Connect with us

RSS

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.

Continue Reading
Click to comment

You must be logged in to post a comment Login

Leave a Reply

RSS

US Democratic Voters Overwhelmingly Sympathize With Palestinians Over Israelis: Poll

Voters line up for the US Senate run-off election, at a polling location in Marietta, Georgia, US, January 5, 2021. Photo: REUTERS/Mike Segar.

Democrats in the US widely sympathize with Palestinians over Israelis, according to a new poll.

The Economist/YouGov poll, which was conducted from Feb. 9-11, found that 35 percent of Democrats indicate their sympathies “are more with” Palestinians, and only 9 percent say they are more sympathetic toward Israelis. Meanwhile, 32 percent of Democrats responded that their sympathies are “about equal” between both Palestinians and Israelis, and another 24 percent were not sure.

Notably, Democratic “sympathies” toward Israelis have dramatically declined in the past two months, coinciding with the transition of the Trump administration into the White House. On Dec. 21, according to the poll, 21 percent of Democrats sympathized more with Israelis and 25 percent sympathized more with Palestinians. On Jan. 18, two days before US President Donald Trump’s inauguration, Democratic sympathy for Palestinians climbed to 27 percent. During that same timeframe, sympathies for Israelis plunged to 18 percent among Democrats. 

Republicans are far more sympathetic toward Israel than Democrats are, the poll found. Sixty percent of Republicans expressed sympathy with Israelis this month, while 6 percent expressed more sympathy toward Palestinians.

In October 2023, in the immediate aftermath of the Hamas-led Oct. 7 massacre of 1,200 people and kidnapping of 251 hostages throughout southern Israel, 73 percent of Republicans indicated more sympathy for Israelis and 3 percent indicated more sympathy for Palestinians. As for Democrats, 34 percent had more sympathy for Israelis immediately following the Oct. 7 massacre, and 16 percent had more sympathy for the Palestinians.

Overall, although a plurality of Americans still supports Israel, sympathy for the Palestinians seems to be gaining steam. American sympathy for Israelis remained virtually unchanged from Jan. 18 to Feb. 8, dropping slightly from 32 percent to 31 percent. However, sympathy for Palestinians spiked from 15 percent to 21 percent within the same three-week span. According to the poll, American support for Palestinians has climbed to its highest level since 2017. 

Trump’s recent proposal to vacate Palestinians from Gaza and build a “Riviera of the Middle East” is unpopular with the American public, according to the poll. Only 19 percent of Americans support the plan, the poll found. The policy proposal suffers from weak support among American liberals, with only 6 percent of Democrats supporting it and 74 percent opposing it. In contrast, Trump’s suggestion to relocate Palestinians into neighboring Arab states enjoys substantially greater support among Republicans, with 39 percent agreeing with Trump’s proposal and 33 percent disagreeing with it. 

The growing partisan divide between Democrats and Republicans regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has become a major flashpoint in the 16 months following the Oct. 7 terror attacks. Democratic lawmakers have become increasingly critical of Israel’s approach to the Gaza war, potentially reflecting shifting opinions of the Democratic electorate regarding the Jewish state. Although Democrats have repeatedly reiterated that Israel has a right to “defend itself,” many have raised concerns over the Jewish state’s conduct in the war in Gaza, reportedly exerting private pressure on former US President Joe Biden to adopt a more adversarial stance against Israel and display more public sympathy for the Palestinians. In November, 17 Democratic senators voted to impose a partial arms embargo on Israel, sparking outrage among supporters of the Jewish state.

The post US Democratic Voters Overwhelmingly Sympathize With Palestinians Over Israelis: Poll first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

Continue Reading

RSS

Iran to Build 1,000 Nuclear Sites if ‘Enemy’ Destroys 100, President Says Amid Reports of Possible Israeli Strike

Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian attends a press conference in Tehran, Iran, Sept. 16, 2024. Photo: WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Majid Asgaripour via REUTERS

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on Thursday warned that if “enemies” attack Iran’s nuclear facilities, the country will quickly rebuild and multiply them, seemingly responding to new reports of a possible Israeli strike on Iranian nuclear sites by the middle of this year.

“[Enemies] threaten us that they will hit our nuclear facilities … If you strike a hundred of those, we will build a thousand other ones,” Pezeshkian said during a speech in the southern province of Bushehr, according to Iranian state media.

“You can target the buildings and locations, but you cannot target those who build them,” he said, adding that Iranian “experts” will continue to expand the country’s nuclear program.

Pezeshkian’s comments came after a Washington Post report claimed that Israel may launch a preemptive strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities in Fordow and Natanz by mid-year, citing US intelligence assessments. Such an operation could exploit extensive damage done to Iran’s military capabilities in October, when Israel devastated Iranian air defense systems and ballistic missile production facilities in a coordinated, three-wave strike. The attack was a response to Iran targeting the Israeli homeland with 181 ballistic missiles weeks earlier.

During his meeting in Bushehr, Pezeshkian criticized the United States for pursuing a “contradictory” approach to Iran, saying that while President Donald Trump claims he wants to negotiate a nuclear deal, he also imposes harsh sanctions on Tehran.

“The enemy wants us to be humiliated before them with sanctions and threats, but we will not be subjugated and we will solve our problems by relying on our people,” Pezeshkian said. “We will run the country by relying on our domestic capabilities.”

Last week, Trump signed a presidential memorandum restoring his “maximum pressure” campaign on Iran that includes efforts to drive its oil exports down to zero in order to stop Tehran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. However, Trump has also denied that the US and Israel are planning to carry out a military strike on Iran, saying he instead wants to reach a “nuclear peace agreement” with Tehran.

In response to Trump’s comments, Iran’s so-called “supreme leader,” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, rejected the idea of negotiating with Washington, calling the idea “unwise” and “dishonorable” days later.

In an interview with Fox News, Trump also mentioned the possibility of Israel striking Iran, emphasizing that he would rather reach an agreement with Tehran to stop it from obtaining nuclear weapons.

“Everyone thinks Israel, with our help or our approval, will go in and bomb the hell out of them. I would prefer that not to happen,” Trump said.

Amid increasing tensions, the commander of Iran’s conventional air force, Hamid Vahedi, also threatened to retaliate against any attack on Tehran.

“We tell all countries, friends and foes alike, that our country’s doctrine is defensive, but we will respond with force against any enemy attack,” he said.

The US, Israel, and other allied countries fear that Iran’s nuclear program is ultimately designed to produce nuclear bombs.

Iran has claimed that its nuclear program is for civilian purposes rather than building weapons. However, the UN’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), reported in December that Iran had greatly accelerated uranium enrichment to up to 60 percent purity, close to the roughly 90 percent weapons-grade level, at its Fordow site dug into a mountain.

The UK, France, and Germany said in a statement at the time that there is no “credible civilian justification” for Iran’s recent nuclear activity, arguing it “gives Iran the capability to rapidly produce sufficient fissile material for multiple nuclear weapons.”

According to US intelligence reports detailed in The Wall Street Journal, US officials believe that an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities would only delay Tehran’s program for a few weeks or months, yet Israeli officials believe it would have a significant impact.

Israel is reportedly considering two potential strike options, both of which would require US support for aerial refueling, intelligence gathering, and surveillance.

Of these two options, one is reported to involve Israeli fighter jets launching ballistic missiles from the air without entering Iranian territory, while the other would see aircraft deploying bunker-busting bombs over Iranian nuclear sites. The Trump administration recently approved the sale of training kits for this type of strike.

In November, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said Iran was “more vulnerable than ever to attacks on its nuclear facilities.”

“We have the opportunity to achieve our most important goal – to thwart and eliminate the existential threat to the State of Israel,” he said in a post on X.

Iran is the chief international backer of Hamas, providing the terrorist group with weapons, funding, and training. According to media reports based on documents seized by the Israeli military in Gaza last year, Iran had been informed about Hamas’s plan to invade southern Israel and massacre and kidnap civilians on Oct. 7, 2023, months in advance.

The post Iran to Build 1,000 Nuclear Sites if ‘Enemy’ Destroys 100, President Says Amid Reports of Possible Israeli Strike first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

Continue Reading

RSS

UCLA Suspends Students for Justice in Palestine After Vandalizing University Board Member’s Home

Illustrative: Anti-Israel protesters set up camp on the UCLA campus in Los Angeles, CA on April 25, 2024. Photo: Alberto Sibaja via Reuters Connect.

The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) has suspended two leading anti-Zionist groups on campus — Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and Graduate Students for Justice in Palestine — following their vandalizing the home of a Jewish member of the Board of Regents, the governing body for the University of California system.

According to The Daily Bruin, the university’s official campus newspaper, the decision is punishment for a Feb. 5 incident in which some 50 SJP members, along with Graduate Students for Justice in Palestine, amassed on the property of UC Regent Jay Sures and threatened that he must “divest now or pay.” As part of the demonstration, the students imprinted their hands, which had been submerged in red paint to symbolize the spilling of blood, all over Sures’ garage door and cordoned the area with caution tape.

The behavior crossed the line, UCLA Chancellor Julio Frenk said in an email, portions of which were quoted by The Bruin and can be found online, sent to the entire student body.

“Rigorous, healthy dialogue is central to everything we do to advance knowledge,” he explained. “What there should never be room for is violence. No one should ever fear for their safety. Without the basic feeling of safety, human cannot learn, teach, work, and live — much less thrive and flourish. This is true no matter what group you are a member of — or which identities you hold. There is no place for violence in our Bruin community.”

He continued, “I am personally letting you know that the UCLA Office of Student Conduct has issued an interim suspension today to two registered student organizations, Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and Graduate Students for Justice in Palestine (GSJP), based on its review of initial reports about the groups’ involvement in an incident last week at the home of UC Regent Jay sures. Any act of violence undermines the foundation of our university … as your chancellor, I can commit to you that whenever an act of violence is directed against any member of the university community, UCLA will not turn a blind eye. This is a responsibility I must take seriously.”

Numerous reports suggest that SJP intends to defy the university’s sanctions by holding a demonstration to call for a “future free of Zionism.” Also, on Wednesday, the group told its social media followers to “stay tuned” for forthcoming developments, saying, “turn on our story & post notifications.”

Antisemitism at UCLA has been pervasive, Jewish students and faculty have reported.

On Sunday, a Jewish faculty group at the university sounded the alarm about the problem, issuing an open letter which called attention to a slew of indignities to which they are subjected.

One primary agent of anti-Jewish hatred named by the Jewish Faculty Resilience Group (JFrg) is the Task Force on Anti-Palestinian, Anti-Arab, and Anti-Muslim Racism (AAAR), a university-created body that has allegedly violated its mission to promote pluralism by lodging defaming accusations at the pro-Israel Jewish community in a series of reports, the latest of which contained what JFrg described as intolerable distortions of fact.

“The [AAAR] has released a deeply misleading report that falsely accuses Jewish faculty, staff, and students of harassment while ignoring the documented, escalating antisemitism at UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine (DGSOM),” JFrg’s letter said. “DGSOM and UCLA’s ongoing silence concerning rising antisemitism continues to encourage more antisemitism, as we can plainly see in this report. JFrg unequivocally rejects this baseless and inflammatory report, and calls on the UCLA administration, DGSOM leadership, and the public to confront the reality of antisemitism at UCLA.”

JFRG’s letter went on to enumerate a slew of falsehoods included in the AAAR’s report, including that Jewish faculty have conspired to undermine academic freedom with “coordinated repression, involving university and non-university actors,” align itself with conservative groups, and harm minority students by opposing “racial justice.” It added that life for faculty at the Geffen medical school has wreaked demonstrable harm on Jewish students and faculty. Student clubs, it said, are denied recognition for arbitrary reasons; Jewish faculty whose ethnic backgrounds were previously unknown are purged from the payrolls upon being identified as Jews; and anyone who refuses to participate in anti-Zionist events is “intimidated” and pressured.

In 2024, a lawsuit accusing UCLA of fostering a discriminatory learning environment was filed in federal court.

The suit — which named UCLA students Yitzchok Frankel, Joshua Ghayoum, and Eden Shemuelian as plaintiffs — excoriated UCLA’s handling of a “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” that an anti-Zionist student group erected on campus in the final weeks of spring semester, explaining that it was a source of antisemitism from the moment it went up, as students there chanted “death to the Jews,” set up illegal checkpoints through which no one could pass unless they denounced Israel, and ordered campus security assigned there by the university to ensure that no Jews entered it.

Republicans in Washington, DC have said that similarly disruptive and extremist political activity on college campuses “will no longer be tolerated in the Trump administration.” Meanwhile, the US President Donald Trump has enacted a slew of policies aimed at reining in disruptive and discriminatory behavior.

Continuing work started during his first administration — when Trump issued Executive Order 13899 to ensure that civil rights law apply equally Jews — Trump’s recent “Additional Measures to Combat Antisemitism” calls for “using all appropriate legal tools to prosecute, remove, or otherwise … hold to account perpetrators of unlawful antisemitic harassment and violence.” The order also requires each government agency to write a report explaining how it can be of help in carrying out its enforcement. Another major provision of the order calls for the deportation of extremist “alien” student activists, whose support for terrorist organizations, intellectual and material, such as Hamas contributed to fostering antisemitism, violence, and property destruction.

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.

The post UCLA Suspends Students for Justice in Palestine After Vandalizing University Board Member’s Home first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

Continue Reading

Copyright © 2017 - 2023 Jewish Post & News