What Governor DeSantis needs to learn about the Holocaust and the Bible

Martini Judaism

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2+ y ago 12:09

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I started my rabbinical career 42 years ago, when I served as an assistant rabbi at a large, urban synagogue in Miami, Florida.

Those were interesting and challenging times. I arrived in the wake of the Mariel boat lift. I experienced the plight of the Haitian refugees.

Those were the days of "Miami Vice," and I was living that television show. In 1983, I left Miami for points north, and I rarely looked back -- even though my late father eventually moved to south Florida.

Time and circumstance changed, and eight years ago, I returned to south Florida. My career has flourished here, and it will soon come to an end (the full time congregational rabbinate part, at least). I have loved the two congregations that I have led. I have made some deep and lasting friendships and relationships. I have come to enjoy the climate (well, not in July). I have appreciated the cost of living. I have gotten used to eating dinner at 4 pm (that was a joke).

But, there is one thing that I cannot abide, and that is the growing sense that this state is becoming Ground Zero for the repression of women; LGBTQ people -- and, increasingly, ideas themselves.

From today's JTA:

Florida’s state education department rejected two new Holocaust-focused textbooks for classroom use, while forcing at least one other textbook to alter a passage about the Hebrew Bible in order to meet state approval...

Under Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, the state has made an effort to clamp down on what he calls “woke indoctrination,” mostly regarding race and gender. The textbooks’ rejection is the latest example of how that drive is affecting Jewish topics as well.

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