HOW TO GET AWAY WITH ‘MARTYR’
NYC teachers’ anti-bias training strips violent context from jihad, Sharia
New York City teachers were told that “jihad” means simply “struggle” — not holy war — in training sessions against “antiMuslim bias” run by the Department of Education.
Educators were even given the example that it could simply mean “my jihad to get fit” in a video seen by The Post.
The video shows how a trainer from the DOE also told teachers that “Sharia” simply means religious observance and did not mention brutal punishments and persecution of women and minorities it is used to justify.
One teacher said the webinar host simply ignored them when they messaged to say that the Encyclopedia Britannica definition of jihad included war.
Another compared the way it redefined language as “straight from the Joseph Goebbels handbook,” while a third said it was a brazen attempt to use semantics to avoid discussing Islamic extremism.
The webinar “Understanding Muslim Experiences and Combating Anti-Muslim Bias” was run by the city’s Human Rights Commission for teachers on Feb. 20.
It was part of a series of voluntary “anti-bias” events launched in the wake of the Oct. 7 Hamas massacre of hundreds of innocent Israelis and run by the city’s Commission on Human Rights. Another training later this week will deal with antisemitism.
“The literal meaning of Jihad is ‘struggle’ or ‘great effort.’ Jihad is the Muslim concept of striving in the path of God,” the Feb. 20 webinar host said.
Examples she gave included, “My jihad to never settle short”; “My jihad to not judge people”; “My jihad to build friendships”; and “My jihad is to stay fit despite my busy schedule.”
A Jewish teacher who attended told The Post: “They are trying to normalize jihad but we have to address the elephant in the room; that for many radical Muslims it means violence.
“It’s a form of subliminal messaging and brainwashing. By changing the terminology it becomes easier to say and repeat, especially for children. It’s like genocide doesn’t mean genocide anymore and terrorist means freedom fighter.
“When someone hears a word like jihad they now associate it with a struggle to go to the gym rather than violence.
“How will they be able to spot dangerous and violent ideolo
gies? The Department of Education is promoting this twisting of terminology.”
Another Jewish attendee said: “It’s disingenuous to omit that it is commonly used to mean holy war and then to say that the media outlets who use it that way just control the narrative.”
The webinar went on to discuss Sharia law.
The host said: “Sharia is overwhelmingly concerned with personal religious observance such as prayer and fasting and not with national laws.”
“There is no official document such as the 10 Commandments that encapsulates Sharia,” they said. “Sharia is personal religious and moral guidance for the vast majority of Muslims.”
But again it ignored the use of Sharia law in parts of the Middle East to justify, for example, Saudi Arabia’s former ban on women driving and current punishments including amputating convicted thieves’ hands, or Iran’s public hangings of opponents.
‘Islamic revolution’
Most notoriously, ISIS’s reign of terror saw gay people thrown from tall buildings and Americans beheaded.
The DOE referred The Post to the Commission on Human Rights. It did not offer comment.
Human rights groups have criticized Sharia law for violating the most basic rights.
The European Court of Human Rights ruled that Sharia is “incompatible with the fundamental principles of democracy.”
John L. Esposito, professor of Middle Eastern and religious studies at Georgetown University, said: “Jihad is a concept with multiple meanings, used and abused throughout Islamic history.
“In recent years some Muslims have maintained that jihad is a universal religious obligation for all true Muslims to join the jihad to promote a global Islamic revolution.”