Activists have infiltrated NYC public schools with anti-Israel materials, fostering bias and hatred of Jews, a new report charges.
By Susan Edelman and Deirdre Bardolf
Activists and foreign actors have infiltrated the city’s public schools with anti-Israel materials, fostering bias and hatred of Jews, according to a new report by a nonprofit think tank.
Teacher groups like NYC Educators for Palestine have collaborated with extremist organizations, some allegedly tied to hostile foreign governments and terrorist groups, to bring “radical, anti-American ideologies” into schools, said the Network Contagion Research Institute, or NCRI, and the advocacy group New York City Public School Alliance, which co-wrote the report.
“The report exposes how the Department of Education’s vetted resources enable radical sympathizers to shape young minds with biased information,” said Tova Plaut, a DOE pre-K coordinator and co-founder with teacher Karen Feldman of NYCPS Alliance, a group of Jewish educators who contributed to the project.
8An “Arab World” classroom map at Brooklyn’s PS 261 that excluded Israel was provided by the Qatar Foundation, an arm of the country’s ruling family, which has donated $1 million to NYC schools.
8The report found a network of “radical” curriculum developers, activist educator groups and foreign influences that have contributed to the infiltration of anti-Israel materials within the NYC public school system.NCRI
Set for release this week, the report cites DOE documents, school events and staff social media posts as evidence of its findings.
It calls on the DOE to immediately conduct a curriculum review; enforce the chancellor’s anti-discrimination policies; adopt a definition of antisemitism and mandate training on it; and increase oversight of foreign funding.
“If these ideas are left unchecked, they will be internalized by a new generation of students, who will then graduate, attend university, vote, enter the workforce, and raise families of their own, further embedding antisemitic beliefs into wider American society,” the NCRI and NYC Public Schools Alliance said.
Among the findings:
The DOE’s recommended resources for teachers include the Zinn Education Project, which provide lessons, workshops and articles highly critical of Israel and the US.
The DOE staff resource list links to the Zinn website, which features a section on “Teaching About Palestine-Israel and the Unfolding Genocide in Gaza” that claims, “Israel has turned Gaza into a ‘graveyard for children.”
Beacon High School in Midtown used Zinn lessons and articles, along with videos from Arab news network Al Jazeera, for a 10th-grade social studies class on the Israel-Palestine conflict, emails reviewed by The Post show.
The content “demonized Jews” while referring to Hamas as “a political party and militant group,” not as terrorists, parents said.
Other resources available for NYC teachers to use at “their discretion” include those from the Teach Palestine project, which gives materials that emphasize “Palestinian victimhood” and frame Zionism as a “colonialist” movement.
Teach Palestine is financially supported by the Middle East Children’s Alliance (MECA), a California-based nonprofit with reported ties to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a U.S.-designated terrorist organization.
In May, the PTA of Ella Baker School, a public elementary on the Upper West Side, hosted a “Teach Palestine” webinar, sponsored by Rethinking Schools, the report said.
Materials covered topics such as “anti-Zionism is not automatically antisemitism,” and “Israel’s attacks on children, schools, and historical memory in Palestine.”
These potentially violate Chancellor’s Regulation A-830, according to the report.
The report cites two groups, NYC Educators For Palestine, an arm of the UFT caucus MORE, and Teaching While Muslim, which hosted a virtual “curriculum share” for 80 teachers in February.
