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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.”
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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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Prominent Palestinian Writer Dismisses Victims of Fatal DC Shooting as ‘Genocide Cheerleaders’
Palestinian American writer and activist Susan Abulhawa. Photo: Screenshot
Prominent Palestinian-American writer Susan Abulhawa has seemingly justified the murder of two Israeli embassy staffers in Washington, DC, on Wednesday night, dismissing the victims as “genocidal cheerleaders,” warning that “no Zionist should be safe,” and suggesting without evidence that the shooting may have been a “false flag” operation.
“Natural logic: when governments fail to hold Israel accountable for an actual holocaust being committed before our very eyes, no genocidal Zionist should be safe anywhere in the world,” Abulhawa posted on X/Twitter on Thursday, the day after the shooting. “What Mr. Rodriguez did should come as no surprise. In fact, I’m surprised it has not happened sooner. Human beings with a conscience literally cannot bear to witness such evil day and day out being inflicted upon the bodies, minds, and futures of an utterly defenseless people, by such a hateful, racist, colonial state.”
Natural logic: when governments fail to hold Israel accountable for an actual holocaust being committed before our very eyes, no genocidal Zionist should be safe anywhere in the world. What Mr. Rodriguez did should come as no surprise. In fact, I’m surprised it has not happened…
— susan abulhawa | سوزان ابو الهوى (@susanabulhawa) May 22, 2025
Elias Rodriguez, a 30-year-old left-wing and anti-Israel activist from Chicago, was charged on Thursday in US federal court with two counts of first-degree murder. He is accused of fatally shooting Yaron Lischinsky, 30, and Sarah Lynn Milgrim, 26, a young couple about to become engaged to be married, as they left an event at the Capital Jewish Museum for young professionals and diplomatic staff hosted by the American Jewish Committee (AJC) in the US capital.
An affidavit filed by US federal authorities in support of the criminal complaint charging Rodriguez revealed that he said at the scene of the shooting, “I did it for Palestine; I did it for Gaza.” He also chanted “Free Palestine, Free Palestine” after being taken into custody, according to video of the incident.
In the aftermath of the shooting, many anti-Israel activists rushed to defend the antisemitic attack as justifiable “resistance,” arguing that Lischinsky and Milgrim deserved to be murdered because they support Israel, which they falsely claim has been perpetrating a genocide in Gaza while waging a military campaign against the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas.
“Now we’re supposed to feel bad for two genocide cheerleaders after watching these colonizer baby killers slaughter people by the hundreds every day for two years,” Abulhawa posted to X/Twitter on Thursday. “I’ve seen the inside of too many children’s skulls to give a crap about the human garbage who get off on mass murder.”
Abulhawa then seemingly suggested, without any evidence, that either Israel or the Jewish community was actually behind the shooting to make the public focus on the surge of antisemitism — a surge that she claimed was a lie despite copious documentation providing a historic spike in antisemitic incidents.
“It wouldn’t surprise me if it was a false flag to focus on manufactured antisemitism instead of the actual holocaust being committed by Jewish supremacists,” she wrote.
Now we’re supposed to feel bad for two genocide cheerleaders after watching these colonizer baby killers slaughter people by the hundreds every day for two years. I’ve seen the inside of too many children’s skulls to give a crap about the human garbage who get off on mass murder.…
— susan abulhawa | سوزان ابو الهوى (@susanabulhawa) May 22, 2025
The author later added, “Once you understand that Zionism and Nazism are two sides of the same coin, the world we live in will make a lot more sense.” She then peddled antisemitic tropes, accusing Israel, the only Jewish state in the world, of possessing “worldwide tentacles” and controlling international governments.
Abulhawa proceeded to compare Wednesday night’s shooting to a Jewish person killing a member of the Nazi party as retaliation for the Holocaust. She declared the terrorist act as legitimate “resistance” to fight the so-called “genocide” occurring in Gaza.
“A person (Jewish) killed a Nazi as an act of resistance because governments refused to stop a genocide perpetrated by Nazis. Today, a person killed a Zionist as an act of resistance because governments refuse to stop a genocide perpetrated by Zionists,” the writer said.
Abulhawa has an extensive history of publicly condemning those who support Israel’s right to self-defense. In an X/Twitter post, she accused Dana Stroul, a former US deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East, of having a “single loyalty to a foreign country, for which they endlessly extort US tax dollars and spill American blood to maintain.” She also castigated Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro (D), who is Jewish, for being “a major player in the Zionist death cult infecting the world.” She added that that Zionists “aren’t human like us” and that “we’re ruled by spawns of Satan.”
Last year, the writer accused then-US Secretary of State Antony Blinken of having a “single loyalty to Israel,” perpetuating the antisemitic conspiracy theory that Jewish people are inherently untrustworthy citizens more loyal to Israel than their own countries.
Abulhawa has also celebrated Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of southern Israel, saying that the massacre “wasn’t the beginning of violence; it is the beginning of the end of a genocidal colonial entity.” In an article published in the anti-Israel outlet Electronic Intifada just days after the atrocities, Abulhawa wrote that “Palestinian fighters finally broke free on 7 October 2023 in a spectacular moment that shocked the world.” Lauding the Hamas terrorists, she stated that “these brave Palestinian fighters overtook Israeli colonies built on their ancestral villages, seeing their stolen lands for the first time in their lives.”
Despite her comments against Jews, Zionists, and Israelis, Abulhawa’s work has been widely read. Mornings in Jenin, a novel penned by Abdulhawa, sold over one million copies worldwide. The activist also served as the lead organizer for the “Palestine Writes” festival at the University of Pennsylvania in 2023. The event, which featured a litany of anti-Israel speakers, incensed Jewish alumni and donors.
The post Prominent Palestinian Writer Dismisses Victims of Fatal DC Shooting as ‘Genocide Cheerleaders’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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George Washington University Sued in New Antisemitism Lawsuit
Pro-Hamas supporters at George Washington University in Washington, DC on March 21, 2025, to protest the war in Gaza. Photo: Bryan Dozier/NurPhoto via Reuters Connect.
George Washington University enabled an outburst of antisemitic discrimination and harassment on its campus, a new lawsuit brought on behalf of two recent graduates of the institution alleges.
Filed on Thursday in the US District Court for the District of Columbia, the complaint recounts dozens of antisemitic incidents following the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel which the university allegedly failed to respond to adequately because of anti-Jewish, as well as anti-Zionist, bias. Among the incidents detailed, the campus Hillel Center was vandalized; someone threw a rock through the window of a truck owned by a Jewish advocacy group; and a Jewish student was told to “kill yourself” and “watch your back” in a hate message which also called her a “filthy k—ke.”
That and more transpired, court documents charge.
“Protesters at GWU raised repulsive, antisemitic signs and shouted slogans like ‘final solution,’ ‘the irony of being what you once hatred,’ a message that equated the swastika to the Star of David; and ‘Globalize the Intifada,’ an express call for violence against Jews,” the complaint adds. “Protesters vandalized university property in what amounted to rioting and blocked Jewish students from traversing campus freely, attending class, and otherwise engaging in educational opportunities.”
The plaintiffs, Sabrina Soffer and Ari Shapiro, say the university’s anemic response to campus antisemitism constitutes a violation of Title VI of the US Civil Rights Act. They are seeking damages and injunctive relief.
“I have long been proud to call George Washington University my academic home. Yet, after nearly four years of bringing attention to the university’s persistent antisemitism problem, I remain disheartened by its failure to take sufficient action to protect against the hostile environment facing the Jewish and Israeli community,” Soffer said in a statement shared with The Algemeiner. “My sincere hope is that this lawsuit marks a turning point — one that restores accountability and reaffirms a genuine commitment to the values the university professes to uphold.”
As previously reported, George Washington University has been a hub of extreme anti-Zionist activity that school officials have struggled to quell. A major source of such conduct has been Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), which, among other conduct, has threatened a Jewish professor and intimidated Jews on campus.
Most recently, a student used her commencement speech to lodge accusations of apartheid and genocide against Israel, a notion trafficked by neo-Nazi groups and jihadist terror organizations.
The student, Cecilia Culver, accused Israel of targeting Palestinians “simply for [their] remaining in the country of their ancestors” and said that GW students are passive contributors to the “imperialist system.” An economics and statistics major, Culver deceived administrators who selected her to address the Columbian College of the Arts and Sciences ceremony, the university said in a statement.
GW faculty have also allegedly contributed to the promotion of antisemitism on campus. In 2023, former psychology professor Lara Sheehi was accused of verbally abusing and discriminating against her Jewish graduate students.
As recounted in a 2023 civil rights complaint filed by StandWithUs, Sheehi expressed contempt for Jews when, on the first day of term in August 2022, she asked every student to share information about their backgrounds and cultures. Replying to a student who revealed that she was Israeli, Sheehi said, “It’s not your fault you were born in Israel.” Jewish students said they made several attempts to persuade the university to correct Sheehi’s behavior or arrange an alternative option for fulfilling the requirements of her course. Each time, StandWithUs alleged, administrators said nothing could be done.
Later, the complaint added, Sheehi spread rumors that her Jewish students were “combative” racists and filed misconduct charges against them. One student told The Algemeiner at the time that she never learned what university policies Sheehi accused her and her classmates of violating.
“GWU has obligations under Title VI and other laws to protect its Jewish students and faculty, and our complaint demonstrates that GWU has failed its obligation,” attorney Jason Torchinsky, who is representing Soffer and Shapiro, said in a statement on Friday. “We look forward to this case and to protecting current and future Jewish students at GWU.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post George Washington University Sued in New Antisemitism Lawsuit first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Lebanon, PA Reach Agreement to Disarm Palestinian Refugee Camps; Hamas Excluded From Talks
Lebanese President Joseph Aoun meets with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas at the presidential palace in Baabda, Lebanon, May 21, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir
The disarmament of Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon is set to begin next month, following an agreement between the Palestinian Authority (PA) and the Lebanese government, as part of the latter’s effort to assert control over its entire territory.
The agreement follows a three-day visit to Beirut by PA President Mahmoud Abbas, during which he met with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun to discuss the disarmament of all 12 Palestinian refugee camps across Lebanon.
During their meeting, both leaders agreed that Palestinian factions would not use Lebanese territory as a launchpad for attacks against Israel and that all weapons would be placed under the authority of the Lebanese government.
In a statement, Lebanese authorities announced that both sides agreed to “launch the process of handing over weapons according to a specific timetable, accompanied by practical steps to bolster the economic and social rights of Palestinian refugees.”
Hamas — a rival of Abbas’s Fatah faction that dominates the PA — criticized the agreement for excluding them from the discussions, arguing that the demilitarization process lacked proper representation without their involvement.
The Palestinian terrorist group also urged the Lebanese government to hold a dialogue with all Palestinian factions present in the country.
“We call on the Lebanese government to open a responsible dialogue with the Joint Palestinian Action Committee, which includes all Palestinian factions and forces, to discuss the Palestinian situation from all its aspects,” Ali Baraka, Hamas’s head of foreign relations, said in a statement.
“Limiting the discussion to the security framework alone could open the door to the trap of resettlement or displacement, which is what [Israel] seeks,” Baraka continued.
By a long-standing agreement, the Lebanese army refrains from entering the refugee camps — where Fatah, Hamas, and other armed groups operate — and instead leaves security responsibilities to the factions within the settlements.
According to UNRWA, the UN agency responsible for Palestinian refugees and their descendants, Lebanon is home to more than 200,000 Palestinian refugees who are subject to government restrictions that bar them from many professional jobs, limit their legal protections, and prohibit them from owning property.
Under the new agreement, Hamas — which has long maintained operations in Lebanon — will reportedly only be allowed to operate in the country for political activities, with no involvement in military matters, Lebanese officials said.
In the past, Hamas has claimed multiple attacks on Israel launched from Lebanese territory, especially during last year’s conflict between the Jewish state and Hezbollah — a war that erupted after the terrorist group expressed “solidarity” with Hamas following the group’s invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
In November, Lebanon and Israel reached a US-brokered ceasefire agreement that ended a year of fighting between the Jewish state and Hezbollah. Under the agreement, Israel was given 60 days to withdraw from Lebanon’s southern border, allowing the Lebanese army and UN forces to take over security as Hezbollah disarms and moves away from Israel’s northern border.
Israel, which decimated much of Hezbollah’s senior leadership during last year’s war, has continued to carry out regular airstrikes in southern Lebanon since the ceasefire.
Israeli officials assert that Hezbollah continues to maintain infrastructure in the south of the country, while Lebanon and Hezbollah accuse Israel of occupying Lebanese territory by refusing to withdraw from five hilltop positions.
The post Lebanon, PA Reach Agreement to Disarm Palestinian Refugee Camps; Hamas Excluded From Talks first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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