Philly Teachers Hold Teach-In On Palestine For School Students
As we first reported on Monday, NYC Educators For Palestine is holding a free “teach-in” on Palestine for school students aged 6 - 18 on January 19th, Martin Luther King Day. Now Philadelphia area teachers are following the same model and using the day off school to encourage political activism.
Philadelphia Educators for Palestine, along with Students For Justice in Palestine Philadelphia Coalition, is holding a teach-in entitled “From Philly To Palestine: How Our Struggles Intertwine.”
While the advert for the “teach-in” seems to suggest it is for middle schoolers to college students, the fine print says “calling all students” and “all ages welcome” to “build solidarity and resistance (emphasis added).”
The ad promises “free food” and rides to the event for students to learn about weapons manufacturers in Philadelphia and engage in the antisemitic canard that public schools lack funding because of Israel.
Philadelphia Educators For Palestine
Philadelphia Educators For Palestine (PEFP) is a subgroup of the Racial Justice Organizing Committee, whose founding members include Ismael Jimenez, the Director of Social Studies Curriculum for the School District of Philadelphia.
PEFP is run by Hannah Gann and Keziah Ridgeway. Gann and Ridgeway are no strangers to extreme activism and to involving their students in their political activism. Most notoriously, Gann and Ridgeway ran a private Signal chat for PEFP which involved current School District of Philadelphia students, against district regulations. Gann and Ridgeway also admitted that these students attended and ran workshops at previous PEFP teach-ins.
PEFP believes that “all resistance is righteous” and that there is a “false equivalence between the violent systems that oppress us and our responses to them.”
Students For Justice in Palestine Philadelphia Coalition
Students For Justice in Palestine was founded by Hatem Bazian. Bazian also founded American Muslims For Palestine (AMP), currently under investigation for alleged terror financing and its role in the campus protests. AMP provides resources and training to SJP.
SJP Philadelphia Coalition is an alliance of SJP branches at University of Pennsylvania, Drexel and Temple. They released a statement on October 11, 2024 calling the October 7 Hamas massacre “a necessary step” and referring to it as the “Gaza Ghetto Uprising.”
Asian Arts Initiative
The “teach-in” will be held at the Asian Arts Initiative (AAI). AAI is a nonprofit which has received funding from the Ford Foundation, Neo Philanthropy, the Surdna Foundation, Network For Good, the Philadelphia Cultural Fund, and the Philadelphia Foundation.
As with NYC, now with Philly. We can expect to see more activist teachers use their positions to encourage these off campus “teach-ins” to their young students.
What a crock of crap. Philly schools spend over $22,000 per child and the kids can't read. Somehow that's Israel's fault? The teachers ought to focus on education and not their antisemitic fervor.