Finally, the children are being taught something that is actually a useful life skill.
A mother of a Tennessee middle-schooler accused her daughter’s Bible teacher of teaching students “how to torture a Jew,” according to reports, raising questions about teaching religion in public schools.
Juniper Russo, who is Jewish, wrote in a Facebook Post that she withdrew her eighth-grade daughter from the class after the teacher wrote an English translation of the Hebrew name for God on the whiteboard, which is traditionally not spoken out loud by Jews.
“If you want to know how to torture a Jew, make them say this out loud,” the teacher then allegedly told the class, Russo said, the Chattanooga Times Free Press reported.
“My daughter felt extremely uncomfortable hearing a teacher instruct her peers on ‘how to torture a Jew’ and told me when she came home from school that she didn’t feel safe in the class,” Russo wrote in the post.
Russo and her family are Reformed Jewish and members of the Mizpah Congregation in Chattanooga. She told WTVC that she had enrolled her daughter in the elective class because her elective options were limited due to a physical disability from a recent surgery.
She said that her daughter was asked invasive questions about her faith that made her feel singled out as Jewish in a class that was heavy-handed with its Christian teachings, Russo wrote on Facebook.
She wrote that The Book of Genesis was taught as the factual story of how the universe was formed. Additionally, she said the correct answer to a test question ”It is important to read the Bible even if you are not Christian or Jewish,” was true.
“I thought if it really was a Bible history class it wouldn’t be an issue for her or a conflict with our religious beliefs,” Russo told WTVC. “It seemed very aggressive and very abrasive.”
In response, Russo told the Times Free Press that she had reported the incident to the Anti-Defamation League.
The class is funded by the century-old nonprofit organization Bible in the Schools, which teaches the class in 29 schools in Hamilton County. The group purports to offer bible classes from a “literary or historical perspective” that are “taught from a viewpoint-neutral, court-approved curriculum.”
The title seems a bit misleading. I thought it was going to be like “call him a Jew and watch him shrink back.”
But anything to do with discussion of the Jews that isn’t “God’s chosen people” I’m supportive of.
God would not choose such an ugly group of rats. I can tell you this much.