We are a Palestinian parent of two children in the Northampton school district and a Jewish educator formerly residing in Northampton. We were upset to learn that at a recent professional development training for NPS teachers and staff, supposedly to combat antisemitism in the district, the presenter suggested it is antisemitic to accuse Israel of intentionally killing Palestinian children, that she believes anti-Israel sentiments are due to antisemitism, and that referring to Zionism as racist is also an example of antisemitism.
These statements are not simply incorrect. They are void of any Palestinian experience (which is currently that of genocide), they are attempts to establish Israeli political rhetoric as a standard within our public school system, and they are attempts to silence dissent against Israel.
Project Shema branded itself to NPS administrators as apolitical and even included a slide at the beginning of the presentation stating they had no political or policy agenda. Yet, they presented the same false logic those in the movement for Palestinian liberation have seen over and over again: antisemitism is the problem, protecting Israel’s right to exist is the solution, and questioning that equation constitutes antisemitism.
That logic is broken. So long as Israel uses its system of Jewish supremacy to oppress Palestinians, Jews have not been safe from antisemitic violence around the world. As Israel commits what one U.N. expert has deemed genocide in Gaza and the West Bank, Jews do not become safer. As Israel kills civilians indiscriminately in Lebanon, Jews do not become safer. History has shown us for nearly a century that Israeli occupation and apartheid keeps no one safe from violence.
Jews and Palestinians know discrimination all too well, and we also know disingenuous attempts at combating it. The reality is that NPS administrators took a misguided attempt to contend with discrimination in the school community.
For the district to truly confront antisemitism, Islamophobia, and anti-Arab racism, they should open a restorative process that connects students to one another and empowers staff to engage with and facilitate those connections. They should empower students and staff in understanding the historical context of the Palestinian experience today.
And yet, we question how this restorative approach can begin to heal relationships when NPS teachers and staff have just been trained to devalue Palestinian children. By excusing Israel’s killing of an estimated 14,000 children in just the past year, this training has inflicted serious harm upon Palestinian children, families, and community members, from Northampton to Gaza.
According to a July report in The Lancet, “it is not implausible to estimate that up to 186,000 or even more deaths could be attributable to the current conflict in Gaza.” In addition to the children killed, the Israeli government has detained hundreds of Palestinian minors. It is not anti-Jewish to state these numbers; in fact it deeply harms Jews to deny this truth and link Jewish faith to this murderous regime.
How can we expect teachers who received this training to meaningfully support Palestinian students, when a central fact of their existence — that children are routinely threatened and killed by the Israeli state — is completely denied? How can we expect our schools to provide safety and academic freedom to students speaking out after witnessing on their phones Israel’s targeting of schools, hospitals, and displacement camps over the past year?
We are the first to state that Islamophobia and antisemitism will not be tolerated in our communities, nor in the movement for Palestinian freedom. We must work toward freedom from discrimination by seeing our common roots, not falling victim to tired, right-wing tropes that pit us against each other. Islamophobia and antisemitism share the same origins in white supremacist lies and conspiracies, and we know that true safety will only come through solidarity with each other, not the denial of nearly incessant violence and murder against Palestinian communities.
From the moment Project Shema’s training was introduced, NPS teachers, parents, and students have urged the district to implement training around Islamophobia and antisemitism that aligns with these principles of collective liberation. We will continue to push the district to shift their approach to honestly, and in good faith, oppose all forms of discrimination.
Molly Aronson lives in Easthampton and Louai Abu-Osba lives in Sunderland.