Tag: antisemitism

Jewish American and Asian American Heritage Month

Once again, it’s May, and School Library Journal appears to be facing their annual conflict about Heritage Months. In May, Jewish and Asian Americans share the month. That is absolutely appropriate. Both groups are featured, as only one prominent example, on the New York Public Library’s website. April was both Poetry Month and Arab American Heritage Month; the NYPL announced that fact every day of April.  I have written about past attempts by SLJ to avoid including Jews in their Heritage Month coverage. (link to all previous blogs about this.).

As they did last year, SLJ began presenting articles and lists about Asian American books in April, rather than waiting for the official schedule to begin. 

Some of the posts, dating to as early as the third week in April include “14 Engrossing YA Books with AANHPI Protagonists and Themes,” “6 Inspiring Nonfiction Works for Young Readers About the Asian American Experience,” “6 Kid-Friendly Middle Grade Titles with Asian American/Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander Protagonists,” and “Listen to These 19 Audiobooks in Honor of Southwest Asian and North African Heritage Month.”

The last article on this list, dated April 13, explains the nomenclature of the category and the list of countries encompassed by it. These include, among others, Jordan, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Yemen, Pakistan, Palestine, Syria, and Israel.  Not every country on the list is represented. Israel is not, although it is clearly a major focus of one book, Every Moment Is a Life: Gaza in the Time of Genocide. I have no issue with including this particular, or any other book on the list.  That is the editors’ choice, covered by freedom of the press and intellectual freedom. Most of the Asian American books highlighted are of high quality, artistically, historically, and as literature. In the case of Every Moment Is a Life, the glaring absence is that of any works detailing the atrocities committed by Hamas on October 7, 2023, which would have provided a context for readers.

As I have written before, SLJ can choose to opt out of the Heritage Month system. It would be easy to argue that consistent coverage of everyone’s culture is much more important than the potential tokenism of a month-by-month categorization. But singling out Jewish American Heritage Month as an illegitimate one is abhorrent.  I understand that SLJ may yet post some Jewish-themed books, as they did last year, late in the month.  It is notable to compare that possibility with the rich list of Asian American books that appeared as early as April, which covered a broad and inclusive number of themes, countries, and genres, as compared to, for example, one or two books exclusively about the Holocaust. (I do not agree with the proposition that there are too many books for children about the Holocaust, but they need to be part of a spectrum of topics.). Finally, if SLJ wishes to avoid discussing Israel and Palestine, they may easily choose among dozens of Jewish American children’s books excluding that subject.  Of course, many Jewish holiday books, including ones about Hanukkah, Passover, and Shavout, are predicated on Jewish presence in ancient Israel, but there are a wide range of books, both fiction and nonfiction, that are unrelated to that connection.  I am not advocating that choice, but it would be one way for SJL to circumvent what they perceive as controversy. I will update this post as SLJ continues their coverage of books in May.

Yom HaShoah

Beyond Courage: The Untold Story of Jewish Resistance During the Holocaust – by Doreen Rappaport
Candlewick Press, 2012

Today is Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, on the Jewish calendar. It seems almost redundant to point out that high-quality educational materials for young readers about this tragedy are essential. Now, as fewer survivors are here to tell their stories, and as a political climate of hatred and repression escalates antisemitism, we are even more obligated to continue telling the truth about the genocide of Europe’s Jews. (I have written many reviews in this area; a few relevant interviews can be found here and here and here and here and here).

Doreen Rappaport is a distinguished author of non-fiction for children (see, for example, here and here). I recommend Beyond Courage for many reasons. It is meticulously researched, carefully and accessibly presented, and illustrated with photographs, maps, and other documents. The book does not presuppose previous knowledge, but is also written, like all her work, in an intelligent tone that never patronizes the reader. There are five sections, each one focused on the heroism of those who defied death in their acts of resistance. The chapter titles encompass different components of these acts, from motivation, “The Realization,” and “Saving the Future,” to locations, “In the Ghettos,” and “In the Camps,” to dramatic depictions of the ultimate results, “Partisan Warfare.”

The choice to write about resistance is a crucial one. First, it allows children ten and older to process one part of the Holocaust; graphic descriptions of mass murder may be inappropriate for readers this young. Most importantly, it refutes the lie that Jews went, as the expressions states, like sheep to the slaughter. Examples of the true meaning of courage are not abstractions, especially as we live in a time when alleged leaders have chosen to abdicate all responsibility to their countries and allow dictators to seize total power.

Rappaport ends the book with a poem. (There is also extensive backmatter with further information and additional resources. In the notorious concentration camp of Theresienstadt, which the Nazis designed as a “model camp” to deceive the world about the Final Solution, many inmates created paintings and literature. Franta Bass, who was eleven years old at the time, wrote:

I am a Jew and will be a Jew forever.
Even if I should die from hunger,
never will I submit.
I will always fight for my people,
on my honor.
I will never be ashamed of them,
I give my word.”