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A Michigan middle school dean resigned after receiving an antisemitic death threat
(JTA) – A newly hired dean of students for a Michigan middle school resigned after only nine school days on the job after receiving an anonymous antisemitic death threat.
The threat sent the district into lockdown and contributed to the decision to cancel classes during the first week of the year.
Michael Woodberg was hired by Richmond Community Schools, a rural district north of Detroit, in December. But in early January the district received a series of disturbing and violent threats directed at staff. The first one, on Jan. 3, took the form of a physical note discovered in one of the district’s buildings, targeting Woodberg specifically with antisemitic language and including details about his family and personal information.
District superintendent Brian Walmsley closed schools for the first week of the winter semester in response, alerting parents to the nature of the antisemitic threat, as well as to another threat made by email against a different administrator on Jan. 8. When the district reopened without Woodberg, local police were a heavy presence.
“The Dean of Students position was, as Mr. Woodberg stated, ‘a dream job,’” Walmsley wrote in an email to parents on Jan. 8. “He was excited for his first administrative experience and [to] work with outstanding administrators, teachers, and support staff – all dedicated to the success of students.
“As you can imagine, the threat affected Mr. Woodberg and his family and permanently changed the way they operate and view the environment around them,” the letter continued. “While Mr. Woodberg is going to be missed, I support the decision he made for his family and himself and wish him nothing but health, happiness, and success in his future endeavors.”
In an earlier letter to parents, Walmsley had said that he had already intended to close school for the first week of classes anyway, due to district staffing shortages, but that the threat gave additional cause to do so.
Walmsley did not respond to a Jewish Telegraphic Agency request for comment. Woodberg, who previously worked at West Bloomfield School District in a heavily Jewish Detroit suburb, declined to comment to the Detroit Jewish News.
The incident was condemned by Detroit Jewish federation CEO Steven Ingber, who told the Jewish News, “The recent incident at Richmond Community Schools is deeply disturbing and yet another reminder of the prevalence of antisemitism in our society today.” The federation has been in touch with the district, Ingber said.
The mayor of Richmond also condemned the threats this week during a city council meeting, while praising ongoing police efforts to identify the culprit. “These threats are not reflective of the Richmond community,” Mayor Tim Rix said, according to local reports. “We have a great community made up of residents, families, businesses, schools and organizations which all work together to make Richmond a place we all call our hometown. The actions of one or a few will not drag our community down.”
Two days after Walmsley alerted parents to the antisemitic threat, he told them a third threat had been made in the district, this one a shooting threat made on behalf of a middle school student. The district closed school for an additional day in response to the threat. Richmond is 30 miles east of Oxford High School, where a student shooter armed with his parents’ gun murdered four classmates and injured seven others in 2021.
Elsewhere in the Detroit area last month, local law enforcement were criticized for failing to immediately arrest a man who had videotaped himself making antisemitic threats outside a synagogue preschool.
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The post A Michigan middle school dean resigned after receiving an antisemitic death threat appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Tucker’s Ideas About Jews Come from Darkest Corners of the Internet, Says Huckabee After Combative Interview
US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee looks on during the day he visits the Western Wall, Judaism’s holiest prayer site, in Jerusalem’s Old City, April 18, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
i24 News – In a combative interview with US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, right-wing firebrand Tucker Carlson made a host of contentious and often demonstrably false claims that quickly went viral online. Huckabee, who repeatedly challenged the former Fox News star during the interview, subsequently made a long post on X, identifying a pattern of bad-faith arguments, distortions and conspiracies in Carlson’s rhetorical style.
Huckabee pointed out his words were not accorded by Carlson the same degree of attention and curiosity the anchor evinced toward such unsavory characters as “the little Nazi sympathizer Nick Fuentes or the guy who thought Hitler was the good guy and Churchill the bad guy.”
“What I wasn’t anticipating was a lengthy series of questions where he seemed to be insinuating that the Jews of today aren’t really same people as the Jews of the Bible,” Huckabee wrote, adding that Tucker’s obsession with conspiracies regarding the provenance of Ashkenazi Jews obscured the fact that most Israeli Jews were refugees from the Arab and Muslim world.
The idea that Ashkenazi Jews are an Asiatic tribe who invented a false ancestry “gained traction in the 80’s and 90’s with David Duke and other Klansmen and neo-Nazis,” Huckabee wrote. “It has really caught fire in recent years on the Internet and social media, mostly from some of the most overt antisemites and Jew haters you can find.”
Carlson branded Israel “probably the most violent country on earth” and cited the false claim that Israel President Isaac Herzog had visited the infamous island of the late, disgraced sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
“The current president of Israel, whom I know you know, apparently was at ‘pedo island.’ That’s what it says,” Carlson said, citing a debunked claim made by The Times reporter Gabrielle Weiniger. “Still-living, high-level Israeli officials are directly implicated in Epstein’s life, if not his crimes, so I think you’d be following this.”
Another misleading claim made by Carlson was that there were more Christians in Qatar than in Israel.
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Pezeshkian Says Iran Will Not Bow to Pressure Amid US Nuclear Talks
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian attends the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit 2025, in Tianjin, China, September 1, 2025. Iran’s Presidential website/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said on Saturday that his country would not bow its head to pressure from world powers amid nuclear talks with the United States.
“World powers are lining up to force us to bow our heads… but we will not bow our heads despite all the problems that they are creating for us,” Pezeshkian said in a speech carried live by state TV.
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Italy’s RAI Apologizes after Latest Gaffe Targets Israeli Bobsleigh Team
Milano Cortina 2026 Olympics – Bobsleigh – 4-man Heat 1 – Cortina Sliding Centre, Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy – February 21, 2026. Adam Edelman of Israel, Menachem Chen of Israel, Uri Zisman of Israel, Omer Katz of Israel in action during Heat 1. Photo: REUTERS/Athit Perawongmetha
Italy’s state broadcaster RAI was forced to apologize to the Jewish community on Saturday after an off‑air remark advising its producers to “avoid” the Israeli crew was broadcast before coverage of the Four-Man bobsleigh event at the Winter Olympics.
The head of RAI’s sports division had already resigned earlier in the week after his error-ridden commentary at the Milano Cortina 2026 opening ceremony two weeks ago triggered a revolt among its journalists.
On Saturday, viewers heard “Let’s avoid crew number 21, which is the Israeli one” and then “no, because …” before the sound was cut off.
RAI CEO Giampaolo Rossi said the incident represented a “serious” breach of the principles of impartiality, respect and inclusion that should guide the public broadcaster.
He added that RAI had opened an internal inquiry to swiftly determine any responsibility and any potential disciplinary procedures.
In a separate statement RAI’s board of directors condemned the remark as “unacceptable.”
The board apologized to the Jewish community, the athletes involved and all viewers who felt offended.
RAI is the country’s largest media organization and operates national television, radio and digital news services.
The union representing RAI journalists, Usigrai, had said Paolo Petrecca’s opening ceremony commentary had dealt “a serious blow” to the company’s credibility.
His missteps included misidentifying venues and public figures, and making comments about national teams that were widely criticized.