Dear Editor,
Vermont Friends of Israel is deeply concerned about the state of education in Vermont schools that allowed 14-year-old Zoya Bianchi to become so certain of her moral clarity regarding the world’s most complex conflict and so convinced of the evils of America’s closest ally. This is a failure by the adults and institutions that have shaped her understanding.
However, it comes as no surprise. Vermont is one of only eight states nationwide and the only one in New England that does not require Holocaust education, without which neither Israel nor the dangers of modern anti-Zionism can be understood.
That missing foundation distorts students’ view of Israel’s seven-front war against terrorist organizations openly committed to destroying the world’s only Jewish state. Bianchi, for example, ignores more than 40,000 rockets launched at Israeli civilians since 2001, Hezbollah weapon caches the Israel Defense Forces says are embedded in civilian infrastructure and their extensive terror tunnel network. Instead, she cites a biased United Nations with its own long history of failure in Lebanon.
An education that omits context robs our children by replacing critical thought with dogma and pressure to conform to fashionable causes, inviting students to take their cues from influential adults. Sen. Bernie Sanders, for example, recently devoted more than 400 words to decrying the situation in Gaza without once mentioning Hamas’ refusal to disarm as required by the ceasefire agreement. He also called for the immediate release of Mohsen Mahdawi, a Vermont-based Columbia University student facing deportation over allegations of antisemitic conduct through leading pro-Palestinian protests and calling for Israel’s destruction. Despite Mahdawi’s denials, the federal government also revived additional claims in recent court proceedings that Mahdawi told a Vermont gun-shop owner that he used to build submachine guns to kill Jews and told another person, “I like to kill Jews.”
Bianchi herself once wrote that empathy begins with listening to those with whom we disagree. Vermont’s educators and elected leaders should take her advice. With antisemitism rampant in Vermont, including in our schools, how much longer can we look away?
Mark Treinkman
Athens, Vt.
and the educators of Vermont Friends of Israel: Corinna Dodson, Barnard; Ethel Goldstein, Westford; Chaim Lodish, Burlington; Nancy Goodhue, Brattleboro; John Eckerson, Westford; Eileen Hayes Arama, West Townshend; Valerie Weinstein Lodish, Burlington; Caryn Olivetti, Burlington; and Larry Kaplan, St. Johnsbury
