School district leaders’ statements draw ire
Critics seek Hamas attack condemnation
Multiple school superintendents around Massachusetts are receiving pushback after sending letters to families addressing the war between Israel and Hamas, drawing criticism that they did not adequately condemn the terrorist attack against Israel that left more than 1,000 of its citizens dead over the weekend.
In Cambridge and Lincoln-Sudbury school districts, some parents expressed outrage after letters issued by their superintendents didn’t explicitly denounce the atrocities committed by Hamas militants. And in Revere, a conservative advocacy group took aim at the superintendent for including a link to a website with resources on the history of the ongoing Israel-Palestinian conflict in an email to staff, claiming one of the sites aggregated an article that was biased against Israel.
In a message shared with the Cambridge Public Schools community Monday evening, Superintendent Victoria Greer said she wanted to “acknowledge the conflict that has unfolded between Israel and Palestine. Our thoughts and hearts are with the Israeli and Palestinian people, particularly those near and far who have been impacted by the unrest.” “With images of the atrocities being broadcast on television and shared on social media, the emotional impact can be felt at home by all, especially our young people and those with connections to the region,” she said. Greer noted the district has students and staff “with cultural and family ties to Israel and Palestine” and is committed to providing a safe space for all its community members.
Miriam Goldstein, an Arabic language and literature professor at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, who is also a visiting professor at Harvard and Yale universities and has children in elementary and middle school in Cambridge, said she was appalled by the statement.
“She ignored the fact that this was a one-sided, unprecedented assault, an unprovoked assault, on innocents, on civilians,” Goldstein said, who wants Greer to issue a new letter with stronger language. “She wasn’t making a statement about ordinary Palestinians. This is not a statement about what we say about Palestinians. She needed to make a statement that this was an assault by the Hamas terrorist group ... she needed to condemn this atrocity in a very specific way, not to speak generally about atrocities.”
A Cambridge district spokesperson confirmed the district has received about a dozen responses to the superintendent’s letter, but said they expressed a mix of sentiments, both positive and negative.
Jeffrey Young, an expert in educational leadership and policy at Boston University Wheelock College of Education and Human Development, said superintendents face a “tremendous challenge” when addressing delicate and complex political and social issues and events.
“It’s important to denounce the horrific violence that was waged against communities in Israel... the attacks were unacceptable and morally outrageous,” Young said. “At the same time, I think it’s important for all of us to remember that a superintendent’s main focus is on the children and educators within their own district, and therefore, it’s equally important for superintendents to express unquestioned support for all students in the district, whether they’re Jewish, Israeli, Palestinian or anything else.”
Images and videos of the shocking and barbaric attack circulated on social media over the weekend, horrifying the world and devastating Jewish families who are still awaiting word of the fate of friends and family in the targeted regions. More than a thousand Israeli citizens, including children and older people, were killed in Saturday’s terrorist attack, with more than 150 people taken hostage. The Israeli military responded by bombarding parts of Gaza, killing hundreds.
In Lincoln-Sudbury, Superintendent Andrew Stephens said in an email to families Monday evening that he was writing with “a large measure of sadness over the events that occurred over the past few days,” and to “acknowledge the violent conflict occurring between Israel and Palestine . ... We have members of the LS Jewish and Muslim communities who are directly impacted by this conflict and its consequences both from an affinity standpoint, and from the fact that folks here may have family and friends who live in that area.”
The email called for students and parents to express empathy and kindness with one another, and to provide emotional support to those who need it. It also included resources for how to navigate painful conversations.
But after receiving blowback from some in the community for not acknowledging militants killed hundreds of Israeli civilians in the attack, Stephens issued a second email the following evening.
“The message was not clear with respect to the fact that the attacks on Israel over the past weekend were perpetrated by terrorists and resulted in violence and atrocities that have shocked the global community,” Stephens wrote. “These attacks, which do not represent the views of many Palestinians and Muslims, should be condemned and were impactful at a deeply personal level to many people in our school and community. My communication was an attempt to acknowledge that and the fact that many Israelis and Palestinians are and will be impacted by these events and those that will follow in the coming weeks, months, and years.”
The Lincoln-Sudbury district didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday.
Also on Wednesday, Parents Defending Education, a conservative advocacy organization, published a statement slamming Revere Public Schools over an email Superintendent Dianne Kelly sent to staff Monday evening.
The email, obtained and published by the group, includes a link to a website by Learning For Justice and the Southern Poverty Law Center that lists resources to help educators teach about the history of the conflict in the region. The group argues that one of the links aggregated by one of the resources on the page is biased against Israel. Revere Public Schools did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Globe on Wednesday.
‘She needed to condemn this atrocity in a very specific way.’
MIRIAM GOLDSTEIN, a parent of students in Cambridge schools, speaking about the district superintendent’s response to Hamas’s attacks in Israel