HS basketball coach suspended after hanging up Palestinian flag, refusing to shake hands with Jewish coaches

A Colorado high school basketball coach was suspended after he was seen hanging up a Palestinian flag, and after he refused to shake hands with the opposing coach following a game against a Jewish school last week.

Lotus School for Excellence in Aurora and Denver Torah Academy competed against each other on Jan. 22. The Lotus School told Denver’s 9 News that the head coach of the team, identified only as Coach O., brought out a Palestinian flag before the game and hung it up.

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The school said after the game the coach reacted to the flag again before going to the handshake line. The coach reportedly failed to shake hands with the coaches of Denver Torah.

“He grabs his flag and puts it around his neck,” Lotus School’s athletic director Deon Jackson told the station. “We saw the intent at that point.”

Emrek Bakyt, the school’s principal, announced the coach was suspended along with another assistant coach, according to the New York Post.

“It has nothing to do with Lotus,” Bakyt said. “It does not represent us, and we are, again, all about respect and diversity. That’s what we celebrate. That’s what we take pride in.”

Brandon Rattiner, a member of the Jewish Community Relations Council, condemned the coach’s actions in an interview with the New York Post.

“I think everybody in the Jewish community is very aware that there’s been a rising tide of antisemitism since Oct. 7,” Rattiner, who spoke on behalf of Denver Torah, told the paper. “And we’ve seen it in schools here and all throughout the country on many different occasions.”

Rattiner added that he thought the “key issue” was when the coach refused to shake the hands of the Jewish coaches.

“The key issue here is when the coach refuses to engage with a Jewish coach and Jewish students simply because they are Jewish or holding them personally accountable for a conflict started, not by Israel by the way, halfway across the world thousands and thousands of miles away,” he said.

“Holding Jewish people accountable for the state actions of Israel is a textbook form of antisemitism.”

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