Exclusive | Antisemitism in NYC schools fueled by foreign actors, activist educators: report

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 founder of NYCPS Alliance, a group of Jewish teachers who contributed to the project.

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 principal 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.

The seminar was promoted by Terri Grey, acting principal of Virtual Innovators Academy, a remote high school in The Bronx, The Post reported. 

A spokesman for the DOE said the agency had nothing to do with the event and that it was not Grey’s “intent to promote it.”

The NCRI report cites an alleged case of foreign influence at Brooklyn’s PS 261. In January, news broke that teacher Rita Lahoud put up an “Arab World” map that excluded Israel on her classroom wall as part of an “Arab Culture Arts” program funded by QFI, the American wing of the Qatar Foundation, a nonprofit owned by the country’s ruling family.

The DOE had the map taken down after a spokesman first defended it.

QFI has donated more than $1 million to the DOE for dual-language Arabic programs at PS 261 and PS 30 in Brooklyn, records show.

Teachers Unite, a public-school educators group funded by George Soros’ Tides Foundation, and NYC Educators for Palestine, collaborated with The Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL) on controversial school walkout campaigns, according to documents cited in the report.

The far-left PSL has documented ties to China and Chinese Communist Party-linked entities.

The NYC school walkouts were also part of the Shut it Down for Palestine coalition, which the report alleged has ties to hostile foreign actors.

In July, US Sens. Marco Rubio and Lindsay Graham flagged 18 entities to Attorney General Merrick Garland for potential Foreign Agents Registration Acts violations, including the People’s Forum, Shut it Down for Palestine and the Palestinian Youth Movement — which social media posts showed was another co-sponsor of the NYC walkouts.

Jewish advocacy groups have been urging public school parents to email the new schools chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos, urging her to take action.

City schools are “unsafe for Jewish people, or in fact for any person who identifies as a Zionist or supports the right of Israel to exist,” the email reads.

NYC public schools should deem the word “Zionist” as a proxy for “Jew” offensive and grounds for potential disciplinary action, it says.

The parents also call on Aviles-Ramos to rid the system of “anti-Jewish employees who are continuing to make being Jewish in our schools at best uncomfortable and at worst, unsafe.”

DOE spokesman Nathaniel Styer said Friday officials “welcome the opportunity to review” the NCRI report when it is released this week, but defended the department’s programs to combat hate in schools.

“Our ‘Meeting the Moment’ plan to fight antisemitism, Islamophobia, and all forms of hate has been extremely comprehensive,” Styer said. “It includes vetted instructional materials and professional development on how to best teach about the crisis in the Middle East and other complex current events. We have also done comprehensive and ongoing community engagement on this topic.”

Styer did not comment on the controversial Zinn Education Project which the DOE recommends as a teacher resource.

The activist groups NYC Educators for Palestine and Teachers Unite are not “sanctioned or sponsored” by the DOE, officials said.

The activist groups could not immediately be reached for comment.

Additional reporting by Jennifer Gould