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Teens push back on school mascots that celebrate persecutors of Jews
This article was produced as part of JTA’s Teen Journalism Fellowship, a program that works with teens across the world to report on issues that impact their lives.
(JTA) — The New Braunfels Unicorns. The Gabbs Tarantulas. The Fisher Bunnies. High school mascots like these may encourage spirit and community, but other schools’ mascots have been called out in recent years for being racist and insensitive, especially to Native Americans and the descendants of the enslaved.
And some mascots can be perceived as antisemitic as well. In 2018, the name of the student publication at Monroe-Woodbury High School in Center Valley, New York was changed from “The Crusader” to “The Wire” when its editorial staff spoke up against what had been the public school’s long-time mascot.
For many Christians, the medieval crusades are associated with European armies’ attempts to recapture the Holy Land and ensure safety for Christian pilgrims visiting sacred sites. And yet they were also occasions for massive outbreaks of antisemitism, like the 1190 massacre of Jews in Norwich near England’s eastern coast. Muslims have complained that glorifying crusaders is Islamophobic.
In their letter to the principal at Monroe-Woodbury High asking for a change, students also noted that the Ku Klux Klan’s official publication is known as “The Crusader.”
“The Ku Klux Klan is a white supremacist organization that uses fear, hatred and violence to achieve its goals; we do not wish to be associated with this group in any way,” the students wrote. “We want our school’s student publication to be a place where all students will feel comfortable sharing their ideas and we would like our publication to be a place where all students feel comfortable reading those ideas.”
Hailey Lanari, a junior at Monroe-Woodbury, says fellow students are ignorant of how Crusaders might be seen as antisemitic. “I don’t think that people are really aware of it,” she said. “I think it kind of just normalizes certain things. I think it just makes it normal for us to be like, ‘Yeah, it was this really bad thing, but it’s ok cause it’s just our school’s mascot.’”
She doesn’t trust that the school would take public steps to address any complaints, and suggests that is why “The Wire” hasn’t written about the mascot in the context of the school. There was, however, a statement released when the paper changed its name.
Out of 231 high schools with “Crusaders” as their mascots, 208 of them are Catholic with little to no Jewish populations, according to MasseyRatings, a mascots database.
Other schools, like the Latin School of Chicago, use “Roman” as their mascot, a reference to the glories of the Roman Empire. But that same empire targeted Jews and destroyed the Second Temple in Jerusalem in 70 C.E. “As someone who finds themselves very involved with the community and plays a lot of sports, it is just something I have come to not enjoy so much,” said Lauren Altman, a student at Latin School and a head of the Jewish Student Connection club.
“Latin School was created to follow this Latin model which is very much about celebrating what is referred to as a Western Civilization,” Latin history teacher Dr. Matthew June said. He argues that the mascot isn’t problematic from a religious standpoint because the two groups clashed politically, not necessarily relating to religion. The destruction of the Second Temple predates the empire’s embrace of Christianity, when attitudes towards Judaism itself became more hostile.
In the past 12 years, 79 schools with Native American mascots across the country changed their mascots, according to The National Congress of American Indians. The NCAI says Native American mascots “remind Native youth of the limited ways in which others see them” and “undermine the ability of Native nations and people to portray themselves accurately as distinct and diverse cultures.”
The mascot of the Lane Tech College Prep High School in Chicago was the “Indian” for over a century before the local school council voted unanimously to change it in the summer of 2020 because of its stereotyping of Native Americans. Prior to the start of the current school year, the school officially rebranded to the Champions.
The Latin School of Chicago adopted its mascot, the Roman, in 1950 based on the suggestion of a sports writer from the Chicago Daily News, according to the school’s archivist, Teresa Sutter. Since then, one of the few conversations about the term occurred nine years ago, when some complained that the symbol was white and gendered.
But those aren’t the only issues with the Roman. The Romans are accused of crucifying Jesus, destroying the Second Temple and turning from a republic to an empire, said Dr. Jeffrey Ellison, a teacher of the Holocaust and the history of antisemitism at Bernard Zell Anshe Emet Day School in Chicago and a former teacher at Latin School. He suggests schools ask themselves, “Is this the symbol that we want to be using to represent us? [The Romans] were just brutal.”
Some mascots, like the Trevians of New Trier Township High School in Winnetka, Il., aren’t seen as obviously offensive, and are not being discussed in schools. The mascot wears the Roman-era costume of a soldier from Trier, a town in present-day Germany where Jews were persecuted by crusaders and ostracized repeatedly beginning as early as the third century.
The mascot and logo of New Trier Township High School in Winnetka, Il., is based on a soldier from Trier, a town in present-day Germany.
“I don’t think anyone’s ever made that connection before,” said Kimberly Hafron, the Hebrew teacher at New Trier. “They’re just this weird mascot.”
Hafron was hesitant to bring the issue to students, because she didn’t want to cause commotion in the community. “I think it would cause one of those ruckus’ where people are like, ‘Oh my God, is there latent antisemitism that we don’t know about?’” she said. “If the people who they could potentially offend don’t have any idea they’re being offended, then the question is, is it offensive?”
For Stella Dale, a Hebrew student at New Trier, the answer is no. “As a Jewish woman, I do not condone antisemitism in any form, but I do think that the mascot itself is not an antisemitic” symbol, Dale, 17, said. “I think that this extension of the Romans destroying the temple is obviously inappropriate, but in my day-to-day life, I really have no hate with the Trevian.”
Overall, because so few students at schools like Monroe-Woodbury and New Trier are aware of the significance of their schools’ mascots, it rarely affects feelings of inclusion at school.
At Latin, however, the Roman mascot does impact a sense of belonging at the school for some Jewish students. Altman said, “If you say you are a Latin Roman, and the Romans did try to kill the Jews, that is going against yourself — saying I am representing somebody who tried to kill my group.”
The Anti-Defamation League has not gotten any reports of discomfort regarding these types of mascots, according to Midwest Regional Director David Goldenberg. “We have spoken out in support of fighting prejudice and discrimination and hurtful stereotypes particularly in the professional sports arena,” Goldenberg said. “We do think it’s important to move away from the use of hurtful and offensive names, mascots and logos.”
The ADL has not, however, taken action regarding mascots like the Crusaders, the Romans, or the Trevians. Because no complaints have been filed on this subject, the ADL has not acted on the matter.
Goldenberg added, “I think one of the things that we are looking [at is] not necessarily the name of a mascot, but we would look at how certain images are adopted by extremist groups or that become extremist symbols.”
“I think there is a real good opportunity to think about what it is that we want to bind us together.” Dr. Ellison said. “What’s that symbol?”
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The post Teens push back on school mascots that celebrate persecutors of Jews appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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US Ambassador Urges Belgium to Drop Charges Against Mohels, Warning Case Threatens Religious Freedom
A Orthodox Jewish man is seen in the city of Antwerp, Belgium. Photo: Reuters/Belga Photo Dirk Waem
US Ambassador to Belgium Bill White has urged local authorities to drop all charges against three trained circumcisers known as mohels whose homes were raided last spring amid a government probe into illegal circumcisions — with Jewish and political leaders warning the case is a direct threat to religious freedom.
The US diplomat slammed the Belgian government’s legal action against the mohels as a “ridiculous and antisemitic prosecution.”
“Antisemitism is unacceptable in any form, and it must be rooted out of our society,” White wrote in a social media post on X.
The mohels “are doing what they have been trained to do for thousands of years,” he continued. “Stop this unacceptable harassment of the Jewish community here in Antwerp and in Belgium.”
White also called on Belgian Minister of Health Frank Van den Broecke to deregulate the Jewish ritual, effectively lifting government restrictions and allowing it to be practiced freely.
“It’s 2026, you need to get into the 21st century and allow our brethren Jewish families in Belgium to legally execute their religious freedoms!” the US diplomat said. “It’s disgusting what’s happened to these fine men and their families because of your inaction.”
Anti Semitism is UNACCEPTABLE in any form & it must be rooted out of our society.
President TRUMP @POTUS @realDonaldTrump @JDVance @VP @SecRubio @StateSEAS @DeputySecState and I call upon all of Belgium to do a much better job on this subject !
TO BELGIUM,
SPECIFICALLY YOU…
— Ambassador Bill White (@BillWhiteUSA) February 16, 2026
In May last year, Belgian police raided three locations in the Jewish Quarter of Antwerp, a northern Belgian city, seizing circumcision tools from several mohels after a local anti-Zionist rabbi filed a complaint accusing them of performing unauthorized or illegal circumcisions.
A mohel is a trained practitioner who performs the ritual circumcision in Jewish tradition known as a bris.
Among the homes raided by the Belgian police was that of Rabbi Aharon Eckstein, a highly experienced mohel and a prominent leader within the Antwerp Jewish community.
According to a police report, the searches had been ordered by a judge following a complaint filed in 2023 by Rabbi Moshe Aryeh Friedman, an anti-Zionist activist previously accused of Holocaust denial, against Eckstein and other mohels within the Jewish community.
Since 2024, prosecutors have been investigating illegal circumcisions in the country amid concerns from local authorities that some Jewish circumcisions were being performed by individuals without proper medical training.
Now, the three mohels face charges for performing a medical procedure without a license, with prosecutors saying they have gathered enough evidence to secure a conviction, Belgian Member of Parliament Michael Freilich, the country’s only Orthodox Jewish lawmaker, told The Times of Israel.
However, a trial date has not yet been set and could take several months to schedule.
In his complaint, Friedman had accused six mohels, whom he identified to the police, of endangering infants by performing the metzitzah b’peh ritual, in which the mohel uses his mouth to suction blood from the circumcision area.
Eckstein and other rabbis, along with parents of children circumcised by them, have denied such accusations, insisting that they do not perform this practice.
In Antwerp, Friedman is known for publicly criticizing several customs that are important to ultra-Orthodox Jews, who represent the majority of the city’s 18,000 Jewish residents.
At the time, Jewish and political leaders accused local authorities of using the raids as part of a broader effort to intimidate religious figures in Belgium.
Ralph Pais, vice-chair of the Jewish Information and Documentation Centre (JID), commended White for his efforts, emphasizing the message of solidarity it sends to the local Jewish community.
“America continues to honor a commitment that Europe has also vowed to uphold: protecting Jewish life and ensuring that Jews can live openly and safely,” Pais said in a statement. “We expect Belgium to fully comply with the very principles and democratic values it claims to defend.”
Last July, dozens of European Jewish leaders called on the European Union to take action against Belgium, arguing that the Belgian police’s actions “represent a breach of an EU fundamental right, that of freedom of religion” and warning that this “echoes one of the darkest chapters in European history.”
Despite several attempts to ban the Jewish tradition cross Europe, ritual circumcision remains legal in all European countries, though many — including Belgium — limit the practice to licensed surgeons and often perform it in a synagogue.
In 2024, the Irish government arrested a London-based rabbi for allegedly performing a circumcision without the required medical credentials, marking the first arrest of a rabbi in Europe in years related to a bris.
The Conference of European Rabbis, through its Union of Mohels of Europe, is working to create a system of self-regulation and licensing for mohels, aiming to reduce the need for government oversight.
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Qatar’s Children Still Study Antisemitic Textbooks That Whitewash Hitler, Promote Violent Jihad, Study Finds
Qatari Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani speaks after a meeting with the Lebanese president at the presidential palace in Baabda, Lebanon, Feb. 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Emilie Madi
Despite Qatari leaders’ rhetoric seemingly promoting peace and opposing hate, the Middle Eastern country continues to educate students with textbooks that celebrate terrorism, hide the Holocaust, and demonize the Jewish people by affirming longstanding antisemitic tropes, according to a new study.
The Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-se), a nonprofit organization that analyzes schoolbooks and curricula around the world, reviewed 52 textbooks officially approved for the 2025-2026 State of Qatar national school curriculum, in addition to checking them against previous editions for potential revisions. The books covered topics ranging from social studies, geography, and history to Islamic education, Arabic language, and Arabic literature. IMPACT-se applied UNESCO-derived standards and guidelines of peace and tolerance in education.
The researchers found that the same problems from the 2021-2022 school year had not improved, as the textbooks “continue to reproduce antisemitic narratives, religious intolerance toward non-Muslims, and legitimization of violent jihad, all of which were documented in IMPACT-se’s earlier reports.”
The antisemitic material includes promoting stereotypes of Jews as arrogant liars obsessed with opposing Islam. The texts also cast Jews as “fleeing in fear, spreading discord, breaching agreements,” and possessing an “excessive attachment to material wealth, thereby reinforcing an image of Jews as fundamentally untrustworthy.”
In historical recounts of the Arab-Israeli conflict, the textbooks depict Jews as manipulating global affairs and deny Jewish historical connections to the Land of Israel. Maps of the region describe the borders of Mandatory Palestine, the name for the area from 1920-1948 when it was under British administration, as split between “Palestinian territory” and “Israeli expansion.”
The textbooks for Qatari children also glorify violent jihad and death in the name of Islam. They teach that students should “love jihad” and expect entry into paradise for those who choose martyrdom. These instructions accompany demonizations of non-Muslims as “infidels,” “pagans,” and “polytheists.” The textbooks offer little objective information about other faiths. They also promote an Arab nationalist ideology, oppose a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and describe Hamas terrorist attacks as “military operations.”
IMPACT-se researchers cite an Islamic education book for sixth graders as an example of the curriculum’s promotion of terrorism.
“An Islamic education lesson teaches that one of the ways to measure a good Muslim woman is to raise children to sacrifice their lives, in what is understood to be violent jihad,” the report states. “The chapter about classical Islamic figure Nusaybah bint Ka’b praises the fact that she raised her children ‘to love jihad,’ pointing out that her three children later ‘died as martyrs for the sake of Allah Almighty.’ The textbook authors describe this type of upbringing as ‘optimal.’”
For seniors in high school, the report describes how an Islamic education text instructs that “God will reward men and women who fought and died for Islam, and will grant them entry to Paradise. The lesson does not attempt to caution that dying as a result of violent struggle should not be considered the utmost objective, and students are offered no alternative interpretations of this Qur’anic verse.”
An eighth-grade Islamic education book demonizes Jews with one lesson that insists “Jewish people are forever cursed by Allah to never accept the truth of Islam, which is why they consistently reject Islam.”
Eleventh graders learn that Jews “worship (or have worshipped) the Golden Calf, that they revere a character called Uzayr, that they believe themselves to be God’s own children, and that they venerate the Talmud more than the Torah (the latter of which is recognized by Islam as a heavenly-inspired text).”
IMPACT-se explains that this misinformation about Judaism is intend “to promote an antisemitic portrayal of Jewish people as exceptionally arrogant and disloyal to God, both of which are grave offenses from an Islamic point of view.”
As Qatar continues to fill its own students’ heads with anti-Israel propaganda and antisemitic tropes, so too does the country’s monarchy, the House of Thani, seek to spread its ideology in other countries’ educational institutions.
Earlier this month a US federal judge ordered Carnegie Mellon University to reveal its connections to Qatar involving a $1 billion financial relationship in response to the case of a top DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) and civil rights official allegedly failing to respond to antisemitism. Money from Qatar reportedly paid the employee’s salary.
“Foreign governments with appalling human rights records are funding the very offices meant to protect students’ civil rights. This should alarm every parent, every student, and every policymaker in this country,” Lawfare Project director Ziporah Reich said in response to the ruling. “The court recognized that foreign government funding is not peripheral but potentially central to understanding how civil rights laws are applied on campus.”
Last month, the US Department of Education released a new database that showed Qatar is the single largest foreign source of funding to American colleges and universities, flooding academia with $6.6 billion in gifts and contracts.
“America’s taxpayer funded colleges and universities have both a moral and legal obligation to be fully transparent with the US government and the American people about their foreign financial relationships,” US Education Secretary Linda McMahon said in a statement announcing the new figures.
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New York City Health Staffer Under Fire Over Posts Calling for Elimination of All Israelis
Demonstrators attend an anti-Israel protest on the day of the two-year anniversary of the attack on Israel by Hamas, in New York City, US, Oct. 7, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton
A veteran staffer of the New York City Health Department called for the eradication of all Israelis among a series of newly surfaced antisemitic social media posts, raising concerns about the safety of Jewish New Yorkers at a time of unease for the community with Mayor Zohran Mamdani in office.
The watchdog group Canary Mission on Sunday exposed screenshots of the since-deleted social media posts by Achmat Akkad, who according to his LinkedIn account is a “Mental Health First Aid Trainer” with the city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene and, since 2017, has reportedly worked there as a community coordinator.
Around a year ago Akkad posted, “1 Israeli left in this world would be one too many!”
Canary Mission also shared screenshots of a deleted Nov. 10, 2021, post in which Akkad stated, “Jews that don’t support apartheid are safe. Zionists aren’t!”
According to multiple reports, Mamdani has appointed Akkad as a “Community Engagement Training Specialist.”
The unearthing of Akkad’s posts follows recent criticism of the new “Global Oppression and Public Health Working Group” formed in Mamdani’s administration.
A cohort of staffers within the city’s Health Department reportedly formed the group and declared its purpose is to explore how supposed “global oppression” operates and affects health equity and the wellbeing of certain communities in the city. In its initial meeting, which lasted one hour, a presenter explicitly cited the conflict in Gaza as “ongoing genocide” and framed it along with other forms of alleged oppression as relevant to health outcomes, the New York Post reported.
Critics, including City Council leaders, say the working group crossed a line by focusing on international politics and critiques of a foreign government instead of core public health responsibilities like managing diseases, especially on city time with taxpayer-funded time and resources.
Meanwhile, Mamdani has come under fire for a wave of administrative appointees with histories of antisemitic rhetoric, support for terrorist groups, or affiliations with organizations hostile to Israel and the Jewish community.
Akkad specifically has also accused Israel of sustaining itself “by sacrificing the blood of Black and brown people as an offering to white supremacy,” according to screenshots shared by Canary Mission, He also argued that Zionists were responsible for a range of global issues, including far-right political gains, the dismantling of domestic racial diversity initiatives, limitations on free speech, conflicts and turmoil in the Middle East and North Africa, discrimination against Muslims, and expanded police powers.
Akkad was arrested at a 2024 demonstration orchestrated by the controversial, anti-Israel Within Our Lifetime (WOL) activist organization. Members of WOL have repeatedly and publicly called for the destruction of Israel and have expressed effusive praise for Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of and massacre across southern Israel.
Akkad first joined city government in 2015 as a community associate with the Human Resources Administration/Department of Social Services during the administration of former Mayor Bill de Blasio.
“If this is who gets elevated into city government, what does that say about the leadership elevating him? New Yorkers should be outraged,” Canary Mission wrote of Akkad.
In the first weeks of Mamdani’s mayorship, his office has fielded a barrage of complaints over the appointment of individuals with radical views. Catherine Almonte Da Costa, who had been named Mamdani’s director of appointments, was forced to step down after social media posts from around 2011–2012 resurfaced in which she used phrases echoing classic antisemitic tropes, including references to “money hungry Jews.”
Mamdani also faced backlash after he abruptly fired Moshe Davis from his position as executive director of the Mayor’s Office to Combat Antisemitism. Davis said in comments to The Free Press that he suspects he was relieved of his duties for being “a proud Zionist.” Davis was replaced by progressive Jewish activist Phylisa Wisdom.
Mamdani, a far-left democratic socialist and anti-Zionist, is an avid supporter of boycotting all Israeli-tied entities who has been widely accused of promoting antisemitic rhetoric. He has repeatedly accused Israel of “apartheid” and “genocide”; refused to recognize the country’s right to exist as a Jewish state; and refused to explicitly condemn the phrase “globalize the intifada,” which has been associated with calls for violence against Jews and Israelis worldwide.
New York City has been experiencing a surge in antisemitic incidents since Hamas’s Oct. 7 atrocities. According to newly released police data, anti-Jewish hate crimes skyrocketed by 182 percent in January during Mamdani’s first month in office compared to the same period last year.