An antisemitic reference excusing Russian pogroms was removed from an Oxford University Press (OUP) A-level history textbook, the Jewish Chronicle reported on Wednesday.
The 2015 history textbook on Tsarist and Communist Russia included a section on the Jewish pogroms of 1881-84.
According to the JC, the textbook explained “money-lending and personal riches” as a reason behind the violence against Jews and blamed antisemitism on “the teachings of the Orthodox Church.”
A parent, Jo Sandelson, noticed the phrasing when helping her son with his schoolwork.
“He had been revising, and I was going through helping him before his exams, and he pointed me towards these paragraphs in the textbook. He thought they were clearly antisemitic, and I agreed with him."
“We both said that we must do something about it,” Sandelson explained. Not long after this discovery, the Board of Deputies of British Jews (BoD) became involved, and a formal complaint was sent to OUP last July.
In response to the complaint, OUP revised the textbook in collaboration with University College London’s Centre for Holocaust Education.
The updated version reads, “There had been pogroms and persecution of Jewish communities across Europe for many centuries, culminating in Russia in the nineteenth-century pogroms. This was partly fuelled by the ‘blood libel’ (fabricated accusations that Jewish people abducted and murdered Christian children as part of a ritual), and partly by the wrongful blaming of Jews for, among other things, the death of Jesus Christ and the Black Death in the 1300s.”
The BoD said, “For many years, the education staff of the BoD has had to check and correct questionable, and sometimes biased, material going into schools. Until last year, it was material that could have reinforced antisemitic stereotypes, such as the history textbook published by OUP on Tsarist and Communist Russia 1855 -1964 when Jewish ‘money-lending and personal riches’ were used as an explanation of the pogroms.” BoD praised OUP for modifying the material.
An OUP spokesperson told the JC, “Our editorial process for the second edition included reviews and updates from a number of subject experts as part of our commitment to the inclusive presentation of diverse histories.”
Anti-hate education
In October, the Board of Deputies of British Jews and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) joined forces to create a new, free digital resource to teach secondary school students in the UK about Jews, Judaism, and antisemitism.
The resource – Jewish Living Online (JLO) – was created amid an increase in antisemitic incidents among younger demographics, showcasing the need for better anti-hate educational programs in schools.