To Protect Zionism, We Must Reject Ethnic Studies

by Nicole Bernstein | May 20, 2025 | Originally Published on Algemeiner

Demonstrators holding a “Stand Up for Internationals” rally on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley, in Berkeley, California, US, April 17, 2025. Photo: Carlos Barria via Reuters Connect.

There are two hard truths at the core of the ethnic studies mandate debate currently raging across California, which continue to generate intense division and a growing number of lawsuits.

For those of us in the Jewish community, acknowledging these truths is urgent. Wherever ethnic studies — and its ideological sibling, DEI — are implemented, Jewish students have faced some of the most egregious violations of Constitutionally protected civil rights our country has experienced in recent times.

The first hard truth is that to teach “authentic” ethnic studies (as its architects intended), one must categorically reject Zionism. That’s not a flaw in the system — it’s the point.

The second point follows with painful clarity: you cannot fight antisemitism while embracing the very ideological framework that perpetuates it.

Zionism is inseparable from the Jewish people — it is our identity, our origin story, our homeland, and our essence.

And yet, across California classrooms — and increasingly across the country — Zionism is being smeared, redefined, and dismantled by the purveyors of “authentic” ethnic studies. And it’s showing up in the vast majority of school districts, classrooms, and colleges across America.

Ethnic studies teaches that Zionism — and even Israel’s existence — is something to be rejected. But the vast majority of Jews worldwide believe Zionism simply means that the Jewish people have the right to live freely and safely in their own homeland. Calling Zionism “racist” isn’t education — it’s hate dressed up as justice.

This isn’t a misunderstanding, or the fault of “a few bad teachers.” Hostility to Zionism is not incidental — it is central to the ethnic studies project.

By its own definition, ethnic studies is not about cultural understanding. It is a radical ideological framework born out of revolutionary Marxism and the Third World Liberation Front. It’s about dismantling systems it views as oppressive — “white supremacy,” settler colonialism, and capitalism. From its inception, ethnic studies was designed to “decolonize” the world — which in practical terms, means the dismantling of Western democracies, including the United States and Israel.

This is not my interpretation. It is, nearly word-for-word, how ethnic studies scholars describe their own discipline.

One ethnic studies professor, Dr. Marcelo Garzo Montalvo, describes the curriculum as rooted in a “fundamental critique of power,” with the explicit goal of “engagement” with “white supremacy, settler colonialism, racial capitalism, and other global structures of power.”

He explicitly states that California’s high school ethnic studies requirement “has no other origin besides [Third World Studies] and their relevant demands.” The curriculum’s origins lie in revolutionary movements, not multicultural education.

Those familiar with the origins of the Third World Liberation Front know this: Zionism was never going to be recognized as the Jewish liberation movement. Ethnic studies would never portray it as progressive, aspirational, or worthy of respect.

Ironically, Zionism is the only real-world example of the very “decolonization” ethnic studies claims to pursue. And yet, rather than celebrate it, ethnic studies revives a familiar tactic: taking whatever society deems the ultimate evil and projecting it onto the Jews.

That’s the danger: ethnic studies packages ancient hate as modern “social justice.” And in ethnic studies, it’s not just present — it’s institutionalized. At this point, any effort to add “balance” to ethnic studies through Holocaust education or occasional references to Sephardic Jewish diversity is utterly futile.

And still, some major Jewish organizations continue to try and reform ethnic studies from within — offering feedback, drafting addendums, proposing lesson plans. Why? Out of fear, or perhaps the belief that being “at the table” means having a say?

The answer is a cocktail of fear, ignorance, wishful thinking, and institutional groupthink. Many hoped ethnic studies could be tamed — turned into a tool for inclusion, maybe even used to elevate Jewish identity alongside others.

They believed that by having a seat at the table, they could influence what’s on the menu. But the truth is: we were never meant to be at that table. Not as equals. Not when Zionism — central to Jewish identity — is framed as part of the problem.

And so long as we continue to assert our right to self-determination in our ancestral homeland (Zionism), we will always be portrayed as the villain. The more we try to sanitize the ethnic studies movement as a plea for inclusion, the more legitimacy we give to the latest iteration of Jew-hatred that seeks to destroy us.

We cannot protect Jewish students while endorsing a curriculum that teaches others to hate Jews. And we cannot defend Zionism while legitimizing an ideology that slanders it as oppression.

The solution to ethnic studies is not reform, it is rejection.

Zionism is the civil rights movement of the Jewish people. It deserves to be taught with truth, not twisted into a caricature. Not reduced to a slur. And if defending Zionism means standing alone, so be it. It wouldn’t be the first time. It won’t be the last.

When a movement tells you — clearly and proudly — that it opposes everything you stand for, the most self-respecting thing you can do is believe them.

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Nicole Bernstein is the co-founder of *PeerK12, a grassroots organization combating institutionalized Jew-hatred in K-12 education. A mother of two public school students, she serves on her School District’s Equity Advisory Council