Jewish parents slam Pennsylvania school over keffiyah handout event

FIRST ON FOX: A Pennsylvania A school district is facing backlash from Jewish parents after a Muslim student club promoting Palestine handed out keffiyehs to students, posted images critical of Israel and was more focused on activism than culture, parents say.

“My child came home shocked and unsure if it was even safe to speak as a Jew at school,” Lynne Simon, a Wissahickon School District parent, told Fox News Digital about an event held last Monday at Wissahickon High School, where student clubs presented booths representing different cultures at the annual cultural fair. including stand from the chapter “Muslim Students of America.”

District Superintendent Dr Mwenyewe Davana can be seen in Instagram photos with Assistant Superintendent Sean Gardiner. The school's principal, Dr. Lynn Blair, posted photos from the event on her official school social media account, but has since deleted some of the photos.

Upset parents say some students displayed signs like “Jerusalem is ours,” offered contests with cash prizes, encouraged administrators and young students to wear keffiyehs, and essentially engaged in pro-Palestinian activism on school grounds.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE CAMPUS RADICALS

“When a principal posts photos of students with slogans like “Jerusalem is ours” and the principal encourages illegal gambling by minors and visits and is photographed in politically charged booths dressing students in keffiyehs, this is not education, but indoctrination. We don't send our children to school to be marginalized. We demand accountability, not photo ops.”

Fox News Digital reached out to the Wissahickon School District multiple times and did not receive a response.

Steve Rosenberg, director of the North American Values ​​Institute in Philadelphia, told Fox News Digital that “the Wissahickon administration continues to set the gold standard for educational abuse.”

“The blurring of boundaries between culture and radical political propaganda, promoted by staff, welcomed by management and normalized for students, is both an embarrassment and a warning sign. School should be a place of critical thinking, not cultural bullying and performative activism masquerading as diversity. The district owes it to its students.”

A letter sent to the school by dozens of Jewish parents and obtained by Fox News Digital reiterated concerns about the event and said their children witnessed several things that “crossed clear educational and ethical boundaries.”

An anti-ice protester wearing a keffiyeh threatens to stab an agent and harm a family during a mob attack in San Francisco.

“Students visiting the Muslim Students Association booth were encouraged to wear the keffiyeh, a symbol that in the current global climate is widely associated not only with cultural heritage, but also with political movements, hostility toward Israel and, in many contexts, the open expression of anti-Jewish sentiment,” reads the letter sent to Superintendent Dawan.

“Many students reported that you spent time at the Muslim Student Association table and did not stop the intimidating and inappropriate behavior. For many Jewish students, this was not perceived as a cultural gesture—it was perceived as a political signal from the district’s top leadership.”

What was “more disturbing,” the parents explained, was the money and candy that was given out in exchange for participation in activities at the stand.

The letter states: “Using financial or material incentives to involve students in political demonstration is inappropriate and coercive. It exploits student curiosity and social pressure, transforming the educational environment into one where certain political identities are rewarded and implicitly sanctioned by district leadership.”

The photographs published by Blair were described in the letter as “even more disturbing” and the slogan “Jerusalem is ours” was described as a slogan that went beyond a “cultural statement” but rather a “political statement that denies Jewish history, identity and connection to Israel's capital.”

“This is a message commonly used in extremist and anti-normalization movements,” the parents said in the letter. “For a school leader to publicly endorse this image, even indirectly, is completely inappropriate and sends a chilling message to Jewish students: Your history and identity are being contested here, and people in power are comfortable empowering those who challenge that.”

IN board meeting On December 1, the MSA chapter president defended the term and said it was not “inherently anti-Semetic.”

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

“Jerusalem is currently a conflict zone with two sides actually fighting,” the student said. “This statement was written in Arabic, so none of the Jewish students could understand it and take it for anti-Semitism, so in reality it is just something a person says to humiliate us and make us look like anti-Semites. Which actually follows from my previous statement that anti-Semitism should not be watered down. We should not use this term lightly here and there.”

The parents in the letter call on the school to take five actions in response to their concerns, including publicly explaining the district's involvement in the keffiyeh distribution and addressing the principal's social media post that reinforces the controversial message.

The letter also calls for the publication of a “planning framework” for the event, including how booths will be approved.

Parents are also asking for “clear district instructions” regarding how they will ensure cultural programs do not devolve into “political propaganda” and how all groups, including Jewish students, will be protected from “intimidation.”

Finally, parents are asking for a “listening session” in which Jewish families and students can share how the kiosks have impacted them.

“Schools should be safe, neutral spaces where students of all nationalities are respected,” the letter concludes. “What happened this week undermines that principle and has created real fear among Jewish students who are now wondering whether the district will protect them or leave them to navigate this situation on their own.”