Millard North High School in Omaha, Nebraska. Image by Facebook

By Aiden Pink October 5, 2017

Two high schools in Omaha, Nebraska have disinvited a Palestinian speaker from giving lectures on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict after Jewish students reported that they were being harassed about her visit.

Noa Carmi, a Palestinian activist from Jerusalem who is on a nationwide speaking tour, had been scheduled to speak at Advanced Placement Human Geography classes at Millard North and Millard South high schools.

While the school dismissed concerns from a parent that Carmi would only present one side of the conflict, administrators later heard from the Anti-Defamation League that a Jewish student or students were being verbally harassed, spurring them to cancel the talks.

Forwarding the News

Thoughtful, balanced reporting from the Forward and around the web, bringing you updated news and analysis each day.

Terms(Required)

I agree to the Forward's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

Email(Required)

“We could see this was a situation that was spilling out of the classroom and becoming a disruption to our learning environment,” school district spokeswoman Rebecca Kleeman said. “Then we did take the action of canceling the speaker.”

“This whole thing is very disappointing to us,” she added. “We want to [address] controversial issues and teach our students to think critically.”

Carmi has reportedly worked with the Sabeel Liberation Theology Center, according to her biography. Rev. Naim Ateek, the founder of Sabeel, once wrote that Zionism is a “false theology” justified by a “mythical racial ancestry” that “promotes death rather than life.”

Contact Aiden Pink at [email protected] or on Twitter, @aidenpink

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. We’re near the end of our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we have a very ambitious goal of $127,000 by April 21.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a Passover gift today!

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Make a Passover Gift Today!

$90 $180

$360

Other amount