DOE hired ex-‘Intifada High’ principal’s group for NYC staff workshops on Israel-Hamas war
The city Department of Education has inexplicably tapped a group headed by the notorious former “Intifada High” principal to lead school-staff workshops on handling the Israel-Hamas war in the classroom, infuriated teachers told The Post.
Debbie Almontaser now pulls in hundreds of thousands of dollars in city contracts with her consulting firm Bridging Cultures Group, which on June 6 led professional development training sessions at at least 10 city public schools, teachers said.
In a workshop titled “Facilitating Courageous Conversations,” a pair of Jewish and Muslim facilitators discussed lesson plans for how to teach and guide students on discussing the ongoing war, but Jewish teachers seethed that the training material was slanted against Israel.
Sharon Malkin, an art teacher at Horace Greeley IS 10Q in Astoria, Queens, said one slide in the presentation described the Oct. 7 attack on the Jewish state and 8-month bombardment of Gaza as “emotionally traumatizing” — but made no mention of 251 hostages kidnapped by Hamas nor missile strikes launched at Israel by Iran and terror groups.
In a second workshop, a Jewish lecturer who had posted photos on Facebook with a Palestinian flag sticker snickered before providing her group data on the 1,200 Jewish deaths on Oct. 7 compared to over 37,000 Palestinian deaths over the past eight months, according to Malkin and a video recording of the training.
“Where do you think people are going to fall on that, especially people that don’t have any facts,” Malkin said, adding that her school’s principal apologized and canceled additional Bridging Culture’s workshops planned for the next day.
The department’s decision to hire Bridging Cultures — which offers workshops on how to teach about 9/11 in the classroom and religious diversity — flummoxed Jewish teachers, especially given Almontaser’s infamous history with the subject matter.
In a 2007 interview with The Post, Almontaser condoned T-shirts created and sold by an Arab women’s activist group that read “Intifada NYC.”
The phrase has long been used to refer to violent protests against Israel, including terror attacks by Palestinians in the late ’80s and early 2000s, but Almontaser insisted the phrase wasn’t intended to signal a bloody uprising in the city.
Her comments sparked outrage and a slew of media coverage, landing the embattled educator on the paper’s cover days later when she resigned as the head of the city’s newly formed Khalil Gibran International Academy.
“Should that person be the one designing a curriculum to teach about antisemitism? I would argue hell no,” one Jewish public school teacher said.
Bridging Cultures has received at least $235,000 in taxpayer-funded DOE contracts and purchases since fiscal year 2021, according to city records. It lists several workshops priced at $2,000 each on its website, including “Building Compassionate Learning Communities Through Culturally Responsive Education.”
Almontaser’s company also was one of several groups the DOE consulted for its “meeting the moment” plan to combat antisemitism and Islamophobia in the city’s schools.
In recent years, Almontaser has been involved in groups overtly backing anti-Israel demonstrations, such as the Muslim Community Network, where she is the board president.
During the height of the anti-Israel college protests this year, MCN offered demonstrators “safety-training” seminars and posted advice on social media detailing how to refuse police searches and avoid being “fooled” by the “’good cop/bad cop’ technique.”
Almontaser, who has posted on social media support for anti-Israel protests and unconditional calls for a ceasefire in Gaza, also appears to have close ties with Schools Chancellor David Banks.
DOE spokesman Nathaniel Styer said the agency has prioritized using workshops and other training opportunities to help staff learn how to handle difficult conversations in the classroom about current events as part of its “meeting the moment” plan.
“To do this work, we have engaged a variety of high-quality, respected partners to present a balanced representation of viewpoints across our NYCPS community, with the ultimate goal of building understanding and empathy,” he said.
Bridging Cultures did not respond to request for comment.
Additional reporting by Deirdre Bardolf and Susan Edelman
