After Muslim student, Yasmeen Salih, used the Glenbrook South High School yearbook to praise Hamas terrorists, Hamas-linked CAIR (Council on American Islamic Relations) quickly rushed to her defense, saying she is being unfairly slandered by Jews.
AISHThe post spread like wildfire through social media apps for Chicago-area moms last week. Glenbrook South High School, a public high school with over 3,000 students – many of them Jewish – in the suburb of Glenview, had just published its yearbook, The Etruscan. It contained fulsome words of support for Hamas’ deadly attack last October 7th.
A sophomore in the school wrote about October 7: “The first day I woke up and I saw what Palestine did, and I was happy because they’re finally defending themselves.” As Hamas fighters raped, mutilated, tortured, murdered and kidnapped Israelis, the high schooler described feeling happy. The student also called Israel’s very existence into question, saying “In my opinion, it isn’t a war, considering this has been going on for 75 years.”
Parents in the school felt betrayed and outraged. Adding to the sense of crisis, parents who complained were being met with insistence from the school administrations that this outrageous quote was protected student speech.
“It’s pretty all-consuming at the moment,” explained Rabbi Aaron Braun, who has many congregants whose kids attend the school and whose own son is planning to start there next year. I started reaching out to parents in the district to find out whether this inflammatory, hateful quote was indicative of pro-Hamas sentiment in the area. Their answers paint a worrying picture of where American Jews find themselves today.
Braun says the increase in antisemitism in the community since October 7 is obvious. “There’s more willingness to say abhorrent things about Israel and about Jews in general,” he notes. His upscale suburb, with a large Jewish population, has seen anti-Israel protests. “It’s indicative of a changing climate. I know it’s difficult for my own kids,” he explains, as antisemitism becomes more open in local public schools.
One high school near Glenview hosted a demonstration where students chanted “From the River to the Sea, Palestine Will be Free,” and “Israel must pay for their crimes.” Jewish students reported feeling threatened and unsafe during the event. Chicago public schools have held rallies in support of Gaza; many Jewish students have reported staying home from school on those days.
At Glenbrook South High School, anti-Israel sentiment has been more muted. Some students have worn Palestinian-themed t-shirts to school that proclaim “From the River to the Sea,” Lindsey explains. After she gave her son a t-shirt from Israel that features the Coca-Cola logo in Hebrew writing, he told her he wouldn’t feel comfortable wearing it in school. “I think he doesn’t want to start anything up with kids who don’t know him,” Lindsey says. “He doesn’t want to be on the receiving end of antisemitism.”
Recently, when he visited Glenbrook South High School, he was dismayed to see a poster advertising that April is Muslim American Heritage Month and May is Asian American and Pacific Islander Month, but no poster touting Jewish American Heritage Month which is also in May. If Jewish history teaches us anything, it’s that hiding our Jewishness never appeases antisemites.
Islam does NOT belong nor should live amongst civilized people and nations. CAIR is a Muslim Brotherhood Hamas group and should not be permitted to operate in the U.S. In fact, Muslims should not be in the U.S. at all and they continue to showing us why!
This shit must be dealt with. Jews are the first ones they’re attacking, but Christian’s are next! If we don’t stop them now the U.S. is going to look like any one of their other failed nations. Biden should be prosecuted for allowing them in and allowing their violent acts against the Jewish population.
We are tragically seeing a dramatic increase in anti-semitism and the hatred of Jewish People. It looks like many people do not realize what could happen if this continues. What we are seeing now is very much like what happened in Germany before World War II when Adolf Hitler rose to power. By the time World War II ended millions of Jewish people had been slaughtered in German concentration camps.
And what most people don’t realize is that in Germany back then, the worst of the anti-Semitism began at the universities.
show me a muslim who does not use free speech for all the wrong reasons a thing I don’t believe is possible … send them back to their brain washers where free speech is intolerable they fail as americans they are the bottom of all un desirables for my country .
This is sickening and every parent should be ashamed that the school from where their child graduated posted this malfeasance. I wonder if some had written a quote from the un-holy quaran such as the defamation of the Jewish people.