prompted many such candidates to run for school boards across the country.
Bucks County Council’s decision to adopt its own “neutrality” policy earlier this month earned it the ire of the American Civil Liberties Union and helped spark a federal investigation into the district.
“This type of bigotry has become far too normalized in my community,” Lela Casey, a Jewish parent in the district, wrote in a first-person account of the poster’s removal from the Jewish site Kveller of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
“This is exactly the type of censorship that we feared would be the consequence of a policy that was too broad and harmful,” Andrew Goretsky, regional director of the Philadelphia Anti-Defamation League (ADL), told the Philadelphia Inquirer.