To the Administrative and Educational Leadership of Pereleman Jewish Day School,

We share this letter and the signatures below as an expression of our ongoing commitment to our Perelman Jewish Day School community, its mission, and its values of “Respect” (honoring the diversity of our community), “A Culture of Learning” (empowering students through intellectual inquiry), and “Jewish Values.” It is in this spirit that we express our concern about gender ideology in the school curriculum. We seek an ongoing dialogue as well as substantive changes.

According to Jewish tradition, educating children is a mitzvah that falls on the parents. Parents partner with, and invest in, the school community in order to discharge this sacred obligation. We honor the pivotal role that educators and staff play in supporting our fulfillment of this mitzvah and hope that Perelman’s professional staff will in turn recognize that the primary locus of responsibility for educating and raising our children rests with their families, to whom the school is ultimately responsible. Maintaining this balance – honoring the role of educators while recognizing that educators serve as shlichim (agents) on behalf of parents in the fulfillment of this mitzvah – is vital for the continued success of the school and maintaining the trust that our families place in Perelman.

WHO WE ARE

First and foremost, we are proud Perelman parents and family members. Our children are in every grade at PJDS, and many of us have multiple kids at Perelman. In addition to investing in the school and in our children through tuition payments, we contribute to the school, the Jewish Community, and the wider community through many avenues of philanthropy, engagement, and work. Signatories of this letter include:

• Perelman Partners and other donors
• Volunteers who have given their time to run school events and serve in leadership positions at Perelman
• Board members, donors, and leaders in the broader Jewish community (including the JCC, Federation, ZOA, Hadassah, and JNF)
• Secular and Jewish educators (rabbis, camp educators, secular school teachers, and more)
• Medical and mental health professionals
• Professionals, entrepreneurs, business owners, and stay-at-home parents investing our full time and energy in our children
• Parents of current students and prospective students

We also represent a diverse cross section of the school community. We include families from across the denominational and the political spectrums, families from different cultural backgrounds, and multifaith households. What we share in common are our concerns about the curriculum and a commitment to our Perelman community.

OUR CONCERNS

It has come to our attention that elements of the PJDS curriculum – specifically the 5th grade health/sexual education curriculum – includes transgender ideology. Our nation’s laws define “Gender ideology” as an “ideology which replaces the biological category of sex with an ever-shifting concept of self-assessed gender identity, permitting the false claim that males can identify as and thus become women and vice versa, and requiring all institutions of society to regard this false claim as true. Gender ideology includes the idea that there is a vast spectrum of genders that are disconnected from one’s sex. Gender ideology is internally inconsistent, in that it diminishes sex as an identifiable or useful category but nevertheless maintains that it is possible for a person to be born in the wrong sexed body.

Simply put, proponents of gender ideology believe that some of us, including children, were “born in the wrong body” and that it is good/healthy for those individuals to adopt the appearance and behavior of the opposite sex, often through extreme and irreversible surgeries or the use of drugs that may have equally irreversible consequences. Proponents of gender ideology also maintain that it is wise or even mandatory for everyone else to “affirm” those individuals’ new sex or gender.

We believe gender ideology is harmful to our children and, having reviewed various Perelman curricular and recruiting materials, we are opposed to the following:

The language of “sex assigned at birth:” The curricular content includes the language “sex assigned at birth.” The implication of this language is that sex is something that we assign to a child or adult rather than a biological reality or innate characteristic of human beings. While the way one expresses themselves as a boy, girl, man, or woman (often referred to as gender) varies from person to person and is based on many variables, sex is rooted in biology. Like virtually all mammals and most animal species on earth, human beings are sexually dimorphic, i.e. there are two biological sexes with distinguishing characteristics and who create offspring via sexual reproduction. With the exception of some rare genetic syndromes and developmental disorders that result in infants being born intersex, the human species consists of two sexes which are clearly distinguishable. Each persons’ sex is rooted in their DNA, which dictates hormone production, primary and secondary sex characteristics, aspects of personality, and more. While each individual can and does express their personality differently, a biological man cannot become a woman nor can a biological woman become a man. Describing sex as something “assigned” that can be changed confuses basic biological realities and can undermine students’ development of a stable sense of self.

The framing of “sex assigned at birth:” It is a fact that some people have a genuine subjective experience of belonging to a “gender” other than the one associated with their biological sex. Some of these people feel significant psychological distress as a result of this incongruence. We affirm that such individuals should be treated with love, dignity, and respect. There should be zero tolerance for bullying or excluding such individuals. We also affirm that forcing students or families to ascribe to beliefs that they do not hold is not a way to honor the dignity of community members who identify as trans or non-binary. Indeed, such enforcement is condescending to trans and non-binary people and it is disrespectful to families who bring different cultural, religious, or ideological perspectives to this issue. It would be one thing to present “sex assigned at birth” as one framework out of multiple approaches through which people think about sex. It is another thing entirely to present this framework as a foregone conclusion or fact or to otherwise obscure that it is a hotly contested and complicated issue. If the school believes children are not developmentally ready to have a conversation about this topic that includes multiple viewpoints, then students are not ready to have this conversation at all, as many parents maintain.

Lack of Viewpoint Diversity: Our Perelman school community is culturally and politically diverse. It includes parents and children from Israel, the United States, and other diaspora communities. It includes progressives, liberals, libertarians, and conservatives. It includes Democrats, Independents, and Republicans. It includes members of Reform, Reconstructionist, Conservative, Orthodox, and Chabad synagogue communities as well as families who do not attend any synagogue community. As a non-denominational Zionist Jewish Day School, Perelman is an important community institution where a diverse population of Jewish families come together to educate our children under a big tent. Such a community cannot afford to sideline Orthodox, politically conservative, or heterodox families by marginalizing their families’ values and worldviews. Perelman’s stated commitments to diversity and serious intellectual inquiry demand that viewpoint diversity is honored.

Developmentally Inappropriate Material: Many of our families are fundamentally uncomfortable with this topic being taught to our children in grades 1-5. As parents, we know our children best and are the people primarily responsible for their wellbeing and development. In an elementary school setting, we strongly believe that curricular content covering reproductive biology or puberty should not occur prior to 5th grade and should cover – at most – basic biology, hygiene, and the general physical changes students can expect during puberty. When discussed, these topics should be covered in separate and safe spaces for boys and girls. In recognition that different students are ready for these conversations at different times, and out of respect for diverse family cultures, families should also be given opportunities to easily opt their children out of these or related learning units.

OUR ASKS

Complete Transparency: All curricular unit topics, learning objectives, and lesson plans dealing with reproductive biology, human sexuality, and sex/gender should be clearly communicated and easily accessible to all parents.

Ongoing Partnership with Families About Developmentally Appropriate Material: Perelman’s administrative and educational leadership should actively solicit feedback from families about the curriculum, how it is meeting families’ needs, and whether or not it is appropriate for their children. The school should also include parent representatives in the ongoing process of creating and recreating the curriculum. This partnership should honor the role of our amazing Perelman educators and also recognize the primary role of parents in caring for and raising their children.

Include Viewpoint Diversity: If a topic or lesson is developmentally appropriate for children of a given age then children of that age should be able to handle viewpoint diversity related to the topic or lesson. If a topic is deemed too sensitive or controversial to include viewpoint diversity then it is likely not a developmentally appropriate topic to discuss with children. Furthermore, when a topic is discussed, faculty and staff must consider the diversity of our school community, including religious, political, cultural, and ideological diversity. In order to ensure that such diversity is built into the structure of the school, we ask that PJDS make a concerted effort to hire more Orthodox faculty members and invest its resources to hire an Orthodox rabbi to serve as a member of Rabbi Chaim’s team and contribute an Orthodox perspective to the Jewish Studies curriculum and the wider school culture.

Replace Controversial Language and Shift Focus: The school should cease using “sex assigned at birth” or related language and concepts. Instead, the curriculum should cover core Jewish teachings related to “betzelem elohim” (the inherent dignity of every individual made in the image of God) and “v’ahavta l’reacha kamocha” (love your neighbor as yourself). This shift would stress the importance of loving and respecting everyone in our community regardless of how they express their individuality and whether or not we agree with their opinions or beliefs. Considering the school’s commitment to academic inquiry and critical thinking, students should be taught that they do not need to agree with each other (or their teachers) in order to respect one another.

We look forward to continuing our engagement with you to address our concerns and work together to build a stronger and more inclusive school community