When Schools Turn Anti-Israel

Recently the Israel-American Council, a national network of Israelis living in America, took the extraordinary step of circulating a petition to demand that the Newton School Department take action on the "anti-Israel bias in the Newton Schools" which is "causing a serious rift between students and is provoking hostility towards Jews, who are becoming reluctant to identify themselves as supporters of Israel."

The ongoing anti-Israel controversy in the Newton Public Schools hit a low point last spring when Newton North High School showed a film called Ismail that depicted Israeli (read, Jewish) soldiers behaving like Nazis to Arab civilians. The Newton North principal subjected the entire student body, including a large number of Jewish students, to this anti-Semitic rant.