TEACHERS GET HELP TO GUIDE AGAINST PREJUDICE.

Byline: Holly J. Andres

Staff Writer

Hoping to keep the seeds of hatred from taking root among today's youths, the Anti-Defamation League is hosting seminars to help Southern California educators teach about the myths behind anti-Semitism and discrimination.

"The Relevance of Teaching the Holocaust in the 21st Century" is a five-part workshop designed to help teachers guide their students in standing up to bias and prejudice. The sessions are also open to the public, although space is limited.

"Speakers will discuss moral issues and standing up to genocide, like in Darfur," said Matthew Friedman, associate director at the ADL's office in Los Angeles. "There is a dwindling population of (Holocaust) survivors, and it's important for the public to listen to them and hear their message."

The workshop follows on the heels of the successful "Bearing Witness" seminar for teachers of Roman Catholic schools. Over the past five years, more than 120 teachers in the Los Angeles Archdiocese have completed the course and, in turn, have instructed 38,000 students on the issues surrounding the murders of 6 million Jews during World War II.

"It's a real and wonderful interfaith event," said Nancy Coonis, superintendent of secondary schools for the archdiocese, the nation's largest with more than 4.3million members.

"Our hope is for our teachers to better help our students resist anti-Semitism, bias and discrimination. If they see evil, we want them to call it by its name and stand up against it."

The fifth annual program was held this week and featured three days of lectures by educators, testimonies by a Holocaust survivor and rescuer, a tour of Sephardic Temple Tifereth Israel in Los Angeles and a Shabbat dinner and service.

The speakers included Samuel Edelman, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at the American Jewish University, whose lecture on the history of anti-Semitism helped provide the context for lessons on the Holocaust.

"The goal is to show the myths that are based on lies and misunderstandings," he said. "They weren't caused by the victims themselves."

Jessica Osborne, who teaches ninth-grade English at St. Genevieve High School in Panorama City, said she was astonished to realize she'd taken 15 pages of notes during Edelman's two-hour lecture.

"I was so surprised how far back anti-Semitism goes and how steeped it is in Western history," she said. "This is an important topic to teach because it's our duty as Catholics and citizens that we make sure, as followers of Christ, to respect everyone."

In fact, it was rampant anti-Semitism and discrimination that prompted Sigmund Livingston, a Chicago attorney, to found the nonprofit Anti-Defamation League in 1913.

Three decades later, he wrote the book "Must Men Hate," in which he theorized that "seeds of hate" are planted during impressionable childhood and that the key to eliminating anti-Semitism is to spotlight the truth behind hateful myths.

And that's the goal of "Bearing Witness," which the National Catholic Educational Organization recommended in 2000 as a way to improve Roman Catholic education.

"The teachers have told me that what they have learned has changed their students," Edelman said. "That's the best thing you want to hear as a teacher."

Learning about biblical texts and historical events from the Jewish point of view helped broaden the understanding of her own faith, said Karen Moore, a teacher at La Reina High School in Thousand Oaks.

"I teach the Hebrew Scripture from the Catholic perspective. It's just fascinating to hear it presented differently from the Jewish point of view," Moore said. "I have a deep, deep interest in Judaism as the root of my faith. I have a passion for the Jewish people. I hope my passions will carry over to my students."

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