YNET NEWS: New York City residents, Jewish community divided over opening of public Arab school in city
New York City’s first ever public Arab school is set to open its doors in two weeks, amidst much debate and controversy.
The Khalil Gibran International Academy will receive funding from the NYC municipality and will be temporarily run by a Jewish woman, Danielle Salzberg, an educator and senior program officer with the nonprofit New Visions for Public Schools.
Earlier this month the school's original principal, Debbie Almontaser, resigned after she failed to condemn the use of the highly charged word "intifada," an Arabic term for the Palestinian uprising against Israel.
State Assemblyman, and prominent Jewish community leader, Dov Hikind called on chancellor of the New York City Department of Education, Joe Klein, to cancel the opening of the school, and said Almontaser’s attitude was one of the reasons people should be concerned.
“She was supposed to be the responsible one, but the first time she had to deal with the use of one small word, she failed,” he said in an interview to Yedioth Ahronoth.
“Instead of condemning the use of the word intifada and the idea that stands behind it, of the killing of innocents, she hid behind lexical definitions. She reminds me of Arafat (Yasser Arafat, former Palestinian Authority Chairman) and his lexical interpretations of the word ‘jihad’.”
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said on his radio show that Almontaser was "certainly not a terrorist," but he called her resignation the "right thing to do". Arab school stirs storm in NYC (more)
Mark Alexander
