It seems that since the beginning of time, the “chosen people” in this world have been Jews and gays and lesbians. Chosen for what? Persecution and discrimination, it appears.

Adolf Hitler thought he had a solution: Round up Jews and homosexuals and extinguish them. Several years ago, in Paragraph 75, filmmakers interviewed aging gay men and lesbians who recalled the Holocaust and gave accounts as to how the Nazis killed homosexuals as well as millions of Jews.

Some 50 years later, Jews and gays find themselves lumped together again fighting oppression in two measures now pending in the California Senate.

Last week, I reported here on AB 606, which requires school districts to establish and publicize a policy that prohibits discrimination and harassment because of one’s actual or perceived gender identity or sexual orientation. It would allow state officials to investigate anti-bias claims and cut off funds.

The other bill is AB 1056, authored by Judy Chu, D-Monterey Park. It would require the State Board of Education (SBE) to integrate instruction on inter-group relations and tolerance into existing English language arts (ELA), and history/social science courses. In short, it requires schools to teach about the ravages of anti-Semitism.

According to the Anti-Defamation League’s (ADL) annual Audit of Anti-Semitic Incidents, there have been widely reported bias-motivated incidents in public schools all over California. In 2004, for example, anti-Semitic incidents reached their highest level in California in nine years, increasing from 180 to 237.

The ADL audit attributes the increase to reports of anti-Jewish harassment in schools. In the eight states with the highest overall reports of anti-Semitic acts last year, 13 percent occurred in schools. Assemblymember Chu notes: “As California continues its trend toward becoming the first majority-minority state in the country, inter-group tensions will continue to rise. Public schools are often a microcosm of what is happening in the communities around them. Schools have the duty to provide a safe learning environment for their students. By incorporating teachings about inter-group relations and tolerance into the normal education process, this bill encourages youth to learn about and appreciate the differences in people.”

So the ADL wants to ensure schools do something. Current law requires the SBE to adopt statewide academic content and performance standards in the core areas of reading, writing, mathematics, history/social science and science. The SBE is required to adopt statewide curriculum standards, to review the existing curriculum frameworks for conformity to those standards and to align the frameworks as necessary.

Furthermore, the SBE is required to ensure that instructional materials adopted for social science in elementary schools include information designed to instruct pupils on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the civil rights movement and the contributions made by ethnic minority groups to United States history.

The ADL pressed for a similar law last year, but the governor vetoed it. His veto message reads: “No one believes more strongly than I in the importance of teaching our children tolerance for all persons, irrespective of race, gender, nationality, ethnicity, religious creed, disability or sexual orientation. However, this bill is largely duplicative of current efforts to provide more avenues to teach about tolerance and human rights.

“For example, current law already establishes a Center for the Excellence on the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide, Human Rights, and Tolerance to provide teachers the training and resources to effectively teach about these subjects. In addition, the SBE has adopted a Model Curriculum for Human Rights and Genocide that is available to all schools. Finally, with respect to tolerance of a more immediate nature, the SDE has posted on its Web site model policies on the prevention of bullying and hate-motivated behavior.”

The problem is that this is not enough. Some school boards loathe the idea of including anything in their schools that discusses tolerance for Jews, let alone gays and lesbians.

And, as I’ve reported here over the last few weeks, it’s not surprising that hate incidents in our schools are rising. The governor must take note of the arrests of a half-dozen neo-Nazis in East County in the past few weeks, coupled with the millions of dollars Californians have been required to pay for hate crimes (against GLBT students).

This is why Jews and GLBT groups need to unite together to see passage of both AB 606 and AB 1056.