Korans with Offensive Commentary Are Pulled from Los Angeles Schools

Hundreds of copies of the Koran have been removed from California schools because of an accompanying anti-Semitic commentary.

School board officials in Los Angeles removed the translations of the Muslim holy book — which were donated to schools by a local Muslim foundation to promote religious understanding following the Sept. 11 terror attacks — after a history teacher noted the derogatory commentary in footnotes to the text.

One passage in the commentary calls Jews “men without faith.”

Another footnote says of Jews, “Many of them, even if they could read, were no better than illiterates for they knew not their own true scriptures, but read into them what they wanted, or at best their own conjecture.”

Copies of “The Meaning of the Holy Quran” were donated to the Los Angeles Unified School District by the Omar Ibn Khattab Foundation.

For unknown reasons, the books were distributed to school libraries last week without undergoing the customary content review, said Jim Konantz, director of information technology for the Los Angeles school district.

After the teacher complained about the anti-Semitic passages, Konantz instructed principals to secure all copies in their offices pending a review.

“It’s not an issue of whether the Koran should be available,” Konantz said. “It’s like any other research volume. But these interpretations are certainly in question.”

Dafer Dakhil, spokesman for the Omar Ibn Khattab Foundation, which donated the books, told Reuters that “We do not condone anything that is detrimental to understanding. If the books are offensive, they should be removed.”

Konantz said a review panel made up of history teachers, representatives of the Jewish community and foundation officials will be appointed to examine the books.