Brooklyn, NY – The principal of an Arabic-themed public school resigned Friday after coming under fire for failing to condemn the use of the highly charged word "intifada" on T-shirts.
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Debbie Almontaser was supposed to oversee the Khalil Gibran International Academy. The city's Department of Education says it remains committed to launching the school in September.
Almontaser's departure comes on the heels of an article that connected Almontaser to Arab Women Active in Art and Media, and just before a scheduled protest by Assemblyman Dov Hikind, as was reported here on Vos Iz Neias.
Activists and a lawmaker are now calling for the school to be shut down altogether.
“I hope that this is the beginning of the end for this entire project,” a Democrat who represents Boro Park in New York’s state Assembly, Dov Hikind, told The New York Sun Friday. “If this woman, who I hear is a nice woman, if she couldn’t get this right, then I think the whole concept just doesn’t work.” [ap – VIN – NYSun]
Where are our “FRIENDS”,the ACLU. Wherever, whenever, something –anything– beneficial to the moral fiber of this nation is proposed, the
“presevers” of the Constitution are there, first in line, screaming in the loudest voice against it. Now, when the Constitution is clearly violated, (on separation of Church and State, and many other clauses) they are nowhere to be seen –or heard–.
It’s time to just shut it down. As much as the Board of Ed is afraid to come to terms with reality, a school with Arab culture will be full of things we don’t need around here. It’s not Islamophobia. It’s the reality on the ground, as we just saw from this t-shirt incident.
B”H we’re getting somewhere
I wouldn’t go as far as to say Dov is the man, but there is no place for Arab culture, or even Jewish culture, schools in the Board of Education.
The whole idea of foreign-culture-themed schools funded by a governement agency is moronic and only inviting problems, as we see are already happening.
You are our man, Dov!
Let us close down the place.