I never thought I’d live to see the day where a headline like this not only appears, but isn’t that unusual. And the pro-Israel action that got this teacher into trouble is pretty innocuous!
The author and owner of the website, Jonathan Turley, is a professor at George Washington University Law School, a prolific author, and a dedicated defender of the First Amendment.
Click to read:
You can also see this report at the New York Post, with pictures and videos; Turley links to it in his post. But I’ll begin by quoting Turley:
At Hillcrest High School in Queens this week, a New York teacher had to lock herself in her office as hundreds of high school students rioted after learning that she posted a pro-Israeli statement on Facebook. Dozens of police had to be called to quell the riot, which caused property damage throughout the school.
The chaos began shortly after 11:00 a.m. on Monday after students discovered an image on the teacher’s account from a pro-Israel rally showing her holding a poster reading “I stand with Israel.”
Hundreds of students reportedly ran into the hallways waving Palestinian flags and destroying property for roughly two hours, including pulling a fountain out of the wall. They posted images on social media with the controversial slogan “From the river to the sea Palestine will be free.”
This picture, from a misspelled Tik Tok video shown in the NY Post article, apparently shows the teacher committing her “offense”. You can see why Turley, a big free speech advocate, is reporting on this.
Turley is really upset at the students’ behavior, and well should be. Riots ensued in the school and the students went after the teacher, who had to be locked in her office to protect her!
Students reportedly attempted to breach the teacher’s classroom as school staff fought to block them. They now want the teacher fired for her personal political views.
As the teacher was rushed to her office for her protection, roughly 25 NYPD officers rushed to the school. Yet, some students said that they have located the teacher’s home address and family information for further protests.
It is a chilling example of the threats faced at schools today. The call for the teacher to be terminated is unfortunately nothing new. For years, many of us have written about this intolerance and intimidation in schools.
Yet, the violence and hatred shown in this protest shows why so many feel unsafe in our schools. We have come to the point where teachers are locking themselves in their offices for protection. These students did not just spontaneously learn this behavior. They have been told for years that they do not have to tolerate opposing views. We are now seeing that intolerance graduate into violence.
From the NY Post. who notes that the teacher is Jewish:
Hundreds of “radicalized” kids rampaged through the halls of a Queens high school this week for nearly two hours after they discovered a teacher had attended a pro-Israel rally — forcing the terrified educator to hide in a locked office as the teen mob tried to push its way into her classroom, The Post has learned.
The mayhem at Hillcrest High School in Jamaica unfolded shortly after 11 a.m. Monday in what students called a pre-planned protest over the teacher’s Facebook profile photo showing her at a pro-Israel rally on Queens Oct. 9 holding a poster saying, “I stand with Israel.”
“The teacher was seen holding a sign of Israel, like supporting it,” a senior told The Post this week.
“A bunch of kids decided to make a group chat, expose her, talk about it, and then talk about starting a riot.”
Hundreds of kids flooded into hallways and ran amok, chanting, jumping, shouting, and waving Palestinian flags or banners.
. . .“They want her fired.”
School administrators and the NYPD, which responded to the school at about 11:20 am, got wind of their plans just in time to rush the teacher into an office and lock the door, another educator said.
Students recorded the commotion, posting multiple videos, some set to pulsing Arabian music, on TikTok.
Here’s a screenshot from the Tik Tok video, and if you have access, click on the picture to see the action:
“When a protest brakes (sic) out because a teacher stands with Israel,” a caption on one says.
Another reads, “Hillcrest high school had a riot because a Health teacher was supporting Israel.”
Most comments posted on the videos applauded the kids and jeered the teacher, one calling her a “cracker ass bitch.”
. . .Clips showed a water fountain ripped out in the hallway and shattered tiles in the second-floor boys’ bathroom, which students admitted they vandalized.
The NYPD not only sent a couple dozen cops to restore order but tapped its counterterrorism bureau to investigate a possible threat against the school, according to City Councilman James Gennaro (D-Queens), citing officials.
“Whether it was one student or multiple students who did or said something, whatever the trigger was, something happened. And I know from my many years on the City Council that the counterterrorism task force is not engaged unless they believe it is potentially a serious situation,” Gennaro said.
The teacher issued a statement in which, thank Ceiling Cat, she didn’t apologize for her behavior.
The teacher gave a statement to The Post, which is withholding her name for her own safety. [She was doxxed by the students, who found out where she lived and other information about her family.]
“I have been a teacher for 23 years in the New York City public school system — for the last seven at Hillcrest High School. I have worked hard to be supportive of our entire student body and an advocate for our community, and was shaken to my core by the calls to violence against me that occurred online and outside my classroom last week.”
“No one should ever feel unsafe at school — students and teachers alike,” she added.
The teacher continued: “It’s my hope in the days ahead we can find a way to have meaningful discussions about challenging topics with respect for each other’s diverse perspectives and shared humanity,” the teacher said in her statement. “Unless we can learn to see each other as people we will never be able to create a safe learning community.”
Good luck with that! The NY Post continues:
. . .The chaos and lockdown, which sources said lasted roughly two hours, was one of the most frightening incidents of antisemitism in New York schools and colleges since the Hamas massacre in Israel Oct. 7 sparked the Jewish state’s war with Gaza.
It follows a massive, pro-Palestinian citywide walkout on Nov. 9 by some 700 NYC high school students calling for a ceasefire.
Brooklyn students were captured on video yelling, “F–k the Jews!”
Yes, here’s that video (the second tweet below). It scares the hell out of me.
Brooklyn school children. pic.twitter.com/X1KRcTdL6c
— Mr. Jewish Bookery (@Jewish_Bookery) November 9, 2023
Yes, they’re kids, and you can excuse them by saying they don’t know what they’re doing or chanting. But given their age, I doubt that.
I stand with that teacher, but her future in the school seems murky.
All because she held up a sign that said “I stand with Israel.”
And I stand with my friend who sent me the link and added, “Insane. This must stop.”
UPDATE: 5TownsCentral has more information, but I’ll just add this:
Mayor Eric Adams blasted the show of vile antisemitism in a statement: “The vile show of antisemitism at Hillcrest High School was motivated by ignorance-fueled hatred, plain and simple, and it will not be tolerated in any of our schools, let alone anywhere else in our city. We are better than this.
NYC is already conducting a full investigation into how this incident took place, and, this week, Project Pivot teams will begin outreach with students at Hillcrest to ensure they understand why this behavior was unacceptable.
No student, teacher, or staff member should fear for their safety in our schools.”
NYC Councilwoman Vickie Paladino said the following: “The scene at Hillcrest HS was beyond unacceptable — it was terrorism, plain and simple. Terrorism is violence against civilians to achieve a political goal. And that’s what we saw in one of our public schools, against a teacher whose only offense was being Jewish and peacefully expressing her support for Israel on her own time.
These terrorist students stalked her online, organized in chat rooms, then sparked a riot and hunted her down. She had to be barricaded in a locker room as the rioters raged in the hallway and attempted to gain access to her.
Question: What would have happened to her if they actually managed to get their hands on her? Do you think she’d have survived unscathed? I think we all know the answer to that question, and it’s horrifying.
We’ve seen a lot of platitudes from elected officials thus far. A lot of condemnations, and a lot of talk about how ‘this isn’t who we are’.
Well, I’ve got news for you — clearly, this is who we’re becoming. Quickly. . . . .
Paladino proposed some changes which you can see at the link.
h/t: Rosemary
Grotesque.
I used to wonder how the holocaust ever happened, I don’t, not anymore.
The teacher should sue the school if the school does not impose punitive measures on the students who instigated the riot.
With all the images on video they will have no trouble identifying the participants. I think they should all be suspended indefinitely. Perhaps they can earn there way back into school by enduring counseling sessions where at least one parent must attend.
Agree.
It is truly baffling how the younger generations are siding with Hamas and/or expressing antisemitism- and it permeates the West, not just the US. Where did they unlearn the ability to learn, or the ability to tolerate or empathize? I’m familiar with why this is happening on college campuses, but High School FFS? Is it social media? Helicopter parenting? Not reading literature (which is a great way to increase empathy)? I’m sure it’s a combination of many factors, but this intolerance seems to have metastasized very quickly in much of Western culture. Oh, to be young again…not anymore, it seems.
DOE, where teachers are trained, teacher training curriculums are apparently a *big* problem, social media and everything else you mention.
It starts way before they enter college. And yes, rejecting the classics – that’s an interesting observation.
They *think* they are being supremely empathic. That’s the problem. It’s a form of virtue signaling (anything, even violence justifies it), and they consider social media influences on TikTok as icons.
https://5townscentral.com/2023/11/26/broken-ed-system-jewish-teacher-locked-in-queens-office-for-hours-from-angry-mob/
The recommendations cited in the article, they must all be imposed.
A large part of it is that many of them are utterly ignorant of the underlying facts and history of the situation. They only get a “social justice” version of those, served to them by TokTok.
Yes, precisely. DOE should be investigated.
It’s not baffling at all. Watch Lyell Asher’s video on “why colleges are becoming cults.” It’s US-centric, but it certainly applies in Canada. It starts in what Asher calls ed schools, i.e., university teacher education programs. In Canada substitute indigenous people for Palestinians. Kids are taught in school — especially white kids — that they are settler oppressors. This is fully corroborated by government at all levels, regional, municipal, provincial and national. Critical thinking is absolutely missing.
I hope those students are prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
I contemplate a possible defense:
“I am a child.”
With such outstanding youths, Ceiling Cat help America!
I read people commenting that the rioting students most likely couldn’t in a thousand year find Israel or Gaza on a map, or name the river or the sea in the infamous chant.
This is what happens when the grown ups in the room don’t tell students that words aren’t violence, that you can counter words with other words, that you sometimes have to feel uncomfortable and that isn’t the same as being attacked physically. This is the culmination of all that intolerance. It also seems it’s okay to be racist, sexist, and antisemitic because again adults didn’t say that this type of intolerance is bad when applied to anyone no matter the perception of their “power”.
This “investigation” is meaningless unless there are expulsions and other serious punishments.
I am horrified by this violence. I admit I had no idea of the amount of antisemitism bubbling beneath the surface in my country. Agree the students probably have no awareness about the history of the region and are jumping on an ideological bandwagon they are ignorant about.
I read several of the comments following Turley’s post and they are disturbing, too. One pointed out the students are mostly minorities as if this explains their violence, one called them chimpanzees, and another called them monkeys. When have racists ever been part of a solution to stop antisemitism? The councilwoman’s statements go too far as well. I am liberal (not progressive) and I am very suspicious of looking to the right wing to be the defenders of Jews against bigotry and violence. They will use this situation to impose authoritarian values if liberals do not stand up to the progressive hate mongers.
Time to show them who wields the real “power” – the school, not the students. Start with suspensions/expulsions of any student who threatened physical violence against this teacher or damaged school property. Ccomplices too.
We’ve gone from campus snowflakes who become apoplectic over safe spaces, microaggressions, and social media word-policing for virtue signaling to violence against staff and school destruction within a year. Time for schools to start spanking some students by threatening their futures…they’ll learn.
You seem to have overlooked that, these days, the school adminstrators are also woke and are afraid of the students.
That incident is terrible. Does it mean that this vile antisemitism is commonplace among American youth, or is this an isolated—albeit awful—incident? I think I already know the depressing answer.
Where, exactly, did this crazy division of the world into “oppressed” and “oppressor” come from and how did it catapult to such influence? Perhaps the professors in their grievance departments can help sort this out and set their students straight. (Sarcasm, obviously.)
It did not escape my attention that the Jewish teacher marched peacefully but that her students initiated a violent riot in protest. Where did they learn that rioting is a legitimate form of protest?
“Where did they learn that rioting is a legitimate form of protest?”
From Donald Trump.
Even though a majority of people don’t agree with Trump and the MAGAs about their philosophy, modeling is a powerful and subconscious influence. When people, especially kids who are in formative stages, observe those in power resorting to these kinds of tactics, and succeeding in their goals, they mimic those behaviors.
One of the profs on my doctoral committee was an early-childhood specialist. He demonstrated the power of modeling on more than one occasion to his students. It was astonishing the behavioral imitating that he could produce in kids in just a short time, just by doing something and interacting with the kids. No lecturing, no “teaching” of any kind, just doing and describing.
On the other end of the spectrum, but with the same principle in mind, I endlessly regret how many of our leaders don’t see the value of setting a positive example. They seem to think that their own behavior does not have any influence, so if they want to lie, cheat, steal, etc., it doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things.
But it does matter. A lot.
L
Donald Trump taught black mobs to Burn Loot and Murder? I doubt that very much, given they’ve been at it, teaching their children to riot, since 1963 at least, which is about as far back as my memory goes. Jews and Asians were the targets of their ire then, same as now.
Donald Trump didn’t teach the rioters of 2020 to loot and burn. Those riots occurred spontaneously and throughout the nation with impunity. Many who were affected by those riots were marginalized residents.
It’s way beyond time for parents to be parents (not “friends”), for teachers/administrators to be disciplinarians as well as teachers, and for law enforcement to do its job. – meaningfully.
“It’s totally necessary to stay indoors and have a complete lockdown to prevent covid, but if you want to riot over BLM then that’s ok.”
Criminal charges should be brought against students. Why isn’t the Justice Department already involved?
I thought this would interest readers:
https://thespectator.com/topic/benjamin-netanyahu-plan-keep-west-side/
Trump is only another symptom of deeper social problems in the USA, which can also be seen in this sort of insanity. I think that social media have greatly enhanced the mindless herd behavior that humans are prone to. I fear we are going to have some very bad times in the future.
But, but….diversity is our strength. Isn’t it? What could be more diverse than Queens? Dearborn? Minneapolis? Detroit?
I’m reserving judgment that this reflects badly on American high school (and university) students generally until I see the oppression-diversity index of the school where it took place. The “cracker ass bitch” epithet gives a clue, as does a reader’s mention of some of the comments to the news story. It doesn’t reflect well on Hillcrest High is all I will say for now. Since the students there won’t be punished — we know this — I do hope you can at least keep them penned up somehow. You have created a monster that you have very little control over.
The school is 97% minority; 82% poverty according to US News. Full report and minority breakout (<3% white) at
https://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/new-york/districts/new-york-city-public-schools/hillcrest-high-school-13359#students_teachers_section
Additional data from report: title 1 (federally designated as economically disadvantaged) school with 76% free lunch eligible and 5% reduced cost lunch eligible. = 81% economically disadvantaged
97% minority: blacks, Muslims. Not surprising at all. They are expressing the hate of their own families and community. Put them all in jail. Their parents too. These kids have no interest in education….just gangs of criminals.
Well actual data breakout was 36% hispanic, 28% asian, 26% black + misc Native american/pacificislanderetc…no data on religious preference.
I’m betting that “Asian” doesn’t, in a free-lunch school with a low proportion of college-ready graduands, mean striving Chinese, Indian, Japanese, and Filipino honour students. I’ll bet on Pakistanis and Bangladeshis, almost all of whom will be conservative fundamentalist Muslims. And black Americans often adopt Muslim affectations for obscure reasons. So Lorna Salzman might be on the right track.
“Hispanic” is an American thing that I don’t completely get, except from watching Orange is the New Black. By U.S. Census rules it counts on the (cosmetic) diversity index (unlike being Dutch or Jewish) but not for race.
Ok, but aren’t people who are pro-palestinian being targeted as well?
Not nearly as often, and I’ve never seen an instance of Jewish students rioting like this. The rate of hate crimes against Jews, per capita, is about twice that of Muslims in the US.
There is still no story in the New York Times regarding this. Surely seems “fit to print”.