SUMMARY
We, the undersigned, voice our profound concern about MapSO Freedom School's association with the South Orange-Maplewood School District (SOMSD). This concern stems from MapSO Freedom School's explicit antisemitism, deliberate bias, and the fostering of a hostile environment in our schools and community.
BACKGROUND
MapSO Freedom School is an independent educational organization in South Orange-Maplewood, New Jersey, that provides professional development programming to public school teachers and facilitates group sessions for students. Originally formed to address issues of social justice and racial inequity, the organization’s recent actions have raised significant concerns that require immediate action.
Despite numerous attempts to seek the assistance of the district, we find the administration and local teacher's union (SOMEA) to be largely unmotivated in acting swiftly and appropriately to address these very serious concerns.
The purpose of this petition is to bring awareness to the situation and to implore the South Orange-Maplewood School District (SOMSD) administration and SOMEA to take prompt and decisive action.
While we acknowledge the important and positive contributions of MapSO Freedom School in the past, the organization's prior achievements do not grant it immunity to unfairly target the Jewish community. Relying on MapSO Freedom School's past achievements as justification for overlooking the present concerns raised by the Jewish community highlights the district's inadequate commitment to addressing antisemitism within the school district.
EXAMPLES OF CONCERNS:
Prejudicial Social Media Postings on Israel-Palestine Conflict:
Since October 7th, MapSO Freedom School has posted over two dozen times about the Israel-Palestine conflict and the current Israel-Hamas war. Despite their fervent posting on this topic, MapSO Freedom School has never once mentioned what occurred on October 7th to prompt the war, and they have never once mentioned Hamas. They have never condemned the terrorist attacks, nor identified Hamas as a terrorist organization.
It is alarming to witness significant selective elimination of key facts, particularly given the high volume of content MapSO Freedom School has posted about this topic.
The intentional erasure of the October 7th atrocities, continued rocket fire into Israel, and Hamas's oppression of the citizens of Gaza clearly indicates an agenda to perpetuate anti-Israel rhetoric.
In one post where MapSO Freedom School quickly mentions Israeli casualties, they blame these deaths on “the ongoing occupation and massive bombardment,” not on the planned, orchestrated attack that took place at the hands of Hamas.
In addition to selective exclusion of any Israeli or mainstream Jewish perspective, or any facts related to the October 7th massacre, from the organization’s public page, individual posts by MapSO Freedom School members show complete lack of sensitivity to the atrocities that took place on October 7th. A founder of MapSO Freedom School shared a post stating that using the term “terrorist” to describe Hamas justifies Israel’s “white supremacist apartheid state.” Another member posted, on the morning of October 7th, “Palestinians cannot invade Palestine,” implying that Israel is an artificial and illegitimate entity.
It should be noted that we do not stand in opposition to teachers advocating for Palestinian rights. We do stand in opposition to teachers unfairly and incorrectly representing Jewish and Israeli history and current events.
Antisemitic Tendencies:
Despite MapSO Freedom School's claims that they are not antisemitic, there is a pattern of antisemitic behavior present in their social media posts, including:
Glorification of Hamas’s slaughter of innocent Israeli civilians on October 7th. In a now-deleted post, MapSO Freedom School shared to their Instagram a post that called the October 7th massacres “necessary military resistance.” In the caption they wrote, “The solution to the conflict is simple…dismantle the Israeli state.”Repeated calls for the full and total elimination of Israel based on political criticism, while rejecting any offers to engage in meaningful dialogue with community members to learn more about Israel’s government, policies, and history.Posts by a founder of MapSO Freedom School calling the Zionist movement “satanic”, echoing an age-old antisemitic trope depicting Jews as the devil.Repeated distortions of the diverse ethnic and racial make-up of Jews to depict them as uniformly “white.”Repeatedly and incorrectly rewriting Jewish & Israeli history to falsely portray the Jewish people as “white colonial settlers.” In one now-deleted post from November 28, MapSO Freedom School states, “Settler colonialism is when invading settlers establish an exclusive nation by eliminating and replacing the indigenous population, which is what the Zionist movement has been doing by establishing settlements from 1882 until today.” This statement purposefully ignores continuous Jewish presence in Israel for thousands of years and falsely strips the Jewish people of their indigeneity to Israel.Advocating for specific rights for other minority groups in the name of antiracism, such as centering the voices of those impacted by racism and allowing them to define racist terminology, but emphatically denying the same rights to the Jewish people.Obsessive social media posting and preoccupation with the Israel/Palestine conflict in contrast to nearly no other mention of any other international events, world conflicts, or humanitarian crises in the seven years of MapSO Freedom School’s existence.
Community Impact:
South Orange-Maplewood upholds a commitment that “hate has no home here,” yet MapSO Freedom School's actions perpetuate a cycle of hate directly within our schools – and thus, the community at large.
Many Jewish students and community members have publicly stated that they feel unsafe in our towns. These feelings of insecurity and alienation are further exacerbated when educators in our own schools can spend months sharing content about this war but cannot condemn the heinous attacks on innocent people. Failure to condemn October 7th, despite nearly all posts since October 7th being about this conflict (or even worse, calling the terrorist attack "justified" and “necessary resistance”), sounds to the community as though the Israeli children who were mutilated, burned alive, raped, slaughtered, and kidnapped in front of their friends and family in the most horrific ways possible deserved to pay the price for any perceived sins of their government. It is then understandable why it is impossible for South Orange-Maplewood community members to feel safe sending their Jewish children to be entrusted to the care of these educators.
Numerous members of the community have reached out to members of MapSO Freedom School to hold open dialogue, and all invitations have been ignored.
Educators' Responsibility:
Public school educators have a responsibility to provide objective, balanced, and factual information. Failure to do so perpetuates ignorance and bigotry through misinformation and enables demagoguery. If objective, factually balanced education is a value our district upholds, then the district cannot be involved with an organization that so blatantly acts in opposition to this principle.
We are by no means calling for the erasure of Palestinian history from the curriculum. In fact, we believe it is a necessary narrative that is too often overlooked. What we expect our schools to provide is factual, objective education about a highly complex and sensitive topic - and to align with organizations who uphold that same standard. Accordingly, we are calling for the removal of an organization, MapSO Freedom School, that is showcasing either its lack of desire or inability to provide even-handed, factually substantiated content on this subject.
We would expect the district to uphold this same standard for all its course material, regardless of what history or content is being taught.
ACTION:
We, the undersigned, urge both the South Orange-Maplewood School District and SOMEA to sever all ties with MapSO Freedom School:
Remove MapSO Freedom School from SOMEA's website.Cease all funding from SOMEA and the district to MapSO Freedom School.No longer permit educators associated with MapSO Freedom School to provide professional development on any matter pertaining to world history, world religion, current events, or anti-bias training. Educators who are openly biased towards a minority group should not then be entrusted to lead any development in relation to anti-bias training.Seek alternative sources for anti-bias training for the district.Issue a statement regarding MapSO Freedom School and why ties have been severed.
Additionally, we call on the district to
Review all current or proposed district anti-bias training to ensure it includes accurate education on antisemitism.Adopt the IHRA working definition of antisemitism and hold district-wide training on antisemitism.
In signing this petition, we stand united in promoting a community that fosters unbiased education, honest communication, and a safe space for all people.
