Town Division of Training has inexplicably tapped a gaggle headed by the infamous former “Intifada Excessive” principal to guide school-staff workshops on dealing with the Israel-Hamas warfare within the classroom, infuriated lecturers instructed The Submit.
Debbie Almontaser now pulls in a whole bunch of 1000’s of {dollars} in metropolis contracts together with her consulting agency Bridging Cultures Group, which on June 6 led skilled improvement coaching periods at at the least 10 metropolis public colleges, lecturers mentioned.
In a workshop titled “Facilitating Brave Conversations,” a pair of Jewish and Muslim facilitators mentioned lesson plans for how one can educate and information college students on discussing the continuing warfare, however Jewish lecturers seethed that the coaching materials was slanted in opposition to Israel.
Sharon Malkin, an artwork instructor at Horace Greeley IS 10Q in Astoria, Queens, mentioned one slide within the presentation described the Oct. 7 assault on the Jewish state and 8-month bombardment of Gaza as “emotionally traumatizing” — however made no point out of 251 hostages kidnapped by Hamas nor missile strikes launched at Israel by Iran and terror teams.
In a second workshop, a Jewish lecturer who had posted pictures on Fb with a Palestinian flag sticker snickered earlier than offering her group knowledge on the 1,200 Jewish deaths on Oct. 7 in comparison with over 37,000 Palestinian deaths over the previous eight months, in keeping with Malkin and a video recording of the coaching.
“The place do you suppose individuals are going to fall on that, particularly people who don’t have any information,” Malkin mentioned, including that her college’s principal apologized and canceled further Bridging Tradition’s workshops deliberate for the subsequent day.
The division’s choice to rent Bridging Cultures — which presents workshops on how one can educate about 9/11 within the classroom and non secular range — flummoxed Jewish lecturers, particularly given Almontaser’s notorious historical past with the subject material.
In a 2007 interview with The Submit, Almontaser condoned T-shirts created and bought by an Arab ladies’s activist group that learn “Intifada NYC.”
The phrase has lengthy been used to confer with violent protests in opposition to Israel, together with terror assaults by Palestinians within the late ’80s and early 2000s, however Almontaser insisted the phrase wasn’t meant to sign a bloody rebellion within the metropolis.
Her feedback sparked outrage and a slew of media protection, touchdown the embattled educator on the paper’s cowl days later when she resigned as the pinnacle of the town’s newly fashioned Khalil Gibran Worldwide Academy.
“Ought to that individual be the one designing a curriculum to show about antisemitism? I’d argue hell no,” one Jewish public college instructor mentioned.
Bridging Cultures has acquired at the least $235,000 in taxpayer-funded DOE contracts and purchases since fiscal 12 months 2021, in keeping with metropolis data. It lists a number of workshops priced at $2,000 every on its web site, together with “Constructing Compassionate Studying Communities Via Culturally Responsive Training.”
Almontaser’s firm additionally was one in all a number of teams the DOE consulted for its “assembly the second” plan to fight antisemitism and Islamophobia within the metropolis’s colleges.
Lately, Almontaser has been concerned in teams overtly backing anti-Israel demonstrations, such because the Muslim Group Community, the place she is the board president.
Throughout the top of the anti-Israel faculty protests this 12 months, MCN provided demonstrators “safety-training” seminars and posted recommendation on social media detailing how one can refuse police searches and keep away from being “fooled” by the “’good cop/dangerous cop’ method.”
Almontaser, who has posted on social media help for anti-Israel protests and unconditional requires a ceasefire in Gaza, additionally seems to have shut ties with Colleges Chancellor David Banks.
DOE spokesman Nathaniel Styer mentioned the company has prioritized utilizing workshops and different coaching alternatives to assist employees learn to deal with troublesome conversations within the classroom about present occasions as a part of its “assembly the second” plan.
“To do that work, we now have engaged quite a lot of high-quality, revered companions to current a balanced illustration of viewpoints throughout our NYCPS neighborhood, with the final word objective of constructing understanding and empathy,” he mentioned.
Bridging Cultures didn’t reply to request for remark.
Further reporting by Deirdre Bardolf and Susan Edelman
Supply hyperlink
