Head Of Galloway School Defends Summer Reading Option Mein Kampf

Last week, I posted about the Galloway School in Atlanta which included Mein Kampf on it’s Summer Reading Club list. I did not like it, one bit.

Suzanna Jemsby, the Head of School for the Galloway School, has responded to the criticism in her own post.

To read or not to read?

About three years ago, two students approached me and asked if we might intentionally relabel a unisex restroom at the front of the school as a gender inclusive restroom. They had great rationale. There were students in our midst who did not identify as cisgender; they wanted a restroom they could use that would respect their identity. To celebrate the decision, I wrote about the gender inclusive restroom on this very blog, only to receive some varied feedback from around the country. I responded where possible to each critic, diligently explaining our context and assuring them that I wasn’t advocating that every school install such restrooms, but that in our community it was the right thing to do. What is neat about the location of the gender inclusive restroom is that it is right at the front of the school, so that any visitor to the school who uses it is made aware from the get-go what we stand for.

Now, how does this link to the summer reading option of Mein Kampf? Well, I have once again found myself in the position of “defending” the school in the era of social media. At some point this week, our summer book selection was shared with people way beyond our community, people who don’t understand our context as a school, and who feel strongly that we should ban certain texts from our community. (They freely share their views online). They believe we should shield our young people from selected topics. We haven’t done that at Galloway, and I don’t believe now is the time to start doing so. We owe it to our young people to engage in healthy discussion and to put alternative perspectives in front of them. We are a richer community for it; and the world will be a richer place with our students in it.

So how did the book become part of this year’s summer reading? In May, a group of predominantly Jewish students approached the librarian at our school expressing their interest in reading Mein Kampf. Principally, they wanted to think about modern leadership in the world, and Mein Kampf would create an interesting backdrop for the discussion. I can’t argue with that. I read the book in college, and it certainly led to fascinating discourse about leadership, among many other things. Anyone who knows teenagers knows that when there’s an interest in doing something, that something will likely happen if you create an arena for it or not. So, the librarian agreed to create the arena: she agreed to sponsor the book club and facilitate the conversation. Where better to have these conversations than in a school surrounded by experts?

As you might imagine with such a controversial book, it wasn’t all plain-sailing. A group of parents contact me concerned the inclusion of the book. Their concerns were many. Given our large population of Jewish families, how could we have been so inconsiderate? How would our students be able to comprehend its contents? Why should we even validate its existence by suggesting that students should comprehend its contents? As the conversation with the parents unfolded, the experts outside our community joined the conversation. To ensure that we could maximise the educational impact with the students, The Anti-Defamation League and the Georgia Commission on the Holocaust both weighed in with resources and committed to being present for the discussions with students.

On Wednesday of this past week, the first of the book club conversations took place. It was clear that our students had not only read the book closely, but that they had extraordinary insights and exceptional questions. They showed social maturity and an ability to contextualise their learning that belies their age.

I appreciate that there are many people outside our community who haven’t had the privilege of meeting our students, or of witnessing the level of intellectual dialogue that this book has engendered. I also appreciate that reading Mein Kampfisn’t for every community, just as gender inclusive restrooms aren’t culturally appropriate everywhere. Perhaps most of all I appreciate how difficult it is to prove to those outside of our community that the decision not to ban this book (or others) was the right decision.

While it is good to know the ADL are involved, I still have my concerns. Thoughts?

6 thoughts on “Head Of Galloway School Defends Summer Reading Option Mein Kampf”

  1. George Naftali Muenz

    What about the praise for the book that you mentioned? Where, they minimize it’s anti-semitic content and intent, saying “only 6% is about Jews” and “Germany did not follow Hitler because he was a racist, they followed him because he promised a great future” which I guess is why so many of then were engaged in the genocide of Jews.

    For the first time in 65 years, a modern, easy to understand, truly complete and uncensored edition of Mein Kampf has been released which reveals more than any past translation. This hardcover book is also the first translation available in an English language audio format. Older translations altered passages, omitted passages, mistranslated Hitler’s words, made some parts more sensational while concealing the true meaning in other parts of the book. If you have read one of these older translations of Mein Kampf, then you have not read the REAL Mein Kampf which is found only in the Ford Translation. Mein Kampf is often portrayed as nothing more than an Anti-Semitic work, however only 6% of it even talks about the Jews. The rest contains Hitler’s ideas and beliefs for a greater nation plus his plan on how to accomplish that goal. He outlines his plans for not only world conquest, but the conquest of the universe. The majority of the work involves Hitler’s discussion of the German people’s difficult times after the First World War, his political theories and his organization of the Nazi Party, as well as many attacks against his enemies which makes it a very interesting and moving story. Mein Kampf offers an interesting interpretation of politics, people, and foreign policy matters. To characterize it as simply a racist work is to oversimplify its message. Germany did not follow Hitler because he was a racist, they followed him because he promised a great future, and Mein Kampf is where he promised that great future. This edition is the only accurate and complete English translation of Mein Kampf ever made. This Ford Translation offers: * The most accurate translation ever produced. * Phrases that are translated with precision and with no translator’s bias. * Uncommon words are replaced with more common and more meaningful terms. * Any references to unfamiliar people, or places are explained in the text. * This version is complete with all original passages and references restored, including passages omitted from other popular versions. This translation has corrected over 1000 errors which were present in past translations. No English reader has been able to appreciate these subtleties in any previous English translation, not until the Ford Translation. Includes Photos and Illustrations of events and people in Mein Kampf Volume I and II Click the order button to receive the book so many people wish to disparage and see why they will do anything to have the printing of this book outlawed. They have already tried… This is the only edition that was so thoroughly researched and verified that it required a separate book(Mein Kampf: A Translation Controversy) to document the changes and corrections made which prove the dynamic style of the Ford translation is superior to all past mechanical translations. Read the hardback version, then decide for yourself if he was a mad-man or a genius.

    1. If you read Sebastian Haffner’s work, you will see that the German people voted AGAINST Hitler several times, but were not supported by government parties who chose to put him in power.

  2. Quite likely the Jewish kids wanted to know the background to Holocaust and how it happened and how psychopath Hitler managed to convince people to murder wholesale. Fair enough. It should be an interesting experiment. Hope they blog about it.
    And I hope they leave room to discuss and work through any nausea they experience from that repulsive publication.

  3. I read this blog and raised an eyebrow, and my gut reaction was “only in America!” Analysing Mein Kamf as a literary work, without the context of the Holocaust, Six Million dead Jews or the fact that Mein Kamf contains the blueprint for the fate of those Six Million, is a symptom that the way the Holocaust is regarded, and remembered is changing. And this is while there are still survivors alive, with number tattoos on their wrists. On the one hand, I am opposed to the idea of banning books, and I suppose there is an element of elevating the book, giving it a sacred cow status, by banning it. But putting it on a reading list, and asking school aged children to dispassionately read it as a piece of literature, and moreover, to encourage them to find, as the Principal did, that it is rich and moving, starts to relegate the Holocaust to a mere historical event, which followed the political changes of Germany in the in nineteen twenties and thirties. Do you know where Mein Kamf is not sitting on school library shelves, like just another book, or studied as another historical text? In Germany. In Germany, there are laws specifically about Holocaust denial, and about antisemitism, quite separate to all other forms of racism or discrimination, as very specific safeguards against history repeating. If Mein Kamf is read without context of what followed, one could note Hitler’s love for his country and its people, him wanting to bring about positive change etc, but that’s not what happened, is it?

    And the “only six percent is antisemitic” – one percent per every million of murdered Jews? The Ten Commandments, or in fact just two or three of them, are a small percentage of the Bible, but they are the whole foundation of society’s moral code. Don’t kill. Don’t steal. Don’t commit adultery. Small percentage. That’s what the focus should be on – the idea that it can take a small percentage of a whole to shape the future of a nation or the whole world. One phrase in a whole manifesto, or in a religious book. In fact, some have argued that if Hitler had not been so obsessed with killing Jews, and diverting war resources to killing Jewish men, women and children, that the outcome of the war would have been different.

    The principal justifies the selection to the reading list, by praising the intelligence of their students, and attacks detractors from “outside their community”. But, I didn’t feel she sufficiently addressed the concerns of those within their community, the parents who complained. Nor does she address the concerns of people directly affected by those six percent of antisemitic content. It is good that they brought in the ADL, but they should also have a discussion with survivors, ask how they feel about this being read as a “book on the Summer reading list”. Maybe it should be made to be read with other literary works, like “The Reader”, “the Book Thief”, the play, “I Never Saw Another Butterfly”.

  4. I taught parts of mein kampf at a Jewish school at the request of the students,with parent and admin approval and a rabbi looking on. No book should ever be forbidden but controversial ones need discussion and context. We looked at why people voted for Hitler and where his reasoning went off the rails

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