Episode 6 - Nina Mehta and Donna Nevel (PARCEO)

Donna and Nina are the co-directors of PARCEO, a community research, resource, and education center. In this episode, they talk about their social justice upbringings and retell the story of meeting each other at a wedding, which seems like kismet. We talk about many of their projects including their collaboratively-created Nakba curriculum, their curriculum on antisemitism that focuses on collective liberation, and how PARCEO might be an antidote for the ADL.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Welcome to Another Education is Possible. I'm your host, Jordan Corson. Somehow, we've made a

(00:06):
number of episodes into this podcast about radical education without mentioning the philosopher,
educator, critical pedagogue, Paulo Freire. When talking about unmaking and making worlds,
at least speaking personally, Freire shattered my stable institutionalized understanding of
education and showed me that something else is possible. A Freire quote that many listeners

(00:30):
have probably heard paraphrased in all kinds of ways is that there's no such thing as a neutral
education. Education is either about ushering the next generation into the logics of the current
world or it's a practice of freedom. In other words, education is either about maintaining the
status quo or maybe doing some small tweaks here and there or it's a liberatory. So when we hear

(00:57):
things about anti-Semitism curriculum or Holocaust education, it's really important to remember this
idea. Education is always, always political. Take the ADL for instance. It masquerades as this
neutral educational organization that fights anti-Semitism when in reality, as many investigations

(01:20):
have shown, the ADL conflates protesting genocide or settler colonialism with anti-Semitism.
It manipulates data to serve its right-wing and supremacist views and it relentlessly attacks
social justice movements including Jewish-led groups, all while pretending that the ADL is some

(01:43):
kind of civil rights organization. Educators though are pushing back. Another Zionist organization,
the American Jewish Committee, which incidentally was crucial to the shift towards Zionist-focused
education that happened for U.S. Jews after 1967, they were recently scheduled to run a mandatory
professional development workshop for San Francisco teachers. Educators, families, and community

(02:08):
members resisted. These sessions were eventually canceled and then they were rescheduled as
something optional and for San Francisco educators, rather than just letting the issue go,
supported by Jewish Voice for Peace, they sought out another kind of education, one that is
historically rooted and, I'd argue, grounded in Frerian notions of liberatory education.

(02:31):
Donna Neville and Nina Mehta, the co-directors of PARSEO, the organization that facilitated
those workshops for San Francisco teachers, are our guests today. Through their profound
coalitional work with PARSEO, they offer community-rooted, justice-based participatory
education work. And as we discussed in our conversation, PARSEO is very much like the

(02:53):
anti-ADL. Being somebody with a background in curriculum stuff, it was really hard to not just
geek out over their Nakba curriculum and their anti-Semitism curriculum. But this episode isn't
just about curricular work or it's about curriculum, broadly speaking, but it's also
about this wonderful friendship. It's about friends who work and think and learn and struggle

(03:17):
together to make other worlds possible. Donna Neville was, among many things, co-founder of
Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, the Center for Immigrant Families and its Project to Challenge
Segregation in our Public Schools, and Jews Against Anti-Muslim Racism. She's part of the South
Florida Coalition for Palestine and JVP South Florida. Donna has taught participatory action

(03:41):
research at NYU Steinhardt. Nina Mehta is a community educator and co-director of PARSEO.
She's from and lives in New York. She works with a range of community groups and organizations on
collaborative research, education, cultural and economic organizing, and media projects.

(04:25):
So could you just start telling us a bit about who you both are and how you know each other?
I'm Nina Mehta. I'm from New York. I live in New York. Right now I'm co-director of PARSEO with
Donna Neville. And yeah, how we know each other, it's connected also to our work. So we met a bit

(04:52):
over 10 years ago on the bluffs of a beach in Mendocino that one of my closest friends
and Donna's nieces wedding. So very, very small wedding and we're sitting on the rocks.
And Donna asks, what do I do? And at the time it was sort of host Occupy Wall Street and I was

(05:18):
continuing to work with different community assemblies and these kind of informal community
groups, creating participatory organizing campaigns together that reflected the community's issues
and sort of also supporting kind of cross organizing efforts and done in a really

(05:42):
participatory way. And I shared this with Donna and Donna said, this is what I do. In fact,
I have a center and we do this exactly. And yeah, so it was hard to understand all of the overlaps
at that time. But when we returned to New York, we met up and saw that that was just one of the

(06:03):
many, many areas of overlap and connection. And that really started our collaboration with each other.
Right. Well, Donna, do you see it the same way? Do you want to share anything about yourself
and your background as well as how you came to know Nina?
Yeah, I share Nina's description of how we met. I know that after talking to her,

(06:32):
when I got back to New York, I was incredibly excited to share with other members of the team
that I had met Nina and who she was and was really happy that we were going to have an opportunity
for Nina to join the Parseo team. I grew up in Miami until I went to college and I was in
Massachusetts and then lived with my husband and three children in New York for the next 35 years.

(06:59):
And I'm now back in Miami when we realized, my husband, I realized we could do our work from
here, particularly since so much was in places other than New York or Miami. And also, I was
really ready to come back to the ocean and the warm weather. And I also have family I adore down

(07:21):
here. And coming down, we tried for a year, we rented out our New York apartment, which we
didn't own, we rented. And we realized when we came down, we just got connected to a beautiful
social justice community down here. And yeah, and this gave up our New York apartment a year later
and I've been here the past seven years.

(07:43):
But your collaboration continues and you work up and down the East Coast together?
We have, yes, we are because Parseo is national. Our work is with groups across the country. And
actually at this point, we're working with groups globally as well. So it's been, we've been able to

(08:03):
do that full force.
Yeah, there's a really nice mix of, obviously our daily lives are working together and we work
intensely online together. We're on the phone all day, we meet up and do different workshops and
participate in a ton of projects all over the place. And then, I'll come down to Miami with my

(08:28):
child who adores Donna and Donna's husband and family in general. And so there is also the
family connection. And I'm also really close to Donna's family beyond the initial meeting
of my close friend and her niece and nephew. I'm very close to the rest of her family.
So it's pretty incredible to be able to work really closely on really difficult topics

(08:56):
with somebody that you are genuinely incredibly close with and meshed in so many ways in each
other's lives and commitments.
And I want to mention that that informs the work that you two do as educators, that your relationship
greatly impacts how you approach these projects. And if you think of what community education means,

(09:24):
you're building community and practicing community together. But maybe we could put a pin in that
because I love building a bit of a narrative arc. So if we could flash back, I wrote down one quote
from one of your curriculums. So I came to know your work through two places, the Nakbo curriculum

(09:46):
and the anti-Semitism curriculum. In the Palestinian Nakbo curriculum, you have a section
on Zionism, which, and I'm quoting here, includes the foundations and intentions of Zionism,
the enactment and reality of Zionist colonization in Palestine, and the historical context
for Palestinian opposition to Zionism. And when I saw that, I was wondering kind of how

(10:14):
those, the foundation and intention of Zionism appeared in your own lives, how
your own educational upbringings were grounded in those kinds of things or not.
Yeah, I mean, just to start, I mean, my understanding of the intentions and realities of Zionism
completely ignored the rights and lives and land of Palestinians. So how I had been raised

(10:39):
was really to think about Zionism as safety for Jews. And I had not, as a young child, had not had
exposure to any other stories, any other narratives, any other education. So yeah, there was a kind of

(11:00):
naturalized kind of ignoring of those foundations and intentions.
And where was that appearing for you, Nina? Was that in family stories, in the
formalized places like synagogues or schools?

(11:20):
Yeah. So I come from a non-religious Jewish background and for many, many generations on both
both my mother's father's and my mother's mother's sides. So I'm half Jewish, my father's
South Asian, Jane, my mother is Jewish. And my mother's father left Poland at age 13 and went

(11:50):
with his younger brother who was 11 to Palestine and lived there until he met my grandmother.
In New York in the late 40s. So yeah, I spent a lot of my childhood in Haifa visiting family and

(12:12):
again, just sort of believing the stories that I'd been told and the very
one-sided histories. Is it similar for you, Donna? So I grew up in a family, very culturally Jewish.
Also, my father was a Jewish, a Jewish man, and he was a Jewish man. So I grew up in a family,

(12:42):
very culturally Jewish. Also, my father was a Jewish community leader. He was, my parents
were two of the most ethical human beings I knew. So I very, and they were also committed to justice.
And so I always connected being Jewish to being committed to justice. And at a very young age,

(13:04):
my father said to me, and it has stuck with me my whole life, that be proud of who you are as a
Jewish person and never ever feel you're better than any other person or community. And it was
more than what he said, but it was how he lived his life. I never saw him treating another human
being with less than full respect. And so that was very embedded in me. I did support Zionism,

(13:31):
but I was always, I entered when I was young through the lens of 1967. So I called myself a
socialist and at times a Marxist Zionist actually. And I saw, I did understand Zionism as a national
liberation movement. I was opposed to the occupation of 67 from the beginning. And for many years in
the seventies, particularly, and then the early eighties, I worked with a lot of Israeli peace

(13:57):
activists who were against the occupation. And at that time, a two-state solution, if you said you
supported a two-state solution, you were an enemy of the Jewish community. They were completely
against the two-state solution. My politics moved in the late 1980s. I was one of the coordinators
of a conference called the Road to Peace and International Peace Conference that was Palestinian

(14:18):
leaders and Israeli Knesset members who came together for the first time in the United States.
And Professor Edward Said, who was part of our coordinating team arranged for it to be held at
Columbia University because it was illegal for Knesset members to meet with members of the PLO,
unless it was under academic auspices. And so we were able to have the conference. It was at that

(14:38):
time and through those years of relationships that we're building, many of which continue to this very
day, some of my closest relationships were established at that time where I really learned
for the first time about the Nakba and the right of return for Palestinian refugees. So it was when
it was when my lens moved from 67 to 1948. And so that's where a real relearning began for me. And

(15:04):
I always said in those years, I kept my socialism and my Marxism, but I left my Zionism far behind.
And so since then, my organizing, I've always been deeply committed to organizing that's in
partnership with Palestinian groups, working with Jewish groups, always not in isolation,
but really in a deep partnership. So yeah, I guess that's my history. But I do know a lot

(15:32):
about Zionism at the time when I was, I always, I sometimes say for better or worse, I probably
know more about Zionism than I know about most other subjects, which can be helpful today.
And for the past years, as we do this work, because I am able to have conversations and
hopefully help move people in their journey, those who are open to a journey, because I can,

(15:56):
you know, share again, I mean, what Nina was saying, the stories we weren't told,
the history we weren't told, and the Palestinian Nakba curriculum, which, you know, I do want to
say Nina and I honor the founder, the creator and founder of Project 48, Palestinian strategist,
Nadia Assa. And we were really thrilled when she brought us in and asked us to partner with her

(16:19):
and Project 48 on the curriculum, on the development of the curriculum. But for me,
that political and community education about the Nakba was so important, because I feel like all
else grows from there. If you understand that history and where it started, and the expulsion
and disposition of 750,000 Palestinians from their home and lands, you can't, you know,

(16:40):
the rest flows from there. So yeah, so that's very like in my life and in my political work
and in my commitments, that became very central, that kind of education.
I wonder if we could break down a little bit more where things started to happen for you both. So
it's clear where you are, it's clear where you came from. But do you have moments that you noticed,

(17:01):
oh, this, this is not working for me, this is not an okay thing when you started breaking
with side notes, essentially? And for me, it was very clear. And like Donna, I also come from a
justice-oriented family. So my mother had spent time after high school in Israel and went to

(17:24):
college there and was organizing with the Israeli Black Panthers. My grandmother is a long time
union organizer, super justice-oriented family that still somehow taught me along with the rest
of my family members that Haifa, which is where my family lived, was like a super integrated,

(17:47):
you know, sort of like ideal Israel that included Palestinian Arab Israeli relationships,
where everybody was benefiting from this, from Israel, right? And then in the late 90s,

(18:07):
I went my grandmother to a cousin's bar mitzvah. And I was like a punk kid. And so I ended up kind
of on my own meeting a bunch of actually Palestinian and Arab and Jewish kids who really showed me

(18:29):
and told me otherwise. And that, you know, I think it was in college and this connected also to,
you know, upon returning back to New York, my like anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist,
anti-patriarchal, anti-racist thinking and activist work. But yeah, up until that,

(18:52):
I mean, yeah, I still, up until that point, I really related to Zionism.
Or I didn't relate my Zionism. It wasn't until I came back to New York that I started to see
those connections and how Zionism was also a part of what my work needed to challenge. But I didn't

(19:16):
at that time still, I still didn't speak at that time as a Jew. It really, really wasn't until
meeting and working with Donna that I saw the possibility and potential to organize and
as a Jew in this world. So yeah, I really kind of looked at
Palestine through the lens of all of these other movements and intersectional movements.
But yeah, not through my Jewish identity.

(19:39):
Did you feel like there was a need to actively break from it that if you were gonna
work towards Palestinian liberation, you needed to not do so as a Jew?
I think it's interesting because I think that it didn't even feel like a huge break from Zionism.
Like I think, you know, the ways that I was not like committed to Zionism, it was like,

(20:02):
I was not like committed to Zionism. It was just a kind of assumed position. It was just kind of
like I took on this kind of dominant narrative of Zionism and just hadn't questioned it until
I was confronted with both narratives that went against what I had heard about Zionism.

(20:25):
And also actually, it's important also to note that I also experienced a ton of racism when I
was in Israel at this time. So sort of a veil started coming down for me about, you know,
what Israel was. Yeah, and again, I think that then connected to other movements that I was

(20:46):
a part of. But yeah, I didn't connect as a Jew, not because I needed to
break from my Jewish identity, but my Jewish identity was sort of like a justice identity,
or like a New York identity. It really kind of took a while for me to kind of see,
see how to organize, or I don't even know if I organized as a Jew, but I certainly work from a

(21:08):
place as from my part of my work at Parseo and with these curricula is definitely rooted in being
Jewish. What about for you, Donna?
So first, I do want to say that, which I know we all know, but I always think it's important
to reiterate that the facts about the Nakba were out there, Palestinians had been documenting them

(21:35):
for years and years and years and years. So I do consider it part of my responsibility that it
took me to the 1980s to really do that learning. And so, yeah, I, so as I said, up until the 19,
mid 1980s, I was identified as a Marxist Zionist and then learning more. I also was running a few

(22:00):
different organizations. Then interestingly, in the 80s, before I had called myself a Marxist
Zionist, the couple of Palestine related organizations I worked with did not identify as
Zionist. So that was actually, I was thinking about that the other day, that I hadn't officially
stopped using the term, but I was part of organizations that didn't define themselves as

(22:22):
Zionists. And again, it wasn't until the Road to Peace conference that I explicitly broke with
Zionism. And since then, I've been a part of the anti-Zionist movement, and I've been a part of
Zionism. And since then, I've continued to work in a number of different anti-Zionist frameworks. I
also started doing a lot of research and learning with a writer and activist who I'd been working

(22:49):
with, Eli Bolkin, on the relationship between Islamophobia and Israel politics. We had both
been involved in a campaign of a dual language, Arabic language and English principle in New
York City in Brooklyn, and who had been the principal of the Khalil Gibran International
Academy. And she, at first, the Islamophobes went out all against the school, but the Department of

(23:16):
Education stuck with her, as did many Jewish organizations. And then an Islamophobe actually
got a picture at an Arab fair of a group of young women called Arab Women Active in the Arts and
Media, who had made an Intifada New York t-shirt, which was a nod to young women, young Arab women

(23:38):
of New York City to feel empowered. And that organization used space at an organization where
Debbie Almentas, or the principal, it was a Yemeni organization, and Debbie was from Yemen. And
she was on the board of an organization, had nothing to do with the group, it had nothing to
do with the school. But the next day, the New York Post put up a thing, the Intifada principle.

(24:03):
They went after her in the biggest ways. Those mainstream Jewish organizations, the AVL and
others, all turned on her totally. And she was forced to resign by the City of New York.
And so there became a political campaign in her support. My husband is a civil rights lawyer,
represented her. And we were called the campaign in support of the Khalil Gibran International

(24:26):
Academy. And that was the first time I had seen close up the absolute pervasiveness of anti-Muslim
racism in New York and city and nationally, not just acts of Islamophobia, but structural Islamophobia.
And then Ellie and I did further research looking at the relationship between Israel

(24:47):
politics and Islamophobia. So that was a big part of my work, where I worked with a number of
just wonderful Muslim groups throughout the city and country. Again, many of whom continue to we
partner with today. I mean, that's one thing I have to say about these relationships from the 80s and
90s. They remain many of our closest relationships to this day. So when something happens, and let's

(25:09):
say a crisis happens, we're not all in a room thinking, oh my God, who can we get together?
We all have deep trusting relationships with each other over a long period of time.
And so that's, yeah. And then I became part of the Center for Immigrant Families and was doing a lot
of work around immigrant rights and racial justice. And of course, increasingly over the years, the

(25:29):
connection between Palestine organizing and other racial justice organizing has become more and more
connected to each other. And because for obvious reasons, as we know the framework that's
liberatory and anti-colonialist and anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist. And so I think that's
the past now. I don't know, I'm in my late 60s. So it's been quite a number of years that I feel

(25:55):
like I've been part of beautiful movements for justice, where Palestine has often been critical,
has always been a deep commitment. But I have seen it, just how much it intersects with other
movements that I feel very connected to. So that's sort of my trajectory and history. And

(26:16):
PAR-SEO, because Center for Immigrant Families was rooted in a popular education and participatory
action research framework, we grew out of organizing in Manhattan Valley, the Upper West
Side of Manhattan, together with the Bloomingdale Family Head Start Center, a wonderful Head Start
Center in the Upper West Side. And because we were doing this work through a popular education and

(26:38):
PAR framework, more and more organizations were asking us to share our framework and ultimately
as a result of a lot of things, a number of us created PAR-SEO. And that's how that work continued.
So it sounds like there's a very clear theme for both of you that is this work is grounded

(26:59):
in relationships, that's grounded in community, and this is all guided by the notion of
interconnectedness. I'm wondering if you can both think back to when
you were both rooted and brought up in social justice traditions, but

(27:19):
if someone's looking to starting to question Zionism, if they're thinking through these things,
of course, go to a community meeting, join organizations, there's so many places to plug
in, but do you have any suggestions of how to, where to go, and what places they might want to

(27:44):
get involved, how they might want to take these questions and put them into action if they're not
as deeply tied into these different organizations and communities?
Well, I think that's one of the reasons why we are also, in addition to the organizing that we're

(28:06):
doing, community education is so important to the work that we do and to those organizing
efforts, because it's true that it is not always easy for, I mean, right now, it's not always easy
for people to know how to connect with the organizing that's happening. And right now,

(28:28):
there's so much organizing that's happening, but still, it can be hard to figure out how to connect.
And so, yeah, and going to protests or joining meetings is not always the easiest thing to do.
Yeah, and going to protests or joining meetings is not always the easiest thing for everybody.

(28:52):
So, yeah, I think that's a part of our, that part of my commitment to community education is to be
able to offer other spaces for learning together, for working together, for building analysis,
and for deepening the organizing work. So, you know, I think that's one of the reasons why
we, you know, being an independent center, there are ways for us to connect to both informal and

(29:25):
formal education spaces. And, you know, we find, especially with both the NACPA curriculum, and
with the anti-Semitism curriculum, you know, there's always people who are like, thank you,
we actually have not, you know, had chances to think through these frameworks. And, you know,
I want to connect more. And then it's a much easier way to kind of build out the connections

(29:50):
that both between the group that is meeting and then other groups as well.
You know, one thing about Parseo, because we're a center, people come from lots of different
histories and backgrounds and experiences. And we have always partnered, like, we began, our work
originally was around educational justice. And then over the years, really organically, it expanded

(30:14):
and deepened based on work that members within the organization were doing and connections and
relationships. As you said, it really had to do very much with like relationship building. And
so we, our history has always been partnering with organizations and small and big different kinds of
frameworks. And I think, in terms of specifically, the, oh, and the other thing to say is that

(30:41):
the NACPA curriculum and anti-Semitism curriculum are two of just a number of issues we've worked
on from food justice and other, you know, again, like I was saying, educational justice and
a number of other issues, immigrant rights and racial justice. And, but this past year, especially

(31:03):
even before this past year, there's increasingly been a call for these curricula as two of our
curricula. For me, when I, I love that we have these curricula. And when I think of like the
building I'm doing, I put on more my hat as like Jewish Voice for Peace or Jews Say No groups I'm
part of, where I really love to be part of creating spaces where new people can come in. And again,

(31:27):
as Nina was saying, not just not, you know, you don't hit someone over the head and say,
here, come here, but you really build together in just a deep way. And just to give an example,
I'm in South Florida. And so our Jewish Voice for Peace, South Florida, since last October,
since October 7th has had so many new members coming from all over. And we really spent a lot

(31:49):
of time with our community and political education so that people would be able to have, so that
leadership wouldn't just be like, here, you had this and you had that. And we now have a whole new
generation of incredible leaders. I mean, it's amazing. And we're part of the South Florida
Coalition for Palestine. And again, that work has deepened because way before October 7th,

(32:09):
we had already built very deep, respectful relationships with each other, trust among us.
And so the organizing that's gone on in the past year has really built from that foundation. And
I would say that the community education piece of it and the learning we've done together has been
an integral part of the organizing that's emerged. And like JVP and other Palestine-related groups

(32:32):
across the country, organizing is exploding. And it's been a beautiful, I mean, despite the fact
that we're in a horrific reality, but still, that long-term, that organizing, it's just going to be
sustained in long-term and it's going to lead to change. And of course, and it is a Palestinian-led

(32:57):
movement with so many of us joining in with together. I'm also on the board of a Palestinian
organization called the Adala Justice Project, which really focuses on the organizing that's
going on among so many of our different communities, the intersections and building. And I think
to see that now, it's just, again, it's so strong.

(33:20):
Yeah. Yeah. I think you framed it perfectly in the horrors of struggling against this genocide.
There are these beautiful moments of there might be a different future. But I think
one question I have is I'm wondering about some of the sites where this is happening. So Donna
just mentioned a number of organizations and community education. Is this largely where you

(33:47):
see your work happening? I know you also work with public school teachers. With whom are you
most directly working through Parseo and your other work? And how do you hope to offer these
curriculums? We've worked with universities. We've come in and done classes at a number of

(34:11):
universities and colleges and also presentations. We've worked in public schools with high school
students. We've worked with the DEI groups at both public schools and at universities
as so many groups are struggling to understand what anti-Semitism is. We've definitely found that

(34:39):
this curriculum ends up the curriculum on anti-Semitism from a framework of collective
liberation ends up satisfying the needs of that organizations are sometimes mandated to have an
anti-Semitism curriculum, but one that does so differently. And that, yes, imagine it's a
different world where anti-Semitism is challenged alongside other forms of oppression and really

(35:09):
through a collective liberation framework. One of the things that might be a little, it might be
interesting is that the history of the curriculum is that we were on a number of calls with social
justice organizations and educators and people knew we did both curricula and that some of us had
been involved already allowing looking at anti-Semitism education. And so I was saying before

(35:34):
we partner with organizations, but this one, there was a call for Parseo to create a curriculum of
this nature because we are an independent center and it would enable, and we're an education,
we work with education groups. So it really opened up possibilities. And the reason they wanted us to
do it is just what Nina was saying, really to have an alternative to anti-Semitism education that is

(35:58):
out there that is so problematic in so many ways, which we can talk more about, but to have
something that's really a liberatory curriculum that both looks at what anti-Semitism is and what
it isn't and how it's being so abused and misused in the service of support for the Israeli state.

(36:18):
And then came October 7th. So we thought, or I thought, I'm not sure Nina had thought the same
thing, but I thought like now we're going to be in the backburn, this curricula is going to be pushed
back. But in fact, we got more and more requests for it. And I think partially, not just because
people wanted to know more about what anti-Semitism was, but everybody who was doing anything in

(36:40):
support of Palestine was being accused of being an anti-Semite. And so there was really, that's
where we started getting calls and as Nina was saying from educators in their schools and
universities, but also from religious groups and social justice groups and other organizations. So
we were, I mean, and we keep, we really keep working with the curriculum to make sure it's

(37:02):
responsive to the needs that are out there. So for example, one example is there were a lot of
questions about what's been coming up on campuses about what makes comfort, what's comfort, the
issues of comfort and safety and how those are talked about. And so we've grappled with that
in the curriculum to be able to like bring forth that discussion that the difference between being

(37:25):
an anti-Semitic act that makes you unsafe as a Jew and support for Palestine, which you may make
you uncomfortable, but certainly doesn't make you unsafe as a Jew. And in fact, it's a deep commitment
to liberation and that the people we should be thinking about in terms of lack of safety
are those who are being attacked and penalized on their campuses and in their communities for

(37:47):
standing up for justice for Palestine. So that's just one example, but we keep deepening the
curriculum to also respond to the needs of this moment. And it started as we had no idea how long
it was going to be, but it's turned out to be a very rigorous, lengthy curriculum that we do in
terms of one hour, two hour, four hours, but we really just kept developing it so that it would be

(38:08):
really have depth and soul. And responsive to the really real needs. And so we're talking a little
bit more maybe about the anti-Semitism curriculum because of these false accusations of anti-Semitism,
which caused so much harm, but our Palestinian-Ekva curriculum is also of course available and we

(38:29):
don't need to facilitate that. So I think that's one of the things that's an offering to
our community and to our movements and people can download the curriculum and facilitate it
in their communities. So that's available for people. And we definitely talk with people all
the time about how to use that curriculum and how to best use that curriculum. And we do facilitate

(38:50):
that curriculum and there are definitely calls to facilitate that curriculum. But yeah, I think
that there's a little bit of a difference in the form of the curriculum that we're using.
Yeah, I think that there's a little bit of a difference in the form. So, you know, because
there are so many false accusations. And then again, like sometimes there's, yeah, mandates to

(39:13):
do anti-Semitism curriculum. So there's already a space kind of carved out for the anti-Semitism
curriculum. And I think a part of creating the Nakba curriculum is to create a space for that to
exist more in our schools and in our communities and our universities that we can do, but that also
others can do to open up those spaces. And also just to say about the Palestinian Nakba curriculum,

(39:37):
which, you know, is so critical, is that, and Nadia was a big part of this too, unearthing so
many archives and documents. I mean, the whole curriculum is filled with Palestinian historians
and archivists and educators. And, you know, every session is very filled with deep, you know,

(39:59):
materials for learning and lots of visuals, because there's nothing like a visual. To see
life before 1948, Palestinian life before 1948, and showing, you know, Israeli villages that have
been built over Palestinian villages. CB Wow, I love that. There is so much there

(40:23):
that even when curriculum is something formalized, it's a document, it's a thing that
exists as material, it can be an offering. It can be something that is an invitation, like you pose
with the Nakba curriculum, and it can be this ongoing process that you revisit and you reflect

(40:46):
on and you're constantly building, as you said, with the anti-Semitism curriculum. I'm wondering
if, you know, saying part of the anti-Semitism curriculum is the undoing how it's often done.
So I'm wondering if you had to grapple with maybe reading some of the ADL's materials as a way to

(41:06):
say like, what do we definitely not want to do? And then on the other side, I'd love to hear more
about what it was like to pour through these archives and to study and learn together and
in community with others, especially looking through pre-1948. I think any... Your curriculum

(41:28):
does this and so much work has been done to show and unmake this just awful narrative that you hear
relentlessly of a land without the people and to actually show the vibrancy and complexity of life
in Palestine pre-1948. So if you could just speak to kind of the making of these projects

(41:52):
and what went into it. Maybe I would talk about the Drop the ADL a little just for a minute in
the ADL and the curriculum and if you want to dig on the APPA one or... Yeah, go for it.
I'm part of a group of people that got together years ago called Drop the ADL.

(42:13):
And because there is such a history, you know, some people think the ADL was a good organization
and then all of a sudden like turn bad. But in fact, since its inception, it's been problematic.
And so through that work, there's been a ton of research done on the ADL and on how harmful they
are to communities in addition to their understanding of antisemitism that they bring to this work,

(42:37):
which is of course this notion of antisemitism being never ending. The whole world wants the
Jews dead. It's us and them. And, you know, it's the opposite of the historical contextual
perspective, which we adhere to, which is about antisemitism in relation to other systems and
forms of injustice. And on top of that, as we all know, and it's been very well documented,

(43:00):
they're under there the way they, you know, look at antisemitism also includes criticisms of Zionism,
the Jewish state and Israel. So it's so skewed and distorted. And so when they, you know,
they're in so many schools. And of course, people are like this narrative and this understanding.
And it's not just that it's not correct. It's harmful to other communities. It's anti-Muslim,

(43:24):
it's anti-Arab, it's anti-black. It's so rooted in that, that it's not just that it's not a good
curriculum. It's one that does damage and that schools shouldn't be bringing in. So it was
actually, we then had to do the work to make ours truly not just reactive to that. Like we had that
in our head and we're familiar with it, but then to build an affirmative narrative. And that was

(43:50):
very important to us that we not just be like, this is bad, but to actually be able to like create
an understanding of like what it means to challenge antisemitism from a framework of
collective liberation, which as we know is the exact opposite of their framework. But we want
to do more than saying it's the opposite of their framework. And I think we do do that. We show
why it's a liberatory framework and why it is so... Yeah. So I'll stop there. I don't know if that

(44:16):
answers that part of the question, but then I thought, I know you really want to know.
Your knock book question about the curriculum is, I think very meaningful for us. So Nina?
Yeah. Sorry to interrupt. I think just quickly, as you were speaking, I already had in my head
in my head that you two are almost the, or your whole project, Parseo's work is like the anti-ADL.

(44:40):
And one thing in terms of like, even when they say they're against hate speech, because it's not
like every single thing they do. I mean, they do some things that are like a hate crime takes place.
And of course the designation of hate crime is also, we know there's a lot more complex, but
anti-Muslim hate, they will speak out at times when that happens, of course, at the same time

(45:02):
that they support the quote war on terror and they support structural Islamophobia. So that's the
other thing too. They say they support, they're opposed to racism against black people and then
slam and completely try to assassinate the character of movement for black lives and others
because they support Palestinian justice. So like on one hand, they could be saying, we support this,

(45:26):
but if you just go a little bit deeper, you see that, as you said, they're actually, their policies
and programs are really harmful. And what makes it more harmful is that they put forth this veneer
being a civil rights organization. So yeah, it's, I guess you don't want to get me started.
And then they also have, they access, they have all of this data, which is wrong,

(45:53):
especially when thinking about data on anti-Semitism. It's like data that includes
criticism of Israel is not anti-Semitism, but they have, they're huge data,
an organization that has a ton of resources for that. But I just want to just note that

(46:13):
I appreciate that we are an anti-ADL or that we are an antidote to that or that we are,
yeah, that we stand on opposite sides of curricula around anti-Semitism,
but we didn't create our curriculum also to be the anti-ADL. We created it, as Donna said,

(46:35):
to affirmatively respond to our social justice communities. And so when we were creating the
curriculum, again, like Donna said, we certainly have had exposure to mainstream
curricula, their curriculum among others, mainstream anti-Semitism curricula,

(46:57):
including the ADLs, but we really started from our place of really understanding what is anti-Semitism
and then what is not anti-Semitism. And then with a real recognition that, again, the accusations
of anti-Semitism cause great harm to those that it targets and also really just takes our attention

(47:21):
away from a focus on real anti-Semitism. So we do look at what anti-Semitism is and we look at it
just fundamentally from a different framework, both in terms of our historical and contextual
analysis and the collective liberation framework that is just completely tied into all of our
analysis of what anti-Semitism is. And I think Nina also, don't you think, I think this is,

(47:45):
for us, we feel accountable to a movement. We don't just develop curricula like in our,
I mean, sometimes it does feel like you're sitting at your computer a long time, but we are
so in relationship with and have an accountability to the movements that we are connected to and part
of. And so I think that's very different to when, you know, anything, I mean, it's not just about

(48:10):
curricula, resources, articles, I mean, whatever it is that we put out there, public lectures,
always thinking about like the movements we are deeply rooted in and accountable to.
Absolutely. And that, you know, both that's, you can see that through our community advisors

(48:32):
and our community reviewers, who we use excerpts from the videos that we show. And these are all,
you know, people who are part of the social justice communities that we feel accountable
to. So we're not going to just highlight Jews or as, you know, as the ADL will say, you know,

(48:56):
you need to listen to Jews to learn about what anti-Semitism is. But, you know, obviously you
understand that they do not represent all Jews and also that this impacts so many other communities.
I know you want to move us into about the NUKB and the research. Before, and Nina, I would love you
to address it, but I did want to say one thing that just thinking about it, you know, the process of

(49:17):
going through archives and materials together. I mean, in this project we did with Nadia,
who is a, whose family are survivors of the NUKB. And so each story for her, as she unearthed it,
there's a, I mean, there's, her mom was here at a particular time, her aunt was there.

(49:37):
And I think it was always a very, very, like as we would unearth new documents and she would bring
them to us and especially visuals, articles as well, but especially some of the visuals, it was
for me to be engaged in this process together was very meaningful. And just on a personal note

(50:02):
related to it, Alan, my husband and I went to Washington when Nadia's mother passed away.
And after the service, there was a slideshow and it was with her whole family in Palestine, pre-48.
And, you know, and of course there's thousands and we all know so many different people who have

(50:26):
experiences, but I realized that like watching that slideshow and seeing like her family and
then working on this project with her, it just felt, there was something about it that felt so,
I don't know, I can't even use, explain the word. And, you know, I for many years worked at a place

(50:49):
called the World Gathering of Holocaust Survivors, not many years, there was a project that I was
working on and my role was to hear support stories of survivors from across the globe.
And I remember at that time, and it was so not Zionist, nobody mentioned Israel, like literally
no one said, talked about Israel, but they shared their stories and their histories and many showed
me photographs and things. And I just realized, you know, the importance of like, and we know

(51:16):
Holocaust education has been very prominent in this country and there's Holocaust survivors,
in this country and there's Holocaust museums and that there hasn't been the same about the Nakba
by any means in terms of resources and that have gone into it. So I think I felt this particular
sense of like how important this history is. Yeah, and I share that, you know, and part of

(51:39):
like looking through Nadia's pictures and having her share some of her images, some of her family's
archives and family photos are in the curriculum. And again, having Nadia talk with us about what
those photos and what those memories and what was lost, you know, having her talk with us about that

(52:05):
as we look at images reminds us of all the other archives that we're looking at the stories and
the memories and what was lost and what we're fighting for. So it really brings that. I mean,
I think that curriculum is a really, it's a real like, it's a curriculum that is,

(52:27):
yeah, that's really about engaging your senses. And, you know, it's one of the reasons why,
yeah, we have a lot of poetry, we have a lot of video, we have a lot of images.
We have, we think and talk about materiality and memories and what is unearthed. And that is also,

(52:47):
it also just fits with the, so well with the framing of what has been happening in Palestine,
right? So when we're looking at land extraction and when we're looking at, you know,
cities being built over ruins, you know, then there has to be a place to look at and feel

(53:14):
the loss of those towns and villages and cities and what the ruins mean, right? Like, we have to,
yeah, there's, we have to, you know, we have analysis and we have theory and we have stories
and we have feelings, lots of feelings too. There's this one section of the curriculum

(53:36):
that we've sort of been, you know, at times having a hard time with that is maybe most similar to,
and also very different from the ADL, but it's sort of like, we look at intersectional,
intersecting histories of antisemitism and other forms of oppression and targets of violence. And

(54:00):
some of those periods are the same as the ADL, middle ages, right? Spanish Inquisition,
but how we approach it is so very differently in that we don't exceptionalize the Jewish experience
and we look at the ways that, you know, Jews and other groups were impacted by these
larger systems of oppression, economic, political, you know, the institutions that are exploited at

(54:25):
the time. So we kind of, we look at the various, again, historical contexts. Yeah. And I think that
looking through an Orientalist framework is one of the many frameworks that makes sense to understand
antisemitism at different periods. And so, yeah, we look at the, you know, the, the, the, the, the

(54:46):
periods, right? So like at different periods looking at antisemitism and other forms of racism
through, yeah, through, again, the historical perspective or through an anti-racist perspective
or through an anti-capitalist perspective or whatever. But, but yeah, it is always looking at
the systems and structures of oppression. To see curriculum as this, you know, I can't help

(55:13):
it a little bit, like this ongoing relentless political act of choice, right? What's in,
what's out, who counts, who counts in what way. And I think there's also a question there for
the two of you in terms of you both have so many commitments. Your organizing is

(55:35):
deep and sprawling. And I imagine that then means that, that you're grappling with these choices,
right? I know, Nina, you, you come out of Occupy Wall Street. Donna, you're involved in,
I believe, did you say you're a co-founder of Choose for Racial and Economic Justice?

(55:58):
Yeah. So amazing organizations, your commitments are broad. You mentioned anti-capitalism,
anti-imperialism, Palestinian liberation, but then also connected to things like food justice. So
could you talk a bit about the choices that you were forced to make and how you grappled with

(56:23):
the, what should we include, in what way should we include it? How did this sensory-based,
very affective element come to take part in the curriculum?
Well, it's interesting, right? You'll see it's kind of like a repetition of themes, right? But
I think one of the ways to answer that is again, you know, thinking through or, you know, we are,

(56:46):
we're a participatory action research center, right? And so this framework is a framework for
engaging in research and organizing for social justice. It's rooted in the community's own
knowledge and wisdom and experience. And so that framework is present in all of the work that we
do. And it's also a framework for and used in, yeah, used in our organizing and in our education

(57:14):
work. But we're not working in isolation, we're working with our community. So we're accountable
to a number of other communities and to, yeah, to social justice movements. So I think, you know,

(57:35):
that makes it both easier and, you know, easier because we're not relying on
Nina and Donna's own ideas and thoughts or parses. You know, we are collaborators and we are putting
together these curricula again, like with Nadia for Project 48 and, you know, with and for our

(57:58):
movements for the anti-Semitism curriculum. So, you know, we're responding to the needs of our
movements. For me, you know, PAR and popular education are sort of foundational to my
commitments and organizing. And I also do want to mention someone in particular, Uju Agarwal,

(58:24):
whose work, who's an education person, you probably know her work, her amazing work.
But she has been, she was part of the Center for American Families and is an advisor to PARSEO.
And I think kind of the rootedness of her understanding and commitment to,

(58:46):
you know, popular education and PAR not just as like this idea, but as really shapes and informs
all we do. So that even, let's say, when we think of PARSEO about, I just wanted to give a little
shout out to Uju because her work, I think, has really had a very big impact. Many people have had
an impact on our work, but I think hers in particular. And I think that it's like even the

(59:11):
fact that we co-facilitate and the way we think about facilitation is rooted in our framework and
our commitments. So I would, and also in terms of the issues we choose, I don't know, Nina, tell me
if you agree with this, but I think it's been, and I've used the word organic before, but I think it's
accurate. It's sort of been an organic process. And, you know, sometimes people are like, don't
bring your issues into your organization. Well, we're like the opposite. Bring the issues you're

(59:36):
committed to, like we all have. So food justice grew out of one of the members of PARSEO's team.
Educational justice, originally Uju and I were involved with that challenging segregation and
apartheid in the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Nina has had a deep history in cultural resistance
and in sort of large, you know, some of the Occupy and larger events spaces and other issues. And so

(01:00:00):
we all have brought in Palestine I've been working on for years. And so with that also came a lot of
relationships, but again, they are, and we don't believe in doing it superficially. So we do devote
time and energy to the issues we're part of. And that means we do what we can and we're responsive

(01:00:21):
how we can be. But it's actually, it's actually worked out. Yes. I mean, are we sometimes like,
oh, we wish we could do everything, all of this. But the truth is that there's so much good organizing
going on. And we know we're one small part of it and what we can do, we want to do well and
thoughtfully and intentionally. And so what we can't do, we also know we're not the only ones,

(01:00:45):
you know what I mean? There's so many good, there's so many amazing organizers and educators out there.
So I think it's just about building different layers of connections and relationships. And then
it's pretty much worked out over the past years that we've,
we've devoted more time to particular issues that seem to respond to the needs of groups and

(01:01:07):
communities at that moment. Does that sound right, Nina, in terms of my assessment of it?
Yeah, absolutely. It sounds right. I mean, I think that, yeah, I think that we, like Donna said,
it has, you know, so many of our projects have really come out of our relationships to,

(01:01:27):
with our comrades and friends and community members, right? So working on, you know,
an immigrant justice training or, you know, came out of like a deep relationship with people that
we were very close with. And each of our projects reflects a relationship and, yeah, also the way

(01:01:54):
that we understand the interconnected and intersectional organizing and solidarities,
of oriented organizing that we have to do. So that's, yeah, I think what Donna said was right.
So both of these projects came out before October 7th. It sounds like there has been

(01:02:20):
increased interest, but I'm wondering if you've had, generally, what has been the experience of
engaging in community education work post October 7th, but particularly as it relates to
the curricular projects that you've worked on? Yeah. I mean, so I think we might have sort of
touched on, you know, how these curricula that, yeah, were developed and then that we had done

(01:02:47):
before October 7th have been finding more need since October 7th. You know, it's unfortunate
that, and it's horrific that there is a need for, more of a need for these curricula right now.

(01:03:10):
It's horrific that these curricula, you know, must respond to the horrific gender,
genocide that's happening, but it also feels really incredible to have a robust,
to have two really robust curricula that do respond to this moment. And so, yeah, we didn't

(01:03:30):
have to scramble to put together a bunch of resources and do sloppy analysis. We had done
that work for a long time. And it's interesting because we were on a phone call with a bunch of
scholar activists from different universities and we sort of hadn't introduced ourselves yet.
And somebody on the call was like, we really need to create an anti-Semitism curriculum

(01:03:55):
that really does respond to what anti-Semitism is not. And Donna and I were like, we did it.
Here we are. We've done this work. And we're, in fact, we're not responding to only to this moment.
We are both responding to this moment because this curriculum is constantly responding to
responding to what's happening and the needs that are urgent. And the groundwork was done

(01:04:17):
a long time ago. And yeah, so we're not just listening to the loudest voices and we're able
to kind of have a bit of perspective on how to frame and understand these curricula at this moment.
Not as a starting point, not, you know, because as we know, October 7th was not a starting point

(01:04:37):
for anything. It's part of an ongoing issue. So I think the curricula is also part of, it fits into
again, the ongoing education and organizing around what's been happening in Palestine for so long.

(01:05:00):
Yeah, I would echo that and say that in my organizing, particularly with groups
organizing around against the genocide and for justice in Palestine, that
these two curricula in particular have been a resource that people have been very anxious to

(01:05:21):
draw upon in different ways. And recently in Miami, I was asked to do during an Iftar gathering,
sharing the curriculum. And yeah, and so it was a lot of people from different communities who came
together and we've just seen that in so many different spaces now as people are anxious just
to be able to be involved with their heart and soul. And part of that means the more they're

(01:05:45):
learning, the more they feel equipped to just go out there and, you know, make their voices heard.
We work, we partner with a wonderful Palestinian group in London, called Makan, and they're
called Makan, M-A-K-A-N, and they do political education and we've done some, we've done work
together with them and we actually are going, we want to continue working with them because

(01:06:08):
we're just, we have such common vision and commitments, but you know, they have also shared
with us how so many groups have called upon their resources since, in the past year, and how they
too have been really working to develop accessible resources that, you know, it's very important to
have a community that's accessible and that they're able to be connected to issues people are thinking

(01:06:33):
about and also, you know, to different backgrounds and ages and experiences that it's, you know,
can really, I mean, now we're doing some, one of the things we want to do with Makan is do more work
around K to 8, you know, K to 8th grade because we feel really strong in high school and universities,
but we just want to become a lot of teachers that have been asking us for resources for elementary

(01:06:56):
and middle schools. So yeah, and also just to reiterate because, you know, we are up against
so much, we know, you know, about both in terms of the U.S., being, you know, a huge supporter of the
genocide, a lot of other countries, but there is global, there is a global movement. I'm part of an

(01:07:17):
international Jewish collective for justice in Palestine, so it's, we're like 16 countries now
and every group is an anti-Zionist group that works in partnership with Palestinian groups, so it's not
like groups working in isolation and we come together to kind of be able to support and
strengthen each other and, but, you know, there's just so many, so much organizing going on across

(01:07:39):
the globe, so powerful, so I always, you know, feel that like we have to, like that's, it is inspiring
and of course coming out of Palestine. I mean, you know, the resistance and that's
happening, that's taking place every day now and so I don't know if I was answering your question, but

(01:07:59):
that's how I know we're winding down, so I always try to like, you know, I'm just, I really, and it's,
I don't think it's an exaggeration to say like I so honor that organizing going on. I think we have
per se, I'll learn from it and with it and just feel grateful that there are so many people in so
many ways because there's not one way to fight for justice and so to be able to connect with people

(01:08:24):
who are doing it just in, you know, hundreds of different ways and in the academy, you know, in
the universities, in the, in schools, in communities, in religious institutions, in unions, I mean, so
many places where organizing is happening. So yeah, I just, I guess I wanted to end with that.

(01:08:47):
CB Yeah. I mean, I have about 10,000 more questions. I'd love to hear about the role of
popular education, community education as it relates to more formalized and where you think
possibilities are. We could do probably another three hours. I think your relationship seems so
central to all of this. But I think we'll just stop there. I think that's a beautiful place to end.

(01:09:12):
And I'll say thank you both for coming on today. And we look forward to seeing so much more of
these projects. And yeah, thank you both. Today's episode was produced by Yardena Amran

(01:09:41):
and Samantha Haley. For more information on Parseo, check out parseo.org. There are a few
people and organizations that Donna and Nina mentioned. If you want to support this kind of
work, please donate to McCann, an organization in London that works with Parseo or Adela Justice
Project. We'll share information and ways to support on our Twitter and Instagram. Donna and

(01:10:06):
Nina also mentioned a number of legendary figures in New York City schooling. We encourage listeners
to learn more about folks like Debbie Almonte-Sair, the former principal of Khalil Gibran Academy.
Thank you as always for listening. We'll be back soon with another episode of Another Education
as Possible.