GRADE LEVEL: Elementary School
COMMON CORE STANDARDS: Reading, Speaking and Listening The First Girl to Pitch a Shutout in the Little League World Series
In 2014 Mo’Ne Davis, a 13-year-old girl, made news headlines as the first girl to ever pitch a shutout in the Little League World series. At that time she was considered the “most talked about baseball player on earth right now” according to many observers in the sports world. Mo’Ne (pronounced Moh-nay…
Identity-Based Bullying: What It Is and What We Can Do About It
Lesson Plan
GRADE LEVEL: K-12 Bullying is a major problem in our schools. When it targets aspects of a person’s identity, it is called identity-based bullying, and may include bias about appearance, race, culture, gender and gender expression, language, religion, socioeconomic status, disability and sexual orientation. According to the CDC’s 2024 Youth Violence Prevention study focused on bullying, 1 in 5 high school students report being bullied in school in the past year. That same CDC…
GRADE LEVEL: Elementary School
COMMON CORE STANDARDS: Reading, Writing, Language Using Poetry to Teach about Identity
Reading and writing poetry can provide an opening for young people to explore the various aspects of their identity, including their name, race and ethnicity, physical characteristics and more.
April is National Poetry Month, a good opportunity to explore poetry with your students. Because poetry does not require strict sentence structure or the usual grammar rules…
by: Abraham H. Foxman | February 26, 2014 The Huffington Post Ten years ago, Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ" film was released amid a swirl of controversy and after a relentless public relations campaign playing up the director's celebrity status and his adamant refusal to change the film amid concerns of insensitivity and anti-Semitism. Gibson's "Passion" was a passion of hate. His film bought into all of the troubling representations of the Passion that fortified church-based…
‘That’s So Gay’: Language That Hurts, and How to Stop It
Article
January 21, 2014
The phrase "that’s so gay" has persisted as a way for students to describe things they do not like, find annoying or generally want to put down, while it is promising that fewer students are hearing homophobic slurs than in previous years.
The phrase is used so commonly that many students no longer recognize it as homophobic because it is “what everyone says.” When educators and other adults intervene, common student responses include “I was just…
ADL Commends ICCJ for “Thoughtful, Balanced” Statement on Israel-Palestinian Conflict
News
July 12, 2013 The Anti-Defamation League commends the International Council of Christian and Jews (ICCJ) for its comprehensive statement about the Israel-Palestinian conflict, which calls on religious institutions and groups to refrain from issuing one-sided declarations in attempting to promote a resolution to the dispute. The statement by ICCJ, one of the world’s oldest and most respected international Christian-Jewish organizations, urges religious bodies and leaders to recommit…
by: By Abraham H. Foxman | April 18, 2013 The Huffington Post One of the first things Argentinian native Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio did after being elected pope on March 13 was to send a message of friendship to Rome's chief rabbi, Riccardo Di Segni -- and, by extension, the Jewish people.
"I sincerely hope to be able to contribute to the progress that relations between Jews and Catholics have enjoyed since the Second Vatican Council," wrote Cardinal Bergoglio, who took the name Pope Francis…
January 02, 2013 Q. What is the basis for ADL's concerns about Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ"?A. We first learned about Mr. Gibson's plans to make a film based on the final hours of Jesus' life in a New York Times Magazine article that appeared in February 2003. An early version of the script was shared with us. In August 2003, an ADL representative saw a rough cut in Houston. On January 21, we saw a version of the film at a screening in Orlando, Florida. We had hoped to see the film…
by: Abraham H. Foxman | July 11, 2007 Jewish Telegraphic Agency NEW YORK (JTA) – With anti-Semitism resurgent in the world, one of the encouraging elements for the Jewish people, particularly if one is to compare things today to the 1930s and 1940s, is the remarkable change in the Catholic Church's attitudes toward Jews. In the past four decades, a conceptual revolution has taken place in the church's relationship with the Jewish people. The first step came with Vatican II and its…
August 01, 2006 The following is the text of Mel Gibson's apology to the Jewish Community for his anti-Semitic statements. There is no excuse, nor should there be any tolerance, for anyone who thinks or expresses any kind of Anti-Semitic remark. I want to apologize specifically to everyone in the Jewish community for the vitriolic and harmful words that I said to a law enforcement officer the night I was arrested on a DUI charge. I am a public person, and when I say something, either…
In 1965, the Second Vatican Council made historic changes to church policies and theology. Among them was Nostra Aetate, Latin for "In Our Time," a document that revolutionized the Catholic Church's approach to Jews and Judaism after nearly 2000 years of pain and sorrow.
Section four of Nostra Aetate repudiates the centuries-old "deicide" charge against all Jews, stresses the religious bond shared by Jews and Catholics, reaffirms the eternal covenant between God and the People of…
ADL and the LGBT Community: A Commitment to Equal Rights
Backgrounder
For Educators | For Law Enforcement | For Parents, Families, and Caregivers
The Anti-Defamation League has a longstanding commitment to protecting civil rights, and has been a key partner in advancing Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) rights. At the federal, state, and local levels, ADL has advocated in support of anti-discrimination statutes, for strong and inclusive hate crime and bullying prevention laws, and for marriage equality. In addition, as one of the nation’s…
Religion in Political Campaigns -- An Interfaith Statement of Principles
Backgrounder
Freedom of religion is one of our nation's most cherished liberties. It is at the very foundation of America. Our nation's Constitution protects religious freedom for all, prohibits religious tests for public office, and mandates separation of church and state. These are essential American ideals and values, which candidates for public office should respect.
Candidates for public office are, of course, free to worship as they choose. And they should feel comfortable explaining their…
The central narrative of Christian theology is the passion, i.e. the trials and crucifixion, and resurrection of Jesus. There are four different accounts of the passion in the gospels of Christian Scriptures, in which Jews play different roles. All these accounts culminate in the death and resurrection of Jesus as revealing God's saving power available to humanity. Good Friday and Easter celebrate respectively the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus as the high points of Christian creed and…