Jewish parents slam Pennsylvania school over keffiyah handout event

First on Fox: A Pennsylvania The school district is facing backlash from Jewish parents after a Muslim student club that promotes Palestinianism distributed keffiyehs to students, displayed images critical of Israel, and was more focused on activism than culture, parents say.

“My child came home shaken and unsure if it was safe to speak as a Jew at school,” Lynn Simon, a parent in the Wissahickon School District, told Fox News Digital about an event last Monday at Wissahickon High School, where student clubs were performing at an annual cultural fair containing booths representing various cultures. Including a booth From the separation of Muslim students in America.

The district superintendent, Dr. Moiniwe Dhawan, can be seen in photos on Instagram, along with Assistant Superintendent Sean Gardiner. The school’s principal, Dr. Lynn Blair, posted photos of the event on her official school social media account, but has since removed some of the photos.

Dissatisfied parents say some students were raising slogans like “Jerusalem is ours,” offering cash contests, encouraging administrators and young students to wear keffiyehs, and essentially engaging in pro-Palestinian activism on school grounds.

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Jewish parents at Wissahickon High School outside Philadelphia disagreed with a booth of Muslim students last week. (Wikicommons)

“When a school principal posts photos of students wearing slogans like ‘Jerusalem is ours’, and a superintendent encourages illegal games of chance led by minors, while visiting and taking photos at politically charged booths with students wearing keffiyehs, that is not education — it is indoctrination. We are not sending our children to school to be marginalized. We are demanding accountability, not photo ops.”

Fox News Digital reached out to the Wissahickon School District multiple times and has not received a response.

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

“The blurring of the lines between culture and radical political propaganda — facilitated by staff, celebrated by leadership, and normalized for students — is both embarrassing and a warning sign. School should be a place for critical thinking, not a place of cultural intimidation and performative activism masquerading as diversity. The district owes its students better.”

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

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Demonstrators gather in Washington, D.C., to protest No Kings Day on October 18, 2025. (Emma Woodhead/Fox News Digital)

“Students visiting the Muslim Student Association booth are encouraged to wear the keffiyeh, a symbol widely associated in the current global climate not only with cultural heritage but also with political movements, hostility toward Israel, and in many contexts explicit expression of anti-Jewish sentiment,” the letter sent to Superintendent Dhawan said.

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

Parents explained that what was “most concerning” was the offering of cash and candy in exchange for interaction with the kiosk activities.

The letter read: “Using financial or material incentives to lure students to a politically charged presentation is inappropriate and coercive. It exploits student curiosity and social pressure, and turns the educational environment into one in which certain political identities are implicitly rewarded and punished by district leadership.”

The images published by Blair in the letter were described as “most disturbing”, and the slogan “Jerusalem is ours” was described as more than a “cultural statement” but rather a “political claim that denies Jewish history, Jewish identity and connection to the capital of Israel.”

“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 completely inappropriate and sends a terrible message to Jewish students: Your history and identity are in dispute here, and people in power feel comfortable amplifying those who object to it.”

In a Board of Directors meeting On December 1, the president of the Muslim Student Association chapter 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 keffiyeh at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., on May 2, 2024. (Craig Hudson/Reuters)

The student said, “Jerusalem is currently a conflict zone in which the two sides are actually fighting.” “This statement was written in Arabic, so none of the Jewish students could actually understand that and consider it anti-Semitic, so this is really just something an individual says to tear us apart and paint us as anti-Semites. And it’s actually a departure from my previous point that anti-Semitism should not be watered down. We shouldn’t throw that term around lightly here and there.”

In the letter, the parents call on the school to take five actions in response to their concerns, including providing a public explanation for the district’s involvement in distributing keffiyehs and addressing the school principal’s social media post that amplified the controversial message.

In addition, the letter calls for the release of a “planning framework” for the event, including how booths will be approved.

The parents are also demanding “clear guidelines for the district” addressing how to ensure cultural programs do not turn into “political advocacy” and how all groups, including Jewish students, will be protected from “bullying.”

Finally, parents ask for a “listening session” where Jewish families and students can share how they have been affected by the booths.

“Schools must be safe and neutral places where students of all identities are respected,” the letter concluded. “What happened this week undermines that principle, and has caused real fear among Jewish students who now wonder whether their district will protect them — or leave them to face this climate alone.”