Jewish parents slam Pennsylvania school over keffiyah handout event

FIRST ON FOX: A Pennsylvania school district is facing backlash from Jewish parents after a Muslim student club promoting Palestinians handed out kaffiyehs to students, displayed images critical of Israel and focused more on activism than culture, parents say.

“My child came home shaken and not knowing if it’s even safe to speak as Jewish at school,” Lynn Simon, a Wissahickon School District parent, told Fox News Digital about last Monday’s event at Wissahickon High School, where student clubs were presenting at an annual culture fair booth that had booths representing various cultures, including a stand of the Muslim Students of America Chapter.

District Superintendent Dr Mwenyewe Dawan can be seen in photos on Instagram, alongside Deputy Superintendent Sean Gardiner. The school’s principal, Dr. Lynne Blair, posted photos of the event on her school’s official social media account, but has since deleted some of the photos.

Disgruntled parents say some students displayed slogans such as “Jerusalem is ours,” offered cash contests, encouraged administrators and younger students to wear keffiyehs, and essentially engaged in pro-Palestinian activism on school grounds.

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Jewish parents at Wissahickon High School outside Philadelphia took issue with a Muslim student stand last week. (WikiCommons)

“When the principal posts photos of students wearing slogans like ‘Jerusalem is ours’ and the principal encourages illegal gambling by minors, while visiting and taking photos with politically charged booths dressing students in kaffiyehs, that’s not education, that’s indoctrination. We don’t send our children to school to be marginalized. We demand accountability, not photo ops.

Fox News Digital reached out to the Wissahickon School District multiple times and received no response.

Steve Rosenberg, director of the North American Values ​​Institute in Philadelphia, told Fox News Digital that “the Wissahickon administration continues to set the benchmark for educational malpractice.”

“The blurring of lines between culture and radical political propaganda – facilitated by staff, celebrated by leaders, and normalized for students – is both an embarrassment and a warning sign. School should be a place of critical thinking, not cultural bullying and performative activism disguised as diversity. The district owes its students better.”

A letter sent by dozens of Jewish parents to the school, obtained by Fox News Digital, further outlines concerns about the event and claims their children witnessed several things that “crossed clear educational and ethical lines.”

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Protesters gather in Washington, DC, for the No Kings Day protest, October 18, 2025. (Emma Woodhead/Fox News Digital)

“Students visiting the Muslim Student Association booth were encouraged to wear kaffiyehs, a symbol that, in today’s global climate, is widely associated not only with cultural heritage but also with political movements, hostility toward Israel, and, in many contexts, the open expression of anti-Jewish sentiments,” the letter sent to Superintendent Dawan said.

“Several students reported that you spent time at the Muslim Student Association table and did not stop your intimidating and inappropriate behavior. For many Jewish students, this was not experienced as a cultural gesture, but as a political signal from the highest authority in the district.”

What was “more disturbing,” parents said, was the money and candy handed out in exchange for interacting with the booth activities.

The letter says: “Using financial or material incentives to lure students into a politically charged protest is inappropriate and coercive. This exploits student curiosity and social pressure, transforming an educational setting into one where certain political identities are rewarded and implicitly sanctioned by district leaders.

The photos published by Blair were described in the letter as “even more alarming”, and the slogan “Jerusalem is ours” was described as one that goes beyond a “cultural statement” but rather as a “political statement that denies Jewish history, identity and connection to the Israeli capital.”

“This is a message commonly used in extremist and anti-normalization movements,” the parents say in the letter. “For a school leader to publicly endorse these images, even indirectly, is deeply inappropriate and sends a frightening message to Jewish students: your history and identity are being challenged here, and people in positions of authority feel comfortable amplifying those who challenge them. »

In a board meeting on December 1, the MSA chapter president defended the term and said it was not “inherently anti-Semitic.”

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A statue of George Washington tied with a Palestinian flag and a keffiyeh at George Washington University in Washington, DC, May 2, 2024. (Craig Hudson/Reuters)

“Jerusalem is currently a conflict zone in which two sides are fighting,” the student said. “This statement was written in Arabic so that none of the Jewish students could actually understand this and view this as anti-Semitic, so it’s actually just something that an individual says to tear us down and portray us as anti-Semitic. Which actually goes against my previous point that anti-Semitism should not be watered down. We shouldn’t use that term lightly here and there.”

The parents in the letter call on the school to take five actions in response to their concerns, including providing a public explanation of the district’s involvement in distributing the keffiyehs and responding to the principal’s social media post amplifying the controversial message.

Additionally, the letter calls for the release of the “planning framework” for the event, including how booths were approved.

The parents are also calling for “clear district-level guidelines” explaining how they will ensure cultural programs do not veer into “political advocacy” and how all groups, including Jewish students, will be protected from “bullying.”

Finally, parents are requesting a “listening session” where Jewish families and students could share how they have been impacted by the stands.

“Schools should be safe, neutral spaces where students of all identities are respected,” the letter concludes. “What happened this week undermines that principle and has sparked real fear among Jewish students who now wonder whether their district will protect them – or leave them to fend for themselves in this climate.” »