NYC Jewish school leaders boycott after ‘anti-Semitic’ conference, resignations demanded

Following the recent convention of the National Association of Independent Schools, it was transformed into a “Festival of Jewish Hate,” Jewish leaders are boycotting future events and calling for its board to resign.

Earlier this month, NAIS — an organization of 1,300 private schools, including NYC’s posh Dalton, Brearley and Collegiate schools, as well as 60 Jewish day schools — launched its Student Diversity Leadership Conference as well as the annual People for Educators Organized Off Color Conference.

About 8,000 adults and children from schools across the country participated.

According to its website, Dalton sent a delegation of 48 administrators, faculty and staff, some of whom also led workshops there.

But keynote speakers Dr. Suzanne Barakat and Ruha Benjamin were accused of using their platform to spread anti-Semitism, accusing Israel of “genocide” and “ethnic cleansing” and downplaying the October 7 Hamas terrorist attacks Was.

OESIS, a network of teachers from more than 600 independent schools, is now calling for the repeal of the POCC.

“This is a breeding ground for hatred and division,” its president Sanjay Ratnavale wrote in a scathing letter to NAIS President Debra Wilson.

He also called for the NAIS board to resign after keynote speakers accused Israel of genocide and ethnic cleansing.

“They deserve to be accountable to Congress, just like college presidents do,” he said.

Meanwhile, the head of a Jewish NAIS school in Los Angeles has vowed not to attend the upcoming February leadership conference, Thrive.

“While the (POCC) conference was intended to be a forum for valuable conversations about being inclusive, the reality is that, unfortunately, many speakers used their time to accuse Israel of genocide and advocate for extreme, partisan Israel. Used hostile rhetoric, including belittling. Hamas terrorist attack,” Wise School head Tammy Weiser wrote in an email to the school community.

“As our head of school, I will send a personal letter to NAIS and have decided not to attend their upcoming leadership conference (along with any members of our administrative team),” she said.

Teachers at NAIS member schools are seeing the Thrive conference as an opportunity for the organization to make amends for this month’s disgusting incident.

“This will be a great opportunity to have a speaker with a different perspective on anti-Semitism in a post-October 7 world,” said Sirida Graham Turk, an educator and diversity and inclusion coordinator who will be attending the conference.

“The perspective of someone who is Israeli or Jewish or works in a Jewish day school puts their perspective on something that was presented from such a narrow perspective,” he said.

A coalition of parents and Jewish groups, including JewsInSchool and the Israel-American Civic Action Network, is calling on the House Committee on Education and the Workforce to investigate NAIS.

The groups said, “Jewish students deserve to be safe, and as parents we demand that our tuition not be used to spread hate as well as disqualify Jewish voices.” wrote in a petition,

It says, “We are urgently requesting your help to understand how the long tentacles of NAIS have taken over our private schools, our voices, and our tuition.”

Wilson issued an apology After the conference.

“I am writing to express my deep remorse over the divisive and hurtful rhetoric expressed on stage at the NAIS People of Color Conference in Denver last week,” Wilson said. “There is no place for anti-Semitism at NAIS events, in our member schools, or in society.”