‘It certainly had no kind of political intent at all,’ author said.
A Palestinian folktale assigned as required reading for first grade students in Montgomery County Public Schools has roiled controversy among some Jewish parents. The issue was first reported by Jewish Insider.
Margaret Read MacDonald’s book, “Tunjur! Tunjur! Tunjur! A Palestinian Folktale,” intends to teach young readers that there are consequences for taking things that are not theirs.
In the story, a woman “prays to Allah” for a child and receives a small pot. The anthropomorphic pot, caught stealing honey and jewels, is filled with manure as punishment. The mother admonishes the pot.
Although the book doesn’t mention Israel, some local Jewish parents interpret its moral as an underlying anti-Israel message.
“It kind of reinforces the oppressed versus the oppressor narrative,” Melanie Kandel, an MCPS parent, said of the book’s moral. “What [the author] is saying is ‘Don’t take land that doesn’t belong to you.’ That’s the underlying subtle message.”
“The concern arises because the text … conveys a message that, for some Jewish students, may feel like a subtle microaggression,” Lisa Miller, an MCPS staff development teacher, wrote in a Facebook post on Sept. 4. “Choosing this book risks introducing pro-Palestinian narratives into the curriculum under the banner of ‘diversity.’ In today’s climate, that choice cannot be seen as neutral.”
The author, Read MacDonald, said “Tunjur! Tunjur! Tunjur!” is “simply a moral fable” that shouldn’t be viewed in the context of “contemporary issues.”
“It certainly had no kind of political intent at all,” Read MacDonald said. “I chose it because it was fun and it also happened to have a very nice moral.”
Kandel said the moral of the folktale is appropriate for children, but that MCPS should have selected one without “ties to Palestine” in light of the fact that hostages are still held in captivity in Gaza: “There’s 100 million other books.”
“Now is not the time to be picking a book about Palestine,” Rami Kandel, her husband, said.
Read MacDonald spoke to the importance of providing children with diverse reading material.
“I think it’s important that they hear stories from all cultures, and I think it’s a mistake to stop sharing stories just because two countries happen to be having a disagreement at this point in time,” Read MacDonald said. “The stories are universal and timeless and need to be passed on.”
The folktale also isn’t specific to Palestinian culture. Read MacDonald said her book is based on Folktale Type 591, of which different versions have been collected in Germany, Russia, Turkey and all Scandinavian countries.
“It’s a very common folktale motif,” she said. “It is told widely throughout Europe, as well as the Middle East.”
She chose to use the folktale’s Palestinian version because she liked the onomatopoeia of the sound the pot made — “tanjara,” a common Arabic word for a cooking pot, inspired the book’s title and refrain.
Some Jewish leaders welcome the book’s diversity. Guila Franklin Siegel, the chief operating officer of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington, told Washington Jewish Week that she doesn’t see an issue with the folktale.
“If we want our school system to teach confidently about Judaism and antisemitism, we need to be supportive of efforts to expose children to all cultures,” she said.
Some Jewish MCPS parents expressed that they would have opted their child out of reading “Tunjur! Tunjur! Tunjur!” had that folktale been assigned in their classroom. Franklin Siegel warned that such “opt-outs” could be a slippery slope.
“It will be a shame if Jewish people wind up objecting to books only because they have protagonists who happen to be Palestinian,” Franklin Siegel told Jewish Insider. “If we turn this into a back and forth where parents are requesting opt-outs for any material that they don’t see eye-to-eye with, we’ll wind up in a situation where we’re seeing a significant number of students whose parents are requesting opt-outs for things like Holocaust speakers.”
Some local parents took issue with the book’s mention of “Allah,” stating that religion should stay out of public schools.
Rami Kandel recalled a time when his oldest three children were enrolled in MCPS and parents could opt their child out of celebrations, including Halloween parades. Christmas or Chanukah songs in choral concerts were labeled “holiday songs,” detached from any one religion.
“If people wanted to opt out for religious reasons, they could,” Rami Kandel said. “Well, why are they teaching a book that talks about Allah?”
Miller, who wrote in her Facebook post that she appreciates “efforts to bring diverse voices into our schools,” voiced concern about the text’s “explicit religious content.”
“It is not illegal to teach about religion in public schools,” Franklin Siegel told Washington Jewish Week. “It is a part of understanding world culture. It is a part of cultural competency and learning about the world.”
She emphasized the difference between teachers “promoting” a religion and teaching about a religion.
“I also believe that there should be assigned reading that teaches about and exposes children to Jewish culture, to Israel,” Franklin Siegel added. “The beauty of public school education is that it’s a forum for kids to learn about each other, to learn and respect each other, and hopefully, as a result, foster a society where people are able to live together with respect and create a just, functioning community.”
