PARCEO and Project 48 curriculums on antisemitism and the Nakba
Investigations
SUMMARY
This report highlights two curricula, one focused on antisemitism through a “collective liberation” framework, and another focused on the “Palestinian Nakba.” Both curricula are being pushed into K-12 schools by outside organizations, online resource hubs such as the Zinn Education Project and teachers. Participatory Action Research Center for Organizing, which commonly goes by PARCEO, was involved in the creation and promotion of both curricula.
PARCEO promotes a biased definition of antisemitism that places the blame squarely on “white nationalism,” ignoring other groups that have engaged in this dehumanizing and destructive ideology and behavior. Both organizations appear to be funded by the Open Society Foundations network and have ties to other far-left organizations such as Jewish Voice for Peace and a Tides Foundation fiscal project – the Adalah Justice Project.
Documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request and online searches reveal that these curricula and related trainings are being promoted to K-12 school district teachers and board members.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
- Emails obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request reveal an Oakland Unified School District (CA) teacher inviting school board members to a presentation on PARCEO’s curriculum in the fall of 2025.
- PARCEO, in conjunction with Jewish Voice for Peace, defines “antisemitism” as “discrimination, targeting, violence, and dehumanizing stereotypes directed at Jews because they are Jewish” and places sole blame for the current wave of antisemitism on “white national violence.”
- The Forward Leap Foundation, the fiscal sponsor of Project 48, received a $50,000 grant from the Foundation to Promote Open Society in 2023.
- In 2024, PARCEO received a grant from the Open Society Foundations network for $50,000.
- Both the founder of PARCEO and the founder of Project 48 were board members of the Adalah Justice Project, a fiscal project of the Tides Foundation.
- Project 48 and PARCEO created the Palestinian Nakba Curriculum which teaches students about the “robust Palestinian society that existed prior to the Nakba (catastrophe), the critical events leading up to and during 1948, and a prism through which to understand the ongoing nature of the Nakba and its devastating impact on Palestinian lives.” Sessions focus on settler colonialism and Zionism.
ABOUT THE ORGANIZATIONS
PARTICIPATORY ACTION RESEARCH CENTER FOR ORGANIZING (PARCEO)
Participatory Action Research Center for Organizing, or PARCEO, states that it is a “research, resource and education center that partners with community groups and institutions seeking to deepen their organizing and educational work; develop new initiatives; form principled, meaningful collaborations; and strengthen their internal processes and commitments.” It and its partnering organizations “focus on a range of inter-connected issues, including educational justice; racial justice; workers’ rights; gender justice; challenging Islamophobia; immigrant rights; health and food justice, and more.”
The site states that the PARCEO Institute “works with a range of institutions, organizations, and coalitions; study abroad, fellowship, and internship programs; and community/university-based partnerships.”
PARCEO was co-founded by Donna Nevel, a former board member of Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and of the Adalah Justice Project, and co-founder of Jews Against Anti-Muslim Racism (JAAMR) which includes on its “advisory circle” Linda Sarsour (MPOWER).
An explainer created by PARCEO and Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) titled “On Antisemitism, Anti-Zionism and Dangerous Conflations” states that antisemitism is “discrimination, targeting, violence, and dehumanizing stereotypes directed at Jews because they are Jewish.” It also states that antisemitism is “totally incompatible with movements for collective liberation.” The explainer blames “white national violence” which is “fueled by anti-immigrant and racist manifestos, sentiments, and conspiracy theories, such as the great replacement theory.” It also states that “Jews are among the targets of white nationalist violence along with Black people, immigrants, Muslims, and trans and queer people, among others.”
Funding
In 2024, PARCEO received a $50,000 grant from the Fund for Policy Reform Inc., a part of the Open Society Foundations network.
PROJECT 48
Project 48 was “created to center Palestinians in the telling of their own history, to raise the voices of the hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees whose stories have been silenced or denied, the steadfast Palestinians who were able to remain, as an oppressed minority.” It “provides educational material, eyewitness testimonies, images, videos and artifacts that bring to life the Nakba (“Catastrophe” in Arabic) and its generational impact, as well as the ongoing Palestinian struggle against colonial erasure and the return of refugees to their ancestral lands.”
Project 48 was founded by Nadia Saah who is a media producer, activist, served as Deputy Director of the Institute for Middle East Understanding (IMEU), was part of the UNRWA USA National Committee, and was a board member of the Adalah Justice Project – a fiscal project of the Tides Foundation.
Funding
Project 48 is a fiscal project of the Forward Leap Foundation, which received a $50,000 grant from the Foundation to Promote Open Society in 2023. Forward Leap Foundation also received grants in 2022 and 2023 from the Foundation for Middle East Peace.
CURRICULUMS
The following are curricula and trainings created by Project 48 and PARCEO.
Palestinian Nakba Curriculum
Project 48 states that its Palestinian Nakba Curriculum “provides a holistic opportunity to learn about Palestine’s robust society before the creation of Israel in 1948, the critical events leading up to the Nakba, and to look at its ongoing nature, forms, and impact – primarily through the prism of Palestinian scholarship, oral and visual history, art, and activism.” The curriculum was created in partnership with PARCEO.
The curriculum includes eight sessions and theme-specific modules. Session topics feature the Nakba in historical context and in practice, Zionism and ongoing resistance. Modules include “Settler Colonialism,” “Zionism,” “Refugees and Right of Return,” and “Generational Trauma.”
An overview of the curriculum states that in one session titled “Nakba in Practice,” students will “consider the history and material consequences of the Nakba, including what’s been hidden and erased, what’s been built over, stolen, destroyed, and what remains.” The session will cover concepts such as “Indigeneity, settler colonialism, and cultural identity” in relation to “Palestine as is the role of British imperialism.”
Another session titled “Zionism: Foundation & Intentions” covers the “foundations and intentions of Zionism, the enactment and reality of Zionist colonization in Palestine, and the historical context for Palestinian opposition to Zionism.”
Session eight, titled “Ongoing Resistance,” “explores ongoing social, political, economic, and cultural forms of resistance in Palestine.” Participants will “understand the impact, visions, and connections among movements for justice in Palestine and globally.”
The Zinn Education Project promotes the curriculum on its Teaching About Palestine-Israel and the Unfolding Genocide in Gaza page.
Curriculum on Antisemitism from a Framework of Collective Liberation
PARCEO’s Curriculum on Antisemitism from a Framework of Collective Liberation states that it starts with “basic understandings of what antisemitism is and begins to consider what challenging antisemitism can look like from a framework of collective liberation.” The curriculum is focused on “antisemitism in the United States, beginning with the historical (e.g., immigration, race and racialization, Christian hegemony),” “how antisemitism manifests in the US today (e.g., acts of violence, impact of rise in white nationalism, stereotypes/tropes, philosemitism, and more)” and “the connections and intersections with other forms of racism and injustice.”
The website’s Bibliography page lists individuals and groups such as Angela Davis, Lara Kiswani of Arab Resource Organizing Center (AROC), Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum Consortium (LESMC), Jody Sokolower – co-creator of the Teach Palestine curriculum for Middle East Children’s Alliance, and Allyson Tintiangco-Cubales who is co-founder and director of Community Responsive Education.
Positionality Curriculum
According to documents, the organization’s “Positionality” curriculum was “designed by the Participatory Action Research Center for Organizing (PARCEO)” and is “based on Participatory Action Research (PAR) and popular education, which value and center the leadership and experiences of those most affected by injustice as we collectively work to affect change and build community power.”
The listed goal of the training is that “participants gain an in-depth understanding of their own identity, particularly in relationship to their communities that are not their own.” Objectives for the curriculum include understanding one’s “own identity in relation to race, class, power, gender, privilege, role and position.”
The exercise titled “PAR in Relationship to Race, Class, Privilege, Gender, and Power Exercise” states that participants should “reflect on the complexity of their own identity and how it relates to race, class, power, gender, and privilege.”
The first part of the curriculum includes “additional resources” such as Race Forward: The Center for Racial Justice Innovation, Phenomenology of Whiteness, and the White Awareness Handbook.
Other PARCEO Training Documents
Below are additional documents that PARCEO uses for training.
EXAMPLES
California
Oakland Unified School District
Emails obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request reveal an Oakland Unified School District teacher and Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) member inviting two school board members to an event on October 26, 2025, titled “Antisemitism from a Framework of Collective Liberation.” The presentation by Nina Mehta, co-director of PARCEO covered the “curriculum that provides historical context and content for differentiating between genuine antisemitism and the harmful disuse of ‘antisemitism’ to silence discussion of what is happening in Gaza and throughout Palestine.”
New York
New York City
On October 27, 2023, the New York Collective of Radical Educators (NYCORE) posted about hosting an event promoting a review of the “Antisemitism from a Framework of Collective Liberation” curriculum and “Project 48’s Palestinian Nakba Curriculum from PARCEO.” The event also featured PARCEO founders Nina Mehta and Donna Nevel.
NYCORE states that it is a “group of current and former public school educators and their allies committed to fighting for social justice in our school system and society at large, by organizing and mobilizing teachers, developing curriculum, and working with community, parent, and student organizations.”
The organization was also part of the November 9, 2023, “School Walkout & Rally” that featured other activist groups such as the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM), Teachers Unite, Movement of Rank and File Educators (MORE) and NYC Educators for Palestine.
A resource document prepared for the event includes a section titled “Collective Learning” which promotes the “Project 48, Curriculum on Antisemitism from a Framework of Liberation, & Teach Palestine.” The document also highlights an event that was slated for November 10, 2023, featuring Nina Mehta and Donna Nevel.
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