Mum horrified after child, 7, given ‘anti-Semitic’ homework
A mum was horrified when her child was taught an ‘anti-Semitic’ religious education lesson that said Jewish people killed Jesus Christ.
Joanne Bell was helping her seven-year-old child with an Easter themed lesson when she saw that Topmarks, a free homeschooling platform, had told the story in a way that ‘minimised Roman blame and maximised Jewish blame.’
Ms Bell told Metro.co.uk: ‘Jesus is a white man in [the pictures] and all the Jews are dark and hook-nosed. They don’t say that Jesus, and everyone else involved, is Jewish.
‘This story used to be literally and immediately followed, in medieval and even later Europe, by people going to attack and murder Jews after they had been whipped up in the church.
‘Think about it, these people “have killed God”. Those types of tropes have consequences.’
Ms Bell, who is a member of Labour Against Antisemitism, said ‘almost every Jewish person’ she knows has ‘abusively’ been accused of killing Jesus.
The slides, which have since been removed from Topmarks’ website, teach that ‘Jewish leaders wanted Jesus to be guilty’.
Children were told that ‘chief priests wanted Jesus to die’ while Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor that presided over Jesus’s trial, ‘washed his hands of sending an innocent man to his death’.
In 1964 the Vatican decided that the Roman Catholic church would no longer teach that Jewish people were guilty of deicide, killing a god.
They acknowledged that the teachings contributed to the ‘hatred and persecutions of Jews’ and moved to establish a relationship of ‘mutual knowledge and respect’ between Christians and Jews.
Ms Bell, from North London, said she went to school at a time where ‘everything was Christian’ and she practised Christian worship in assemblies.
And yet, even during this time she said she was never taught the story of Jesus’s execution in the way her child was a few days ago.
Ms Bell added: ‘This is not about not wanting to teach the religious story of Easter. I have many Christian friends who I deeply love and respect but the manner and method of portraying the Jews in this context has literally led to millions of people dying.’
The mum tweeted about how she felt and reported the lesson to her child’s school.
Whilst her social media post has received anti-Semitic abuse, she said the school’s response has been ‘refreshing’.
The headteacher explained that one teacher had uploaded the lesson without checking it with their heads of religious education.
The head also reassured Ms Bell that they will reteach the story of Easter when pupils go back to school next week.
Topmarks said: ‘The Easter story was a retelling of the arrest, trial and crucifixion of Jesus as told in the Bible. It was based on books from the local library and the Bible, and the images were downloaded clip art that were available at the time of publication, circa 20 years ago.
‘The anti-Semitic concerns raised on Twitter on March 2nd by Joanne were the first that we have received. We never meant to offend anyone and regret any upset caused. We removed the story from our site yesterday.
‘Yesterday we received kind and most welcome offers of assistance from Rabbis and the Jewish Community to help with ensuring that RE materials on Topmarks are of the highest quality. Today we have engaged with the Board of Deputies who are reviewing our remaining Judaism and Easter content.’
Campaign Against Antisemitism said: ‘The notion that the Jews killed Jesus is an anti-Semitic trope which dates back millennia.
‘It has been used as a supposed justification for the persecution of Jews in the Christian world for centuries and is still often cited in abuse of Jews today.
‘It is sickening that this material was presented to young children as factual education.
‘The apologies from Topmarks and the school in question are welcome, as is the withdrawal of the material.
More than 1,000,000 people in UK have now had both vaccine doses‘But educational material for children, particularly in sensitive fields, must be written and vetted by reliable experts.
‘For Topmarks to be offering materials that, by its own admission, were created by someone “young and naive” enough to present a blood libel as fact and not review that in decades is unacceptable.’
The Board of Deputies of British Jews added: ‘This is wholly inappropriate material for an RE class.’
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