Tilles, local leaders call on LI educators to stand against antisemitism

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New York State Regent Roger Tilles joined local leaders, including from the business community, at the Tilles Center for the Performing Arts in Brookville, calling on Long Island’s schools and universities to stand up against antisemitism and other forms of hate.

Antisemitism is “a virulent cancer that has erupted into full public view,” he said in a news release about the call to action.

“The current state mandate to teach the Holocaust in our classrooms is aspirational and non-specific at a time when hatred is on the rise once again and that violence is targeted at Jews,” he said.

“This time there will be no retreat in the face of evil and the battle to confront and defeat the rise of neo-Nazism begins in every classroom,” he added.

Tilles made the remakrs on 85^th anniversary of Kristallnacht, or “Night of the Broken Glass,” in 1938 in which the Nazis terrorized Jews throughout Germany and Austria.

Tilles is sending a message to area school superintendents and college presidents that in his responsibility as the Regent for Nassau-Suffolk, he is “seeking an initiative that ensures that each of your educational institutions becomes a bulwark against a lengthening shadow on our society. The events over the last year here, and across the country, have revealed that antisemitism was never really extinguished. It merely withdrew from public view, but like a latent cancer, it has now metastasized.”

Tilles went on to say that “social justice and human rights still must be achieved in our nation, there is no other prejudice, hatred, bigotry, or racism that seeks the total annihilation of a people.

“The Nazis harnessed the industrial might of an entire nation to achieve that goal, reducing millions of people to ‘sub-humans; worthy of extinction.  It continues to be a rallying cry for a current generation of haters and it will be up to you, as educators, to recognize your role as front line defenders of humanity,” he said.

Among those joining Tilles in Brookville was Frederick Brewington, an attorney and an Erase Racism board member.

“Knowledge and the sharing of it is the key to an open and equitable society,” Brewington said in a statement.

“From the shameful history in the world of the holocaust to the current levels of hate that have enveloped our communities, there is an urgent need to educate and discuss what we as human beings have done to others based on differences in race, color, religion, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, that we have used to separate ourselves,” he added. “Hate, intolerance, and bias have no place in our society.”

Erase Racism, Brewington said, “stands firm in taking all steps necessary to eradicate those social ills.  I and Erase Racism fully support the efforts to make sure that the truth be told about the Holocaust, just as we do about the how necessary it is for us in America to come to know our troubling and sordid history. As The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was joined on the front lines by brothers and sisters from the Jewish community, that alliance is critical today as we stand together to realize that education is a tool to conquer hate.”

Tilles said that “rhetoric and good intentions are not defenses against the rising tide of antisemitic hatred. If we fail to educate our students regarding how the ‘Final Solution’ was implemented by the Nazis, then we have no means of confronting a new generation who work within the dark crevices of social media, scrawling swastikas in the middle of the night, offering Nazi salutes, or entering synagogues with assault rifles. These are people who have not only learned to hate, but to deny Jews their humanity. The lessons are there, and now we, as educators of all faiths, colors, and creeds, have a responsibility to confront them through lessons well taught.”

The news conference was held at a time of rising antisemitism in the wake of the Israel-Hamas war, which started with an Oct. 7 Hamas incursion in southern Israel that killed 1,400 people. Israel responded with a relentless bombing campaign in Gaza that has killed thousands of Palestinians.

On Nov. 9, 1938, the Nazis killed at least 91 people and vandalized 7,500 Jewish businesses. They also burned more than 1,400 synagogues, according to Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial.

Up to 30,000 Jewish men were arrested, many of them taken to concentration camps, such as Dachau or Buchenwald. Hundreds more killed themselves or died as a result of mistreatment in the camps years before official mass deportations began.

“The rise of antisemitism and bigotry should cause us all to be concerned,” Lorna Lewis, president of the New York State Council of School Superintendents (NYSCOSS) and board member of Erase Racism, said in a statement.

“We have an obligation to teach our students of past and present inhumanities so that those acts of hatred are not repeated,” she added. “Our schools and campuses are no place for hate.  All forms of hatred must be addressed in a culturally relevant and inclusive curriculum. Our students need to learn how to respect all cultures and to find the good in each of us. Our future depends on it.”

Those thoughts were echoed by Gloria Sesso, co-chair of the Long Island Council for Social Studies.

“History reminds us what occurs when we fail to man those ramparts,” Sesso said in the news release. “We need to place the teaching of history at the center of our defense against anti-Semitism and all forms of intolerance.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.