Azerbaijan has become the first Muslim-majority country to incorporate a definition of antisemitism into its textbooks, which offer positive portrayals of both Jews and Israel, a British think tank said on Thursday.
The findings in “Israel and Jews in Azerbaijani Education,” a review of the educational system in the predominantly Shi’ite country, are the latest signs of the friendly relations between the South Caucasus nation and the Jewish state.
The report by IMPACT-se (the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education), an NGO based in London, highlights positive portrayals of Jews and Israel in the textbooks in Azerbaijan, as well as recognition of the Holocaust as mass genocide in which six million Jews were murdered.
The textbooks, which promote ideals of diversity and tolerance and a secular, inclusive national identity, have no signs of Islamism or radicalism and offer a balanced view of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the study found.
The report, which evaluated 53 textbooks taught in the Azerbaijani national curriculum, revealed “promising progress and developments,” with anti-Israel narratives notably removed in revisions made for the current 2024-25 school year.
Significantly, the Azerbaijani curriculum addresses antisemitism and teaches the Holocaust, unequivocally condemning both.
Antisemitism is explicitly defined in a grade 9 history textbook, marking the first Muslim-majority country to incorporate the definition in its curriculum, the study finds.
“The inclusion of historical events such as the Dreyfus Affair and Jewish persecution under Tsarist Russia further deepens students’ understanding of antisemitism,” the report states.
The new textbooks also pointedly attribute the Israeli-Palestinian conflict’s roots to Arab rejection of the 1947 U.N. Partition Plan and critique Arab state military failures, citing corruption and technological inferiority.
Terms such as “occupied” have been replaced with “taken over” or “captured” when referencing territories under Israeli control.
“The textbooks demonstrate a clear rejection of the extreme Islamist values promoted by their near-neighbor Iran,” said IMPACT-se CEO Marcus Sheff. “Instead, they promote tolerance, diversity and a heartfelt respect for Jews and Israel, which serves as an important model for many other majority-Muslim states.”
