"After reading Jenny Peto's highly controversial master's thesis, "The Victimhood of the Powerful: White Jews, Zionism and the Racism of Hegemonic Holocaust Education," I found it to be even worse than I thought. Having led the Holocaust and Hope Educators' Study Tour to Germany, Poland, and Israel for 12 years as national director of the League for Human Rights of B'nai Brith Canada, and having published articles on the topic in textbooks and refereed journals, I was outraged by its lack of scholarship, and also embarrassed that my alma mater would pass a thesis that cited none of the relevant literature on Holocaust education in the context of anti-racist education in Canada.
The fact that the author did not speak to anyone who had designed or participated in either of the programs in her so-called case studies, citing only their websites, certainly does not meet the rigorous academic standard usually required for a successful thesis. She misused the theoretical framework, failing to understand that anti-Semitism is indeed "anti-Jewish oppression." She did not use empirical data, but simply her personal opinion to support her ideology. To call what she did "research" is a misnomer
Holocaust education today is about teaching Jews and non-Jews alike about stereotyping, prejudice and hate, and the horror of genocide, as a way of fighting discrimination, not promoting it.
Karen Mock "
1 comment:
I read the introduction and found it very interesting. Then I starting reading the first chapter. It seemed very amateurish. I wouldn't want to judge it without reading the whole thing, which I'm still hoping to do. But critics such as the one you posted above lend credence to my initial assumptions; it makes me think the whole thing will read like Chapter One.
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