From his office in the Capitol building, Gov. Gavin Newsom last week made a full-throated apology to California’s Jewish community for a controversial ethnic studies draft curriculum that erases the Jewish story in America and takes unsubtle digs at Israel.
The draft, said Newsom, “will never see the light of day.”
The proposed high school curriculum sparked a national controversy, rallying groups such as the Anti-Defamation League, the Jewish Community Relations Council and the California Legislative Jewish Caucus to register their objections, charging bias about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, among other things.
“It’s going to be taken care of,” Newsom said. “We are united in our resolve to make sure the advisory committee draft is only that, a draft, that will be substantially amended. And let me also apologize on behalf of the state for the anxiety that this produced. It was offensive in so many ways, particularly to the Jewish community.”
That was but one topic addressed in a wide-ranging interview in Sacramento with the former San Francisco mayor. The conversation with J. covered everything from climate change to wildfires, anti-Semitism, President Trump — and one youthful summer at Camp Tawonga.
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