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Friday, June 04, 2021

Philadelphia Jewish school didn't fire teacher for "anti-Zionist tweets." They fired him for bragging he'll violate school policy.




The headline in the Philadelphia Inquirer says, "A teacher at a Main Line Jewish school criticized Zionism on Twitter. Then he got fired."

That is an inaccurate and irresponsible headline, which is being abused by anti-Zionists who are having a field day claiming this is Zionist cancel culture.

The school, the  Jack M. Barrack Hebrew Academy, is unapologetically Zionist. The tweets by teacher Jesse Schwartz were bragging that he was going to violate school policy by secretly teaching students to hate Israel.

The three tweets at issue are:

“young jews are worth saving from the morally and intellectually corroding clutches of zionism! idk how to do this but i’m gonna try to do it lol”

“i sort of do the opposite of what the CIA does in the sense that i am infiltrating a right wing institution instead of a left wing institution and also instead of successfully sabotaging and disappearing activists i am just going to like, get fired after maybe changing 1 kid’s mind”

“i’m also gonna try to make [the students] socialists and ******** the faculty”

These tweets aren't anti-Zionist - they are a threat that  a teacher plans to clandestinely undermine school standards. The fact that he doesn't use his real name or the name of the school is irrelevant - any employer would fire any employee who threatens to secretly sow discord in the workplace.

If Schwartz, an English teacher, had merely tweeted "Israel is an apartheid state" then of course he shouldn't be fired. It has nothing to do with his job.

But this is closer to a pharmacist saying that she will purposefully fill dosages incorrectly to people she doesn't like. No pharmacy would take the chance that she is only joking. Yet the author of this Inquirer article excuses Schwartz's tweets, writing that "His tweets are a particular brand of dry, leftist humor found on corners of the internet among young people who would identify as 'extremely online.'"

This is biased reporting and the lies are spreading online.