{"id":157924,"date":"2026-02-10T04:26:29","date_gmt":"2026-02-10T04:26:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/157924\/"},"modified":"2026-02-10T04:26:29","modified_gmt":"2026-02-10T04:26:29","slug":"anne-frank-and-night-may-be-required-reading-in-texas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/157924\/","title":{"rendered":"Anne Frank and \u2018Night\u2019 may be required reading in Texas"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the years since school libraries became a culture-war flashpoint, Texas<\/a> has been one of the most active states to pull books from shelves in response to parental complaints \u2014 sometimes including versions of Anne Frank<\/a>\u2019s diary and other Jewish books.<\/p>\n

Now, Texas is pursuing a new approach: requiring that Frank\u2019s diary, and several other Jewish texts, be taught throughout the state.<\/p>\n

The Texas state education board recently discussed draft legislation that would create the nation\u2019s first-ever statewide K-12 required reading list for public schools. Among the roughly 300 texts on the list: Elie Wiesel\u2019s Holocaust memoir Night; Lois Lowry\u2019s young-reader Holocaust novel Number the Stars; George Washington\u2019s letter to a Rhode Island synagogue in 1790, and Frank\u2019s diary \u2014 the \u201coriginal edition.\u201d<\/p>\n

Each of the works could become mandatory reading for Texas\u2019s 5.5 million schoolchildren as soon as the 2030-31 school year, as the state\u2019s conservative education leaders seek to reverse a nationwide decline in the number of books read or assigned in class while also constraining the texts that activist parents tend to object to. Instead of letting individual teachers put together reading lists that might include \u201cdivisive\u201d or progressive content, Republicans in Texas are trying to nudge the curriculum toward a \u201cclassical education,\u201d said to draw on the Western canon.<\/p>\n

Supporters said the list would help ensure every student is on the same page.<\/p>\n

\"AA parent reads aloud from ”Anne Frank’s Diary: The Graphic Adaptation” at a board meeting for the Keller Independent School District in Keller, Texas, Aug. 22, 2022. The district had ordered the removal of the book from its schools the week prior. (credit: screenshot)<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to create an opportunity for a shared body of knowledge for all the students across the state of Texas,\u201d Shannon Trejo, deputy commissioner of programs for the Texas Education Agency, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency about why the group undertook the list project.<\/p>\n

While state lawmakers passed a law mandating at least one required book per grade, the board has decided to implement a full reading list. Trejo said the options had been whittled down from thousands of titles suggested in a statewide teachers survey. They were also cross-referenced with a variety of other sources, including books from \u201chigh-performing educational systems\u201d in other states and reading lists from the high-IQ society Mensa.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re trying to help students love reading again,\u201d LJ Francis, a Republican<\/a> member of the state school board who supports the list, said during the Jan. 28 meeting. \u201cI personally think schools should be teaching more than what we have on this list.\u201d<\/p>\n

Complicated moment for Jewish literature in Texas schools<\/p>\n

The proposal underscores a complicated moment for Jewish literature in Texas schools, where books about the Holocaust and Jewish history have recently been pulled from shelves amid parental complaints but are now poised to become required reading statewide. \u00a0Jewish educators and free-speech advocates say the shift reflects both recognition of Holocaust education\u2019s importance \u2014 and continuing tensions over who controls what students read and how those stories are taught.<\/p>\n

The overall list largely centers the Western canon and deemphasizes modern works as well as most books about race and identity, although selections from Booker T. Washington, Frederick Douglass and other Black American authors made the cut. The Bible is also heavily represented, with selections from both the Old and New Testaments on the reading list.<\/p>\n

The state\u2019s Holocaust Remembrance Week education mandate means that Jews are one of the few ethnic groups whose stories are fairly well represented on the state\u2019s required reading list. That doesn\u2019t mean that Holocaust educators are unreservedly enthusiastic about the new approach.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously I\u2019m pleased that they\u2019re including quality Holocaust materials,\u201d Deborah Lauter, executive director of TOLI, the Olga Lenkyel Institute for Holocaust<\/a> Studies, told JTA. Lauter noted that many teachers trained by TOLI on how to teach the Holocaust in their classrooms \u2014 including in Texas \u2014 already rely on books that made the list.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But, Lauter said, teachers generally like to develop their own curricula to tailor to their classrooms. \u201cMandating certain books, I don\u2019t know how teachers would feel about that,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Lauter also expressed concern about whether the state would be providing materials to help teachers decode the Holocaust texts for their students. Trejo told JTA that fell beyond the scope of the list and the statute.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is just the title that is going into the standards for the state of Texas,\u201d Trejo said. \u201cBeyond that, it would be up to publishers to look to, how can I support districts and teachers in teaching this title?\u201d<\/p>\n

To literacy activists in the state, the approach was concerning.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is censorship as well,\u201d Laney Hawes, co-director of the Texas Freedom to Read Project, told JTA. The overall list, she said, reflects \u201ca very narrow worldview,\u201d and the large number of books on the list would make it difficult for educators to find time for additional texts of their own choosing in class.<\/p>\n

At the same time, Hawes said, \u201cthere are some really worthwhile books on this list. \u2018The Diary of Anne Frank\u2019 is an incredible book.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Jewish titles, Trejo said, were selected with additional input from Holocaust museum experts, local rabbis and Jewish day schools in the state. They also sought input from the Texas Holocaust, Genocide, and Antisemitism<\/a> Advisory Commission.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were invited to provide input regarding a few specific parts of these proposals,\u201d Joy Nathan, the commission\u2019s director, told JTA in an email.<\/p>\n

She named \u201cBlessed Is the Match,\u201d a poem by the Hungarian-born poet and resistance fighter Hannah Senesh, as a reading that her commission recommended for the draft list. \u201cWe will continue these direct conversations throughout the process.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the state education board meeting, a last-minute amendment proposed by the board\u2019s GOP treasurer sought to remove dozens of works from the list, including Senesh\u2019s poem and Washington\u2019s letter.<\/p>\n

The amendment would replace those texts with a new crop of selections, including Refugee, a young-adult novel by Alan Gratz that partially follows a German Jewish World War II refugee; Biblical passages on Moses; Maurice Sendak\u2019s Where the Wild Things Are; George Orwell\u2019s 1984; and a book about former Polish president Lech Walesa. The amendment also listed Night\u00a0as required in two different grades.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The story of Moses, the board member said, made the amendment\u2019s cut because \u201cthere are a lot of parallels between Moses leading the people out of Egypt and the American Revolution.\u201d Debate on the topic dragged into the night, with board members arguing whether requiring Bible passages would violate the Establishment clause and which Biblical translation had superior literary merit.<\/p>\n

Following the amendment, the board agreed to postpone a vote on the required books until April to give members time to review both lists. Another board member, pushing for greater racial diversity in the list, submitted his own titles for review as well.<\/p>\n

Once voted on, the legislation would enter a public comment period prior to being formally adopted at a later meeting.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A long list of public commenters at the meeting opposed the law on various grounds, including that it was overly prescriptive, lacked proper balance between classical and modern literature, included more books than could realistically be taught, overly emphasized Christian texts over other religious works, and lacked racial and gender diversity. One teacher said that \u201cNight\u201d is traditionally taught at a different grade level than the law mandates.<\/p>\n

Among those who testified against the policy was Rebecca Bendheim, a middle-school teacher at an Austin private school and author of young-adult novels about Jewish and LGBTQ identity. \u201cI believe the list underestimates what Texas students can do,\u201d Bendheim said.<\/p>\n

A handful of commenters voiced support for the measure. Matthew McCormick, education director at the conservative Texas Public Policy Foundation, which backed the law, said that it covers \u201cimportant historical eras such as the Great Depression and the Holocaust.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added, \u201cBy approving this reading list, the board has the opportunity to enact a generational change by ensuring that every public school student has a strong foundation in literacy and literature.\u201d<\/p>\n

At Wednesday\u2019s meeting, the board also voted on new required civics training for teachers and new required vocabulary lists, which would be extracted from the required books.<\/p>\n

The state\u2019s embrace of Jewish curricula comes after one Texas school district recently pulled The Devil\u2019s Arithmetic,\u00a0another young-reader Holocaust novel, following a \u201cDEI content\u201d weeding process aided by artificial intelligence. A state law currently on the books in Texas places classroom restrictions on \u201cinstruction, diversity, equity and inclusion duties, and social transitioning.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Jewish texts are generously represented on Texas\u2019s list, works by and about authors of other identities are not; the high school list, for example, features no Hispanic authors. An estimated 245,000 Jews live in Texas, or less than 1% of the population, according to Brandeis University demographics; Hispanics, by contrast, form 40% of the state population, more than the white share.<\/p>\n

The state offered lists of approved Holocaust materials teachers may select from when marking Holocaust Remembrance Week last month. Those approved materials, provided by the Texas Holocaust, Genocide, and Antisemitism Advisory Commission, include many of the texts now required in the legislation.<\/p>\n

The proposed legislation concerns activists in the state who oppose book bans and restrictions on students\u2019 \u201cright to read.\u201d Hawes, a Fort Worth mother of four children in the state education system, first became an activist after her district removed the \u201cGraphic Adaptation\u201d of Frank\u2019s diary from its shelves in 2022.<\/p>\n

That district returned the book after public outcry. But other districts both in and outside of Texas followed suit by pulling the same edition, along with other Jewish books including Maus\u00a0and The Fixer, over the last few years.<\/p>\n

Seeing Frank\u2019s diary on the state\u2019s required reading list now, Hawes said, \u201cfeels weird to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

She noted that the draft legislation specifies that the \u201coriginal edition\u201d must be taught. The 2018 illustrated adaptation, which includes a passage of Frank discussing a same-sex attraction that had been excised from the original published edition, has been opposed by conservative parents across the country.<\/p>\n

In a slideshow by the Texas Educational Agency that outlines the proposed requirements, Frank\u2019s diary is portrayed as an \u201canchor\u201d text for the 7th grade. \u201cBlessed Is the Match,\u201d an ode to self-sacrifice for a higher cause, and Washington\u2019s letter, a landmark statement of religious tolerance, are listed as supplemental texts for the diary.<\/p>\n

The goals of the unit, the agency states, are \u201cfactual accounts of Jewish resistance during the Holocaust\u201d and \u201cfoundational American ideals of religious liberty and tolerance.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Biblical passages, the agency notes, are intended to fulfill a statewide requirement that school districts have \u201can enrichment curriculum that includes: religious literature, including the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament) and New Testament, and its impact on history and literature.\u201d Christian activist groups within Texas, and several elected officials, have pushed for years to promote Evangelical Christian texts in public schools.<\/p>\n

The inclusion of Washington\u2019s letter, which assures the Newport congregation that Jews will find safe haven in the United States, also struck Hawes as suspicious. The list contains numerous texts promoting patriotism but does not include any material addressing ongoing antisemitism in America.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is making us think that George Washington solved antisemitism. And he didn\u2019t,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Lauter said that if Texas\u2019s policy of statewide Holocaust book requirements becomes a broader trend, she would welcome it \u2014 despite her concerns.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s a positive. We support more Holocaust education in schools,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s certainly better than the opposite, which is banning books.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the years since school libraries became a culture-war flashpoint, Texas has been one of the most active…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":157925,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[64984,64988,64985,64986,64987,27,29,28,464],"class_list":["post-157924","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-american-jewry","tag-american-jews","tag-anne-frank","tag-elie-wiesel","tag-jewish-students","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news","tag-united-states"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157924","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=157924"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157924\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/157925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=157924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=157924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=157924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}