Education Institute
by Elizabeth Laird
2016
A story of the Second Intifada that demonizes and dehumanizes Israelis has no place in education. Yet that is exactly what Elizabeth Laird’s A Little Piece of Ground, now required reading in Newark public schools, does.
by Mayse Odeh, illustrated by Aliaa Betawi
2024
A Map for Falasteen is a simplistic, propagandistic book, whose bright colors and cultural touchstones serve a one-sided, factually inaccurate narrative. It is a shiny but deceptive product, unsuitable for children or adults.
by Wafa’ Tarnowska
2021_______________
Young readers deserve to learn about talented, ambitious women, but erasing Israel from the map and Jewish women from the Middle East falsifies history and geography.
by Rifk Ebeid
2020
Erasing Israel, Jerusalem and Hebron from the map makes for bad geography. Clumsy rhymes and rhythms make for worse literature.
by Leila Abdelrazaq
2015
Young readers should learn about the exile of Palestinians, but the story should be based on facts. Myths, hearsay, omissions and distortions don’t constitute history. They constitute propaganda.
by Ibtisam Barakat
2016
A memoir of war and dislocation can arouse sympathy in young readers, but the author’s hardships are no excuse for twisting international law and erasing Jewish history from the land of Israel.
by Ahlam Bsharat, translated by Nancy Roberts
2016
A novel for teens that idolizes terrorists as martyrs and erases Israeli suffering inverts the realities of the Middle East conflict. It doesn’t belong in the hands of impressionable young readers.
by Jody Sokolower
2021
The book is based on visits Jody Sokolower and her daughter Ericka made to Israel and the West Bank to “research” the situation of Arabs in East Jerusalem. It is a propagandistic book informed by Sokolower’s pre-existing bias – she promotes BDS against Israel – rather than by any objective research.
by Hannah Moushabeck, illustrated by Reem Madooh
2023
The author’s nostalgic account of her father’s childhood in East Jerusalem is marred by a pernicious agenda: To erase Israel, Jews, and Hebrew from Jerusalem and prejudice young readers against Israel.
Featured author: Naomi shihab nye
Maligning Israel for young readers
The books we read as children stay with us all our lives. In our earliest stories, big, bad wolves threaten innocent children – and few of us grow up with warm, fuzzy feelings about wolves. Replace that wolf with an Israeli soldier, and you have an indelible image. That is the danger of the writings of Palestinian-American children’s poet and novelist Naomi Shihab Nye.
