East Hamilton Middle School: Bible teacher taught students 'how to torture a Jew' in class
Juniper Russo, a Jewish mother of a Tennessee middle-schooler accused her daughter’s Bible teacher of giving lessons on “how to torture a Jew”. The East Hamilton Middle School eighth-grader was later pulled out from the class by her mother after the teacher wrote an English translation of the name of a Hebrew God on the whiteboard, which is customarily not spoken aloud by Jews. “If you want to know how to torture a Jew, make them say this out loud,” the teacher then allegedly told the class.
“My daughter felt extremely uncomfortable hearing a teacher instruct her peers on ‘how to torture a Jew’ and told me when she came home from school that she didn’t feel safe in the class,” Russo wrote on a Facebook post detailing the incident. Juniper, who is a parent of three in Chattanooga and an active member of the Jewish community reportedly emailed her daughter’s Bible teacher asking to meet so that she could explain her concerns and allow the teacher to explain herself, but she did not respond.
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“I have been a parent for 14 years and I have never in my life heard of a teacher refusing to meet with a parent,” Russo said. Juniper had several other concerns with the class, “Ms. McClung has discussed the Book of Genesis as if it were a factual account of the origin of the universe. She made a bizarre metaphor about how contradictions in the book are the result of God knowing more than humanity,” Russo added.
Russo further raised questions about teaching religion in public schools. The Bible class in the Hamilton County Schools is funded by the century-old non-profit organization ‘Bible in the Schools’, which teaches the class in 29 other schools in Hamilton County. The group purports to offer bible classes from a “literary or historical perspective” that are “taught from a viewpoint-neutral, court-approved curriculum.” To which Russo said “I also would not necessarily be opposed to a class that actually taught the Christian Bible as literature rather than as fact”
Juniper and her family are Reformed Jewish and members of the Mizpah Congregation in Chattanooga. She shared on the Facebook post how her daughter enrolled in the elective class because her elective options were limited due to a physical disability from a recent surgery.
She also shared how her daughter was asked invasive questions regarding her faith that made her feel singled out as the only Jewish kid in a class but Russo drew the line when the teacher shared her opinion on “how to torture a Jew”. “It’s not enough. I’m angry and I’m hurt,” she wrote before reporting the incident to the Anti Defamation League.
