The Persistence of Hate: What the 2017 Unite the Right Rally Revealed about Contemporary Antisemitism

About the Lesson

After the terrorist attack and murder of eleven Jews at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh on October 27, 2018, the recent rise in the number of antisemitic incidents in the United States received increased attention. The Pittsburgh massacre underscored the significance of another pivotal moment in the rising tide of hatred and bigotry in the United States: the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2017.

This lesson is designed to help students better understand contemporary antisemitism in the United States through the case of the violence and turmoil in Charlottesville. Students will have the opportunity to investigate the historical roots of antisemitism and learn about how it has intertwined with white supremacy in United States history. Connecting history with the present day will help students understand the worldviews of various contemporary white nationalist groups who were present at the Unite the Right rally and remain active today.

This lesson explores the August 2017 events in Charlottesville as a case study in contemporary antisemitism. On the first day of this lesson, students will learn about the events leading up to and during the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville by examining a timeline and a short video clip. On the second day of the lesson, students will look at American antisemitism in historical context by exploring primary sources from throughout the twentieth century. Through imagery analysis, they will draw connections between these historical sources and images and rhetoric from the Charlottesville rally. On the third day, students will examine community responses to the events in Charlottesville and discuss how they can choose to participate in strengthening their communities when hatred or bigotry violates them.

Essential Questions

• How and why does antisemitism persist in communities today?
• What can we do, individually and collectively, to confront hatred in our communities?

Guiding Questions

• What role did antisemitism play in the ideology of the participants in the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville in August 2017?
• How have antisemitism and racism intersected in the American past and at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville?
• How have communities attempted to prevent and repair the damage caused by antisemitism and other forms of hatred?
• How does exploring the history of antisemitism and its various forms of expression inform our decision-making processes when we are faced with injustice?

Learning Objectives

• Students will recognize the persistence of antisemitism and the ways that contemporary antisemitism is manifested in the United States today.
• Students will examine connections between antisemitism and racism in the United States today and in the past.
• Students will be able to discuss ways that they can play a role in creating inclusive, civil classrooms and communities.

Day 1 Activities

Activity 1: Contract for Civil Dialogue

Begin by reviewing your classroom contract. Agree that your discussion will remain civil and respectful, and ask students to name what that looks and sounds like in your classroom.

Activity 2: Discuss Issues that Can Divide Communities

• Engage students in a brief conversation in response to the following question:
  
  What are some issues, ideas, or events that divide communities?

Record students’ ideas on chart paper that you can refer back to at future points in the lesson.

• If it does not emerge from the discussion, ask students to consider the ways that bigotry and hatred can divide communities. Then, tell students that they will be looking at a particular form of hatred, antisemitism, by examining a contemporary case study and then placing it within the historical context of antisemitism in twentieth-century America.

• Write “antisemitism” on the board and ask for volunteers to help define it. Then provide the following definition that students can record in their notes: bigotry towards, hatred of, or persecution of Jews because they are Jewish.

Activity 3: Examine the Events of the 2017 Unite the Right Rally in Charlottesville

• Pass out the Unite the Right Rally in Charlottesville Timeline handout to provide students with more context about what happened at the rally in August 2017.

• Read aloud the opening paragraph on the handout and then have students read aloud each event using a strategy like popcorn or wraparound.

• Invite students to add any new ideas to the class list of issues, ideas, or events that can divide communities and record their ideas on the chart paper.

Activity 4: Show a Video Clip from the 2017 Unite the Right Rally

• Explain to students that they will now watch a video clip from the white nationalist protest on the evening of August 11, 2017. To set the tone, remind students that the rally led to violence and the death of three people, and that the chants they will hear reflect those of Nazis in Germany in the 1930s and 1940s.

• Play the VICE News video Charlottesville: Race and Terror from 0:00 to 1:30. Note that this video is more than 20 minutes long, but we strongly recommend you are careful to limit what you share to only the recommended clip due to the intensity of the video.

• Next, give students a few minutes to process in their journals using the following prompt:
  
  What about this video do you find most striking and what does it make you think about or feel? What questions do you have about it?

• Tell students that they will now re-watch the video clip and then discuss it as a class. Again, play the VICE News Charlottesville: Race and Terror video from 0:00 to 1:30. Choose from the following questions to guide a class discussion:

  • Who are the protestors? What are they doing and chanting?
  • From the perspective of the protestors, who is the “we” and who is the “they”?
  • Based on their chants, what do the protesters want? What do they fear?
  • Who are the counter-protestors? What are they doing and saying? How are these events impacting them?
  • How does the video clip confirm, change, or challenge your understanding of the Unite the Right rally?

Activity 5: Reflect in a Journal Response

So students can process the content from this lesson, have them complete the following sentence starter in a journal reflection:

After reading the timeline and discussing the video clip, I am thinking about . . . I am wondering . . .

Day 2 Activities

Activity 1: Identify Historical Linkages Between Racism and Antisemitism

The documents in this activity invite an examination of the ways antisemitism and racism have intersected throughout US history. These sources also help students realize that the events in Charlottesville are grounded in a long history of antisemitism in the United States.

• Start by reviewing the list that students created in class of issues, ideas, and events that can divide a community. Then explain to students that in this lesson, they will examine a set of documents from and information about the past that will help them better understand the historical roots of antisemitism and white supremacy in US history. Then they will consider how learning this history impacts their understanding of what happened at the Unite the Right Rally in Charlottesville.

• Divide students into five “expert” groups and use the Jigsaw teaching strategy for an exploration of the following artifacts:

  • 1939 German American Bund Rally 
  • Anti-Black, Anti-Jewish Ideology of National States Rights Party
  • National States Rights Party Membership Application
  • Protestors Carrying Flags at 2017 Unite the Right Rally in Charlottesville 
  • Hatred Data Fact Sheet 

  Once students are in their “expert” groups, begin with two minutes of silence so that students have quiet time to examine their artifacts before discussing the questions on the handout.

• Move students into “teaching” groups and have them summarize and share their work from their “expert” groups before discussing the following questions together:

  • What evidence of antisemitism in the United States did you find in these documents and statistics?
  • What did you learn about antisemitism in the United States that seemed most surprising or significant?
  • In what ways does antisemitism in these documents stand alongside racism and other forms of hatred and bigotry? What groups make up the “we” and “they”?

• Have groups share ideas and questions from their teaching group discussions with the class. Then discuss the following question together:

  What connections do you notice between this set of artifacts and the timeline and video clip from Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville that you examined in the last class?

Activity 2: Reflect on the Footage of the Charlottesville Rally

Using the Exit Cards strategy, ask students to answer the following questions before class is dismissed:

• What new, different, or deeper understanding do you have of the Unite the Right Rally in Charlottesville or antisemitism in the United States today after participating in today’s jigsaw activity and discussion?
• What one question you have at the end of today’s class?

Day 3 Activities

Activity 1: Review Exit Cards

• Review the class’s exit tickets from the previous lesson. Unless you have prior permission from students, you should keep exit cards anonymous when sharing them with the larger class. Note any trends worth discussing.

• If there are any comments that deviate from your classroom norms, reaffirm your class’s commitment to your contract from the previous day. You might start by posing the following question: In light the discussions from the past two class periods, are there any amendments to the classroom contract that you would like to make?

Activity 2: Reflect on Repairing Divided Communities

• Quickly review the chart paper with your students’ list of issues, ideas, and events that can divide a community and then let students know that in this lesson, they will be focusing on the challenging process of repairing divided communities after injustices have occurred.

• Give students a few minutes to write in their journals in response to the following questions:

  • Describe a time when something happened that divided a community to which you belong (or one you know about).

  • How did people respond?

  • Which responses attempted to repair the community?

  • Which ones only made the divisions deeper?

Activity 3: Analyze Community Responses to the Unite the Right Rally in Charlottesville

• This activity helps students understand the community’s response to the August 2017 rally and violence. Before this lesson, prepare for a Big Paper discussion using the materials in the Unite the Right Rally Big Paper Sources. (See Notes to Teacher)

• Remind students they have been exploring the relationship between antisemitism and the rally in Charlottesville, particularly how the antisemitism witnessed by the world in 2017 has historical roots that can be traced back centuries but is emerging from the dark in ways we have not seen in decades.

• Explain the Big Paper strategy and tell students that they can use the S-I-T: Surprising, Interesting, Troubling questions to respond to the quotations and images on the big paper:

  • What surprises you?

  • What do you find troubling?

  • What do you find interesting?

• After students have 10–15 minutes to examine and respond to the quotations and images, facilitate a class discussion using the following framing questions as a guide:

  • How did the events in August 2017 change how these people felt about their community and their place in it?

  • What actions did individuals take to reassure the Jewish members of their community? Which actions seemed to have the greatest impact?

  • What else could individuals have done to respond meaningfully to the riots? What can they do now, more than a year after the riots?

  • What role do individuals play in how a community responds to hate? What role do community leaders play? Local, state, and national government?

Activity 4: Examine the Anatomy of an Upstander

• Present students with the definition of upstander: a person who has chosen to make a difference in the world by speaking out against injustice and creating positive change.

• In small groups or as a class, use the following question to frame a discussion about the actions that upstanders took after the events of Charlottesville and the impact their actions had on the community:

  What did upstanders in Charlottesville look like, sound like, and feel like, or make other people feel like? You might have students create a three-column chart in their notes or on chart paper where they can record their ideas.

• Close the class with a discussion on the following question:

  • How can learning the history of antisemitism and hatred equip people to be upstanders?
  • What lesson can I take from this class that I can apply to my life today?