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Community members brought their concerns to the Maine Township High School Dist. 207 Board of Education over a department chair\u2019s classroom assignments touching on dehumanization and genocide.<\/span><\/p>\n Some of the more controversial assignments that students were given was reading Elie Wiesel\u2019s Holocaust memoir \u201cNight\u201d and juxtaposing it to the ongoing Israel-Palestine conflict, and in a separate assignment, making their own TikTok videos.<\/span><\/p>\n Public comments were both supportive and critical of Maine West English Department Chair Sawsan Jaber. Board members and district officials at the meeting did not respond to the comments.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve had concerned teachers, past teachers, and students who feel uncomfortable in this classroom. We do not want to silence anybody, that\u2019s not what our goal is. I have a fiduciary duty to the Jewish students, teachers, and community,\u201d said Chicago Jewish Alliance co-founder Daniel Schwartz. \u201cWe see this all the time (erasure of Judaism). We see artists being canceled. We see even in curriculum like that, and you put it to the Holocaust, it\u2019s terrible.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m here imagining myself as someone whose grandparents were in the Holocaust, whose family was all murdered, and having to do that assignment.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Simona Bogode, a volunteer with the Chicago Jewish Alliance, said that the TikTok video assignments are required of students and therefore filming them without their consent, which raises privacy issues. She also stated that students only read an excerpt of \u201cNight\u201d and not the full memoir, which leads to a misrepresentation and dilution of what could be a lesson on the Holocaust.<\/span><\/p>\n At the same time, praise and support for Jaber was expressed by others.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s deeply troubling that Dr. Jaber\u2019s competence and character have been called into question by organizations such as the Chicago Jewish Alliance and the Anti-Defamation League. Please be aware that these organizations speak only for themselves and not for all Jewish Americans like me,\u201d said Leslie Williams. \u201cThe Chicago Jewish Alliance was organized to intimidate the Chicago City Council from passing the Gaza ceasefire resolution. Now that their efforts have failed, they are joining the ADL to silence educators like Dr. Jaber.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Jaber previously received the 2024 English Leadership Quarterly Best Article Award for her journal \u201cFrom Interrogation to Action: Transformative Equity in English Classrooms.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n A former student of Jaber\u2019s, Jihan Chelade, took time to praise her on how she was changing the English curriculum and focusing on lessons that promote global citizenship and social justice, while also giving those students whose ethnic struggles are not represented a space to be.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cIf we are going to take the lessons of the Holocaust, it deserves to be more. We need to understand that \u2018never again\u2019 means we have to speak out against all genocides that are happening,<\/em>\u201d said Joseph Miburn from the Council on American Islamic Relations.<\/strong> \u201cOther genocides have happened since the Holocaust and before the Holocaust. What she (Jaber) did is simply allow the Holocaust to be discussed among other genocides<\/em>.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Another point of view from researcher Carlos Gallo was that the curriculum being taught has adverse mental health effects on students, giving critical race theory as an example, while students should be learning reading and writing skills in English class.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n