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NYC education officials defend Queens high school where student protest targeted pro-Israel teacher

(New York Jewish Week) – Students and city officials are pushing back against accusations of antisemitism at Hillcrest High School in Queens after a Jewish teacher was targeted in a protest, even as local Jewish leaders are demanding accountability after the incident.

Video of the unruly protest, which took place Nov. 20 and exploded into public view over the weekend, drew widespread criticism of the school and charges of antisemitism, including from New York City Mayor Eric Adams.

But speaking at a press conference at the school on Monday, Schools Chancellor David Banks, Queens Borough President Donovan Richards and student leaders rejected the charges, even as they denounced the incident, said some students would be suspended over it and

“So many of the students who were running or jumping had no idea what was even going on. They were doing what 14- and 15-year-olds do,” Banks said. “The notion that this place is radical, these kids are radicalized and antisemitic, is the height of irresponsibility.”

Banks said he had sought to understand what triggered the mayhem at the school in conversations with students and found out that social media played a central role.

“Young people today, they’re not watching, with all due respect, New York 1 or NBC or ABC,” Banks said. “They consume their information through social media, specifically TikTok and others, and what they are seeing on a daily basis are children and young people in Palestine, Palestinian families being blown up.”

As a result, “they feel a kindred spirit with the folks in the Palestinian community,” Banks said.

“When they all of a sudden saw this image of the teacher that says, ‘I Stand With Israel,’ the students articulated to me they took that as a message that I’m affirming whatever is happening to the Palestinian family and community,” Banks said. “That made sense to me,” Banks said.

After initially tweeting that the incident was a “vile show of antisemitism,” Adams took a softer tone at a press conference at City Hall Tuesday, where he said Banks had done the “right thing” by visiting the school and echoed Banks’ blaming of social media, saying online algorithms were “destroying our children and this is one of the examples.”

Deputy Chancellor Dan Weisberg said at the City Hall press conference that public perception of the incident was wrong. “It is unfair the way aspersions have been cast and broad brush criticism has been made of students,” he said.

The city’s response to the incident points to the challenges inherent in responding to a wave of pro-Palestinian student advocacy in response to Israel’s war on Hamas in Gaza, which began Oct. 7 when Hamas attacked Israel, killing 1,200 and taking about 250 people hostage. Earlier this month, hundreds of students staged a walkout to protest against Israel, convening in Bryant Park for a rally chanting “Intifada,” calling for a ceasefire, accusing Israel of genocide and praising Palestinian “resistance.” The Hillcrest incident signals that the tensions are playing out inside individual schools, as well.

The events leading to the incident began several weeks ago, when a Jewish health teacher at Hillcrest changed her Facebook profile photo to herself at a pro-Israel rally carrying a sign in support of the Jewish state. Students at the school noticed the photo online and shared it with classmates, Banks said.

Hillcrest High School, at Parsons Boulevard and Highland Avenue in Jamaica Hills, Queens. (Creative Commons)

Students planned a protest against the teacher last Monday that quickly got out of hand as hundreds of students, in the hallway between classes, joined in and ran amok. Videos showed the students running through the hallways, waving Palestinian flags and damage to the school’s property. The celebratory videos of the incident included a photo of the teacher at the rally.

“It was meant to be a peaceful protest from the very beginning, but some of these students lack maturity,” said the school’s senior class president, Muhammad Ghazali. “These students have the right to go out there and protest, but it’s just the way they protested was wrong.”

Khadija Ahmed, a Hillcrest student, said, “The message that we really wanted to get out there was that we wanted Palestine to be free but the message got lost and lots of people were hurt mentally.”

Around 400 students, out of 2,500 at the school, had “acted disruptively” during the incident, Banks said. He said it was not acceptable and that the education department would take steps to respond to it.

“Violence, hate and disorder have no place in our schools,” Banks said. “Antisemitism, Islamophobia and all forms of bigotry are simply unacceptable.”

Banks said he would convene all of New York City’s school principals by the end of the week for a discussion about the Middle East conflict. He also said he spent Monday afternoon discussing the situation with Hillcrest students and staff and said an external partner would work with schools in response to the incident, tailoring the resources offered to individual schools.

Banks also said some students would be suspended at Hillcrest. But officials declined to elaborate about the number of students or other details of the punishment, citing privacy laws, and rejected calls to suspend hundreds of students.

“The message we sent to these students is it’s OK to protest,” Richards said. “It’s not what you say, it’s how you do it and how you say it.”

Banks, himself a graduate of Hillcrest, said the teacher was singled out due to her support for Israel and “Jewish identity” but said that contrary to media reports, she was sequestered safely on a different floor from the students who were protesting against her.

The teacher was already concerned about social media posts about her and in touch with police, who said they had responded to a 911 call at the school at around 9:30 a.m. on Nov. 20, about a teacher who had “received a threat from an unknown person on social media.”

New York City public school educators hold photos of swastikas found on school grounds, at a rally demanding action against antisemitism from Chancellor David Banks in New York City, November 28, 2023. (Luke Tress)

“There was no one barricaded or protests and/or riots at the location. There have been no arrests, and the investigation remains ongoing,” police said.

Banks said the student body at Hillcrest is around 30% Muslim and the faculty includes both Jewish and Muslim teachers. The chancellor said that in addition to the protest last Monday, a student warned the principal on Wednesday that demonstrations would continue as long as the teacher remained employed, with another rally planned for later that day. The school went into lockdown to head off that protest.

The teacher, who has not commented publicly beyond a statement to the New York Post over the weekend, will return to the school this week, Banks said, adding that the school was concerned about a rally against antisemitism planned outside the school on Thursday by the pro-Israel and Jewish self defense group Yad Yamin. The group said the rally had been canceled.

The incident has elicited criticism from a range of Jewish leaders and has inspired the formation of a new group, New York City Public School Alliance, that is pressing the city education department to do more to combat antisemitism in schools. The group announced itself during a press conference Tuesday afternoon on the steps of Tweed Courthouse, the education department headquarters.

“Chancellor Banks has failed our students, families and educators. He has failed at building safe and inclusive classrooms and schools for Jewish students, families and employees,” said founder Tova Plaut, an instructional coordinator for District 2 in Manhattan.

The group decried what it said was Banks’ “weak response” to the Hillcrest incident and demanded that he acknowledge the “extent of Jewish hate and anti-Jewish culture” in public schools; adopt the IHRA definition of antisemitism; adopt a zero-tolerance policy toward antisemitism; restructure how schools address diversity to include Jews; and include Jewish heritage identity in curriculum and diversity and inclusion goals.

In Queens, local Jewish leaders said they wanted to see stronger action taken in response to the Hillcrest incident.

“Heads need to roll. The administrations need to be held accountable. It is no longer acceptable to hear, ‘Yes, we don’t want any antisemitism,’” said Sorolle Idels, who leads the Queens Jewish Alliance, a local Orthodox community group. “Your words are not enough.”

Her group was aware of videos of the incident last week and was awaiting a response from city officials, Idels said. After news broke of the riot during Shabbat, the group scrambled to put together a press conference for Monday morning that was attended by Eric Dinowitz, the chair of the city council’s Jewish Caucus.

Idels alleged that the school had sought to keep the incident quiet, since there was no public response until after the New York Post report nearly a week after the incident. Banks rejected the allegation, insisting the city operated with full transparency. He also said other recent violent incidents in the school had been misrepresented in the media and were unconnected to the anti-Israel protest.

The United Federation of Teachers, New York City’s teachers union, issued a statement indicating the union was aware of the riot on the day it happened.

“The UFT has been working with the individual teacher, school safety, the DOE, and the NYPD since last Monday,” UFT President Michael Mulgrew said in a statement sent to the New York Jewish Week. “The union will continue to send staff to the building and to work with the administration, DOE safety personnel, school safety, and the NYPD to restore and maintain a safe environment for faculty, students, and staff.”

Pro-Palestinian protesters near Bryant Park following a high school student walkout in New York City, Nov. 9, 2023. (Luke Tress)

Contacted for comment, the American Federation of Teachers, the union’s parent organization, also sent Mulgrew’s statement. The head of the AFT, Randi Weingarten, is a vocal supporter of Israel who is there now with her rabbi wife. She called the riot a “vile act of antisemitism” on X over the weekend and said “many stepped up to deal with this” before it broke into public view.

The Jewish Caucus, the city council’s Common Sense Caucus, New York State Attorney General Leticia James, the Anti-Defamation League and other local leaders have all condemned the incident.

The executive director of the Queens Jewish Community Council, Mayer Waxman, said the group had a positive relationship with the broader community, was not aware of any previous antisemitism at local high schools, and was caught off-guard by the Hillcrest incident.

“We thought that Queens was better than this,” Waxman said, adding that he was frustrated by the fact that the incident remained out of public view for close to a week. “It should have been front and center and it should have been publicized and nipped in the bud.”

The borough’s main public university, Queens College, which is mainly attended by commuters, has also seen antisemitic incidents and tensions between Jewish and Muslim students.

Similar to the mayor and the chancellor, Jewish community leaders said social media and social trends played a central role in instigating the protest.

“I don’t think that the kids even understand what they’re even doing. They are riding this fun train. It’s the new ‘in thing’ to do now, is to hate on Jews,” Idels said.

Rabbi Yossi Schwartz, the director of the Orthodox Union’s Jewish Student Union in New York, a youth group that works in public high schools, said the organization had seen some antisemitism since Oct. 7, but that the Hillcrest riot still came as a shock. He said the school’s lack of Jewish students may have played into the outburst, since the students were probably less exposed to Israeli and Jewish perspectives.

After the press briefing, he said he expected a harsher response from administrators, and also attributed much of the rise in anti-Israel sentiment to social trends and social media.

“It’s cool to stand up and it’s cool to support what’s seen to be the underdog,” he said. “But when it becomes cool to be violent or becomes cool to be part of a mob against a teacher or against anyone, that’s where it’s just sad that that’s happening with teens.”


The post NYC education officials defend Queens high school where student protest targeted pro-Israel teacher appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

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Syria’s Sharaa Says Talks With Israel Could Yield Results ‘In Coming Days’

Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa speaks at the opening ceremony of the 62nd Damascus International Fair, the first edition held since the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime, in Damascus, Syria, Aug. 27, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Khalil Ashawi

Syria’s President Ahmed al-Sharaa said on Wednesday that ongoing negotiations with Israel to reach a security pact could lead to results “in the coming days.”

He told reporters in Damascus the security pact was a “necessity” and that it would need to respect Syria’s airspace and territorial unity and be monitored by the United Nations.

Syria and Israel are in talks to reach an agreement that Damascus hopes will secure a halt to Israeli airstrikes and the withdrawal of Israeli troops who have pushed into southern Syria.

Reuters reported this week that Washington was pressuring Syria to reach a deal before world leaders gather next week for the UN General Assembly in New York.

But Sharaa, in a briefing with journalists including Reuters ahead of his expected trip to New York to attend the meeting, denied the US was putting any pressure on Syria and said instead that it was playing a mediating role.

He said Israel had carried out more than 1,000 strikes on Syria and conducted more than 400 ground incursions since Dec. 8, when the rebel offensive he led toppled former Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad.

Sharaa said Israel’s actions were contradicting the stated American policy of a stable and unified Syria, which he said was “very dangerous.”

He said Damascus was seeking a deal similar to a 1974 disengagement agreement between Israel and Syria that created a demilitarized zone between the two countries.

He said Syria sought the withdrawal of Israeli troops but that Israel wanted to remain at strategic locations it seized after Dec. 8, including Mount Hermon. Israeli ministers have publicly said Israel intends to keep control of the sites.

He said if the security pact succeeds, other agreements could be reached. He did not provide details, but said a peace agreement or normalization deal like the US-mediated Abraham Accords, under which several Muslim-majority countries agreed to normalize diplomatic ties with Israel, was not currently on the table.

He also said it was too early to discuss the fate of the Golan Heights because it was “a big deal.”

Reuters reported this week that Israel had ruled out handing back the zone, which Donald Trump unilaterally recognized as Israeli during his first term as US president.

“It’s a difficult case – you have negotiations between a Damascene and a Jew,” Sharaa told reporters, smiling.

SECURITY PACT DERAILED IN JULY

Sharaa also said Syria and Israel had been just “four to five days” away from reaching the basis of a security pact in July, but that developments in the southern province of Sweida had derailed those discussions.

Syrian troops were deployed to Sweida in July to quell fighting between Druze armed factions and Bedouin fighters. But the violence worsened, with Syrian forces accused of execution-style killings and Israel striking southern Syria, the defense ministry in Damascus and near the presidential palace.

Sharaa on Wednesday described the strikes near the presidential palace as “not a message, but a declaration of war,” and said Syria had still refrained from responding militarily to preserve the negotiations.

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Anti-Israel Activists Gear Up to ‘Flood’ UN General Assembly

US Capitol Police and NYPD officers clash with anti-Israel demonstrators, on the day Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses a joint meeting of Congress, on Capitol Hill, in Washington, DC, July 24, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Umit Bektas

Anti-Israel groups are planning a wave of raucous protests in New York City during the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) over the next several days, prompting concerns that the demonstrations could descend into antisemitic rhetoric and intimidation.

A coalition of anti-Israel activists is organizing the protests in and around UN headquarters to coincide with speeches from Middle Eastern leaders and appearances by US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The demonstrations are expected to draw large crowds and feature prominent pro-Palestinian voices, some of whom have been criticized for trafficking in antisemitic tropes, in addition to calling for the destruction of Israe.

Organizers of the demonstrations have promoted the coordinated events on social media as an opportunity to pressure world leaders to hold Israel accountable for its military campaign against Hamas in Gaza, with some messaging framed in sharply hostile terms.

On Sunday, for example, activists shouted at Israel’s Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon.

“Zionism is terrorism. All you guys are terrorists committing ethnic cleansing and genocide in Gaza and Palestine. Shame on you, Zionist animals,” they shouted.

The Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM), warned on its website that the scale and tone of the planned demonstrations risk crossing the line from political protest into hate speech, arguing that anti-Israel activists are attempting to hijack the UN gathering to spread antisemitism and delegitimize the Jewish state’s right to exist.

Outside the UN last week, masked protesters belonging to the activist group INDECLINE kicked a realistic replica of Netanyahu’s decapitated head as though it were a soccer ball.

Within Our Lifetime (WOL), a radical anti-Israel activist group, has vowed to “flood” the UNGA on behalf of the pro-Palestine movement.

WOL, one of the most prolific anti-Israel activist groups, came under immense fire after it organized a protest against an exhibition to honor the victims of the Oct. 7 massacre at the Nova Music Festival in southern Israel. During the event, the group chanted “resistance is justified when people are occupied!” and “Israel, go to hell!”

“We will be there to confront them with the truth: Their silence and inaction enable genocide. The world cannot continue as if Gaza does not exist,” WOL said of its planned demonstrations in New York. “This is the time to make our voices impossible to ignore. Come to New York by any means necessary, to stand, to march, to demand the UN act and end the siege.”

Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM), two other anti-Israel organizations that have helped organize widespread demonstrations against the Jewish state during the war in Gaza, also announced they are planning a march from Times Square to the UN headquarters on Friday.

“The time is now for each and every UN member state to uphold their duty under international law: sanction Israel and end the genocide,” the groups said in a statement.

JVP, an organization that purports to fight for “Palestinian liberation,” has positioned itself as a staunch adversary of the Jewish state. The group argued in a 2021 booklet that Jews should not write Hebrew liturgy because hearing the language would be “deeply traumatizing” to Palestinians. JVP has repeatedly defended the Oct. 7 massacre of roughly 1,200 people in southern Israel by Hamas as a justified “resistance.” Chapters of the organization have urged other self-described “progressives” to throw their support behind Hamas and other terrorist groups against Israel

Similarly, PYM, another radical anti-Israel group, has repeatedly defended terrorism and violence against the Jewish state. PYM has organized many anti-Israel protests in the two years following the Oct. 7 attacks in the Jewish state. Recently, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AK) called for a federal investigation into the organization after Aisha Nizar, one of the group’s leaders, urged supporters to sabotage the US supply chain for the F-35 fighter jet, one of the most advanced US military assets and a critical component of Israel’s defense.

The UN General Assembly has historically been a flashpoint for heated debate over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Previous gatherings have seen dueling demonstrations outside the Manhattan venue, with pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian groups both seeking to influence the international spotlight.

While warning about the demonstrations, CAM noted it recently launched a new mobile app, Report It, that allows users worldwide to quickly and securely report antisemitic incidents in real time.

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Nina Davidson Presses Universities to Back Words With Action as Jewish Students Return to Campus Amid Antisemitism Crisis

Nina Davidson on The Algemeiner’s ‘J100’ podcast. Photo: Screenshot

Philanthropist Nina Davidson, who served on the board of Barnard College, has called on universities to pair tough rhetoric on combatting antisemitism with enforcement as Jewish students returned to campuses for the new academic year.

“Years ago, The Algemeiner had published a list ranking the most antisemitic colleges in the country. And number one was Columbia,” Davidson recalled on a recent episode of The Algemeiner‘s “J100” podcast. “As a board member and as someone who was representing the institution, it really upset me … At the board meeting, I brought it up and I said, ‘What are we going to do about this?’”

Host David Cohen, chief executive officer of The Algemeiner, explained he had revisited Davidson’s remarks while she was being honored for her work at The Algemeiner‘s 8th annual J100 gala, held in October 2021, noting their continued relevance.

“It could have been the same speech in 2025,” he said, underscoring how longstanding concerns about campus antisemitism, while having intensified in the aftermath of Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, are not new.

Davidson argued that universities already possess the tools to protect students – codes of conduct, time-place-manner rules, and consequences for threats or targeted harassment – but too often fail to apply them evenly. “Statements are not enough,” she said, arguing that institutions need to enforce their rules and set a precedent that there will be consequences for individuals who refuse to follow them.

She also said that stakeholders – alumni, parents, and donors – are reassessing their relationships with schools that, in their view, have not safeguarded Jewish students. While supportive of open debate, Davidson distinguished between protest and intimidation, calling for leadership that protects expression while ensuring campus safety.

The episode surveyed specific pressure points that administrators will face this fall: repeat anti-Israel encampments, disruptions of Jewish programming, and the challenge of distinguishing political speech from conduct that violates university rules. “Unless schools draw those lines now,” Davidson warned, “they’ll be scrambling once the next crisis hits.”

Cohen closed by framing the discussion as a test of institutional credibility, asking whether universities will “turn policy into protection” in real time. Davidson agreed, pointing to students who “need to know the rules aren’t just on paper.”

The full conversation is available on The Algemeiner’s “J100” podcast.

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