A demonstrator holding a Palestinian flag attends a protest against Jewish settlements, in the town of Biddy in the Israeli-occupied West Bank July 6, 2020. Photo: REUTERS/Mohamad Torokman.

A Jewish rights group has asked Newark Board of Education, which oversees the largest school district in New Jersey, to exclude an anti-Israel book from its mandatory curriculum.

Newark’s school board assigned the book, titled A Little Piece of Ground and written by Elizabeth Laird, to over 2,000 sixth grade English students for the 2022-2023 academic year, Zionists Organization of America (ZOA), the oldest Zionism advocacy group in the US, revealed on Thursday.

“The book is filled with misleading anti-Israel statements and outright lies,” ZOA president Morton Klein and director Susan Tuchman wrote in a letter to school board officials. “Instead of building understanding of a complex subject, fighting prejudice, and encouraging tolerance, this book will poison impressionable children — with little if any knowledge about the complicated Middle East conflict — to hate Jews, Israelis, and the State of Israel.”

A Little Piece of Ground tells the story of a child living in the West Bank. In one chapter, a character named Hopper, boasts about writing “Death to Israel” on a stone. Another says Israel “won’t be happy until they’ve driven us all out and grabbed every inch of Palestine for themselves.”

“After reading this book, students will wrongly believe that Jews and Israelis are monsters, that they are interlopers, stealing the land of others when, in fact, Jews are indigenous to the Land of Israel,” the ZOA statement continued. “Students will also come away thinking that terrorism and violence against innocent Jews and Israelis are legitimate and even desirable; Lair repeatedly refers to terrorist who have harmed and murdered Jews and Israelis as heroes and martyrs.”

According to ZOA, when asked about the propriety of teaching A Little Piece of Ground to young children, Deering said the school board’s decision “is in alignment with New Jersey Student Learning Standards,” which aim to expose students to “historically marginalized voices.”

The Algemeiner did not receive a response from the Newark Board of Education when asked for comment.