San Diego teacher tells Jewish student Adolf Hitler had 'strong leadership qualities', sparks outrage
The middle school teacher had pinned a photo of Adolf Hitler right next to Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr and JFK
October 9, 2022
A San Diego school teacher reportedly
told a Jewish student that Hitler may have done some bad things, but he
also had strong leadership qualities. The Jewish student's father Dr Roy David sent an email to the teacher
asking for an explanation regarding the picture of Hitler on the wall
but received no reply. SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA: A San Diego middle school teacher is facing harsh criticism after displaying a picture of Adolf Hitler
next to other world leaders including Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther
King Jr and John F Kennedy. When a 7th-grader, who is Jewish, asked
Carmel Valley Middle School teacher Tabitha Barry about Hitler being on
the board, his response was, "Hitler may have done some bad things, but
he also had strong leadership qualities."
The student told his father Dr Roy David about the board. David said,
"We're sitting at the dinner table and he says to me, 'Hey dad, my
teacher has a picture of Hitler on the wall.'" The appaled father
couldn't believe his son and asked him to show a picture. "And there's
Adolf Hitler, a big, portrait-size picture of Hitler. And right next to
Hitler is Gandhi
and Martin Luther King and JFK and each one of these people has some
kind of inspirational quote written underneath them." David told CBS8.
While Hitler was responsible for the Holocaust, there is no denying the fact that he had strong leadership qualities - ed.
David then emailed the teacher asking for an explanation with a request
that the photo be taken down. However, there was no response, he said.
The photo of Hitler had been on the classroom wall since the start of
the school year, as per the student. According to David it was not part
of a history syllabus on World War II.
David said his son allegedly went back the next day and asked why she
had a picture of Hitler on the wall and the teacher actually told her,
"You know, you're trivializing the Holocaust. Hitler may have done some
bad things but he had leadership qualities."
The father of the Jewish student emailed
the school to take down the picture but there was no response until it
caused an outrage on social media "My grandparents' entire families were murdered in the Holocaust," David
said, adding "They were from Poland, originally, and my grandmother was
the sole survivor from our town. Every other man, woman, and child was
rounded up and executed." Around six million Jewish people were murdered
by Hitler
's Nazi collaborators during the Holocaust, with over 11 million people
fearing being slaughtered by the evil regime. Rabbi Abraham Cooper,
with the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a leading global Jewish human rights
organization, spoke of the incident and said, "There was a failure in
the classroom."
Rabbi Cooper told KGTV,
"In this case, taking all those important positive figures of history
and then putting Hitler right in that mix is wrong The real goal here is
not to punish anyone, let's say educate our educators, and do a better
job for our kids here in California." The local Jewish human rights
organization stated in a public statement that they were not interested
in anyone being punished but urged proactive steps being taken to ensure
it doesn't happen again. After the incident caused public outrage on
social media, the school principal apologized and pledged to organize anti-bias training for faculty and staff.
Principal Vicki Kim conveyed his message through an email to parents
and said the teachers never intend to hurt or offend anybody. "We have
recently experienced one of those times that had a hurtful impact,
particularly to our Jewish community, and to others, and for this we are
sorry," the email stated.
Nevertheless, this was not the first string of controversial remarks
made by people linked to the San Dieguito Union High School District. A
superintendent was reportedly fired earlier this year for comments she
made about Asian students, reported KGTV. A school board member was even
accused of making transphobic comments.
3 comments:
We should not recognize evil in any positive role. Hitler was not a good leader. Hitler messed up trying for world domination when he attacked Russia. Strategically it was a leadership blunder. His decisions alone cost Germany the war. Any good leader would have paid attention to the upcoming Russian winter. In the end Hitler was a mad man who self-destructed.
The teacher should have been demoted to cafeteria duty.
For some people making the trains run on time is very important.
Trey, you are right. Hitler made some bad decisions, the worst probably being not to invade England quickly after Dunkirk. But there is a big difference between making decisions and having leadership qualities. Had he not been a strong leader, his generals would not have obeyed der Fuhrer.
That being said, it is not easy for me, a Holocaust survivor, to say anything positive about a man who was responsible for the murder of 6,000,000 Jews.
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