NYS Geography Regents Loaded with “Questions” on Israel as Propaganda Seeps into Exam

Edited by: TJVNews.com

It appears that anti-Israel propaganda has even seeped into the halls of public academia in New York state. According to a recently published report in the New York Post, last week a Regents examination was administered to thousands of students in the Empire State.  The test was called “unconscionable and shameful” for including “loaded” questions about Israel the report in the Post stated. The outrage at the iconic exam that has been administered to high school students in New York for over a half century came from critics of the geo-political overtones in the exam.

The Post reported that a group of Jewish leaders and civic organizations condemned a section of the test that showed maps of the changes to Israel’s borders over the decades and asked two questions that gave a “dishonest” impression about the Jewish state’s expansion.

Former Borough Park Assemblyman Dov Hikind and leader of the activist organization, Americans Against Anti-Semitism, said of the maps in question, “They lack all context.”  He added that , “Specifically that border changes were the result of successive wars started by Arab states to annihilate Israel. Second, the questions, at best, lend themselves to debate, not to singular answers from among false choices.”

Hikind, a former leader of the Jewish Defense League and the son of Holocaust survivors, also told the Post that included in the Global History and Geography Regents II that was administered last Thursday was the canard that the reason for the establishment of Israel in 1948 was predominantly because of the Holocaust and that   “Zionists and Jewish immigrants” benefited most from the “changing borders.”

Pointing out the historical genesis of the modern Zionist movement, Hikind explained that its origins began in Europe in the late 1800’s under the leadership of Theodore Herzl. He told the Post that, “when you show these maps, and ask why the state of Israel was created, it just attributes it to the Holocaust.”

Hikind said that by reducing the creation of the Jewish state to the Holocaust ignores all historical, ancestral and biblical connections of the Jewish people to the land of Israel, the Post reported. “That connection goes back thousands of years.”

Hikind also took issue with the Regents exam as it made references to the Golan Heights region of Israel which is on its northern border, close to Syria. He told the Post that the US, in 2019 had recognized that the Golan Heights as being “annexed” by Israel.

The questions shocked proctors charged with administering the test, he said. “One proctor was so angry, she was beside herself,” Hikind told The Post.

Joining Hikind in his intense dissatisfaction with the New York Regents exam was Brooklyn Councilwoman Inna Vernikov and the group that Hikind formed  known as Americans Against Anti-Semitism, the Post reported.

They are calling on New York State Commissioner of Education Betty Rosa “to swiftly remove the disingenuous questions and conduct a thorough audit to ensure such egregious distortions of history that invariably lead to animosity for the sole Jewish state aren’t being inadvertently fed to our children,” Hikind and his supporters told the Post.

One of the controversial questions asked, “Which historical event most directly influenced the development of the 1947 plan shown on map A (and showed a map of Israel from 1947).” The possible answers were 1) Russian pogroms, 2) the fall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire 3) Paris Peace Conference 4) the Holocaust, with 4 being the right answer.

The other asked, “Which group benefited most from the changes shown on the maps?” The right answer, according to the test, was “Zionists and Jewish Immigrants.”