A New York City public school has been accused of committing “Jewish erasure” for using a Middle Eastern map that doesn’t contain Israel.
The map is being used in an art classroom at PS 261, a public elementary school in Brooklyn, according to the journalists at The Free Press, who were shown the “Arab world” map this week.
“The colorful map, manufactured by Arab education company Ruman, purportedly shows all the countries of northern Africa and the Middle East, with photos of landmarks in each nation,” TFP reported this Thursday.
“At PS 261, the map is posted under the header ‘Arab World’ with hand-drawn labels marking each nation. But the space nestled between Lebanon, Jordan, and Egypt—where Israel has been a state since 1948—is marked ‘Palestine,’ despite the fact there is no internationally recognized Palestinian state,” according to TFP.
NYC Public School Wipes Israel from the Map
The poster at Brooklyn’s PS 261, where young students are taught ‘Arab Culture Arts,’ is part of a program funded by the Qatar Foundation. https://t.co/t5jkVfAPTx— Elder of Ziyon (@elderofziyon) January 11, 2024
The class is taught by Rita Lahoud, whom the New York Post notes is a Palestinian American who was born in the United States but later moved to the Middle East when she was seven.
She reportedly uses the classroom to provide lessons to pre-K and elementary students in the “Arab Culture Arts” program, which The Free Press notes is funded by the Qatar Foundation International (QFI).
“QFI is the American wing of the Qatar Foundation, a nonprofit owned by the ruling family of the wealthy Arab state, which harbors leaders of the terrorist group Hamas,” according to TFP.
QFI previously touted Lahoud’s map on the social media platform X:
Speaking with the outlet, Tova Plaut, an NYC public school instructional coordinator for pre-K through fifth-grade classrooms, said she found the map “concerning.”
“It’s not just that we’re experiencing Jewish hate in NYC public schools, we’re actually experiencing Jewish erasure,” she said. “And here is proof of that.”
While Lahoud, the teacher, didn’t respond to a request for comment, the PS 261 principal did by referring The Free Press to the NYC Department of Education.
When The Free Press subsequently emailed the department asking why the map is in the classroom, especially amid the Oct. 7th terror attack on Israel by Hamas, a spokesperson claimed “this is [merely] a map of countries that speak Arabic.”
But neither The Free Press nor Plaut bought the excuse given the known fact that roughly 20 percent of Israelis speak Arabic as well.
I met many Arab Israelis during my trip to Israel as part of a @sharakango delegation. None of them was afraid to speak Arabic, to criticize the Government and or speak their mind.
Picture I took at ‘Hostage square’, in Tel Aviv: pic.twitter.com/AKshMnfxEu— (@MArizanti) January 9, 2024
“The fact that there is a map out there that does not represent what the world actually looks like is troubling,” Plaut said. “We’re giving children misinformation.”
She added that the fraudulent map is an “example of how you embed implicit bias into children.”
“What it does is it creates this inner instinctive knowledge that they internalize that this land belongs to the Arab world; that it does not belong to anyone else,” she explained. “When you embed something when children are young it becomes a belief. And belief is much harder to change than knowledge.”
According to The Free Press, QFI, the organization that funds the school’s “Arab Culture Arts” program, has donated over $1 million to the NYC Department of Education from 2019 to 2022.
“QFI started donating to the NYC Department of Education in 2015, according to public disclosure forms,” TFP notes. “In 2019 and 2020, QFI gave more than $241,000 to fund dual language Arabic programs for PS 261 and PS 30, a K–8 school in Brooklyn.”
“In 2021, QFI paid over $275,000 to the NYC Department of Education, and in 2022 that number rose to more than $513,000—but forms for these last two years do not specify how the funds were allocated. Records for 2023 are not yet publicly available.”
Dovetailing back to Lahoud, the Post notes that she said in a November QFI blogpost that she’s passionate about teaching students about Arabic culture.
“Diversity in education and every area of life is now valued more than ever,” she said. “Even if my students do not grow up to be Arabic language experts or even fluent in the Arabic language, they will have deep knowledge and respect for Arab culture and art.”
“This is so important in today’s political and social climate. Education programs like ours can go a long way in changing perceptions, and in giving children the necessary tools to refute stereotypes,” she added.
Writers and editors can be contacted at [email protected] with feedback, tips, or corrections.
V. Saxena is a staff writer with a decade of experience as a professional writer, and a lifetime of experience as an avid news junkie. He holds a degree in computer technology from Purdue University. Saxena also contributes to BizPac Review.
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