Federal Probe Targets NYC Educators for Palestine Over Anti-Israel Indoctrination Claims

Karen Feldman taught history in New York public schools for 26 years, specializing in Holocaust education.

"I always took pride in bringing truth and critical thinking and a nurturing environment that would spark discussions that would enable students to really learn from each other," Feldman said. "I never ever brought my political beliefs into the classroom. A teacher should be politically neutral. And I always try to present the facts."

Around 2015, she noticed ideological shifts in the K-12 system, including more diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. She viewed these as broad ideas rooted in an oppressed-oppressor narrative.

By 2020, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, that narrative spread through the New York City public school system, Feldman said. "I started to see these scary and dangerous trends happening. Lack of critical thought, not only within the student body, but even and especially with the newer teachers that were coming into the system, which impacted our professional workspace, our discussions, curriculum design, and so forth," she recounted.

One day on school grounds, 10 angry students surrounded her, shoved her and threw objects. They targeted her as a Trump and Israel supporter. "It was a very scary and serious moment for me, because I understood that this was stereotyping and mob mentality happening," Feldman said. "They knew I was Jewish. They knew my kids, my husband's Israeli. We go to Israel for the summers. I'm a proud Jew and supporter of Israel. And it was a dare. And it had this political connection from the Trump administration to the Israeli government, to all people who are Israeli or proud Jews, must be racist."

Feldman soon quit teaching and co-founded the New York City Public School Alliance to combat Jew hatred, antisemitism and Jewish erasure in city schools.

She now focuses on NYC Educators for Palestine, a group of activist teachers. "It is a pro-Palestinian ideology, but I don't think that's all it is," she said. "It's an anti-American ideology. We know it's vilifying Israel. Whatever starts with the Jews never ends with the Jewish. Right?"

The U.S. Department of Education has opened a civil rights investigation into New York's Department of Education, the nation's largest school district. It targets NYC Educators for Palestine, alleging members indoctrinate children as young as six with anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian views while sowing hostility toward Jewish students.

"No child should be taught by his or her teachers to hate their peers," said Kimberly Richey, assistant secretary for civil rights at the Department of Education. "Neither should Jewish children be taught that being Jewish somehow makes them inherently guilty or proponents of hate and violence."

An Instagram page for NYC Educators for Palestine shows members with a banner, their faces hidden by emojis. The page describes the group as public school educators committed to Palestinian liberation through organizing, curriculum development, pension divestment from Israeli securities and work with community groups. Fox News contacted the group but received no response.

Carin Bail, who is Jewish and has two children in Queens public schools, expressed concern. "It worries me that there are teachers that are, you know, so radicalized and so focused on sending messages like this rather than focusing on really crucial skills like literacy and critical thinking. And they are having an influence on young minds," she said. "I just want to make sure that...all perspectives are being presented to the kids, because then they can make their own decision about the way they think."

Federal officials received complaints that the group trains teachers to criticize Zionism and Israel while promoting Palestinian resistance, calling Zionists "genocidal White supremacists" and Hamas terrorists "martyrs." On Martin Luther King Jr. Day, NYC Educators for Palestine and Teaching While Muslim held a pro-Palestinian teach-in with resources and lesson plans for grades K-12.

Antisemitic incidents in New York schools more than tripled from 2022 to 2023, from 52 to 173, according to the Anti-Defamation League. The Department of Education declined to comment on the probe and said NYC Educators for Palestine is not affiliated with the school system.