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Dozens of Chicago aldermen call for resignation of newly appointed school board president over anti-Semitic Facebook posts
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Dozens of Chicago aldermen call for resignation of newly appointed school board president over anti-Semitic Facebook posts

Dozens of Chicago City Council members are calling on the newly appointed president of the Chicago Public School Board, the Rev. Mitchell Ikenna Johnson, to resign after openly anti-Semitic posts on social media were revealed.

“We are deeply concerned by the anti-Semitic and pro-Hamas comments made by the Rev. Mitchell Ikenna Johnson, the newly appointed president of Mayor Brandon Johnson’s school board,” wrote 26 council members, more than half of the council members, in a joint letter on Wednesday. “We call on Reverend Johnson to apologize and resign from his position immediately,” they added.

“Since October 7, 2023, Reverend Johnson has frequently posted on social media about the conflict between Israel and Hamas,” the councilors continued. “His comments have crossed important red lines into overt anti-Semitism, both in his explicit support for Hamas and his insistence on collectively blaming all Jews for Israel’s military actions.”

Shortly after Johnson was elevated to the presidency, an article published in Jewish Insider detailing his anti-Semitic crimes went viral online. The damning article draws evidence from posts on Johnson’s own Facebook account, which include him comparing Zionists to Nazis and praising Hamas.

“The ideology of the Nazi Germans has been adopted by the Zionist Jews,” he wrote in February. In March: “I have been saying this since October 2023. People have the absolute right to attack their oppressors by any means necessary.”

He even appeared to threaten his Jewish colleagues in a post he made in December, which read: “My Jewish colleagues seem drunk on Israeli power and will live to see their pay. “It won’t be pleasant and I don’t care what or what you call me.” Many other anti-Semitic comments are listed in the Jewish Insider article.

“Rev. Johnson’s social media posts are anti-Semitic, offensive and dangerous,” Anti-Defamation League Midwest Regional Director David Goldenberg told Jewish Insider on Wednesday. “Does Mayor Johnson believe Jewish families are “Will they feel safe sending their children to a CPS school whose board president openly expresses hatred and contempt toward the Jewish community?”

Mr. Johnson joined the Chicago Board of Education after seven members resigned in early October over budget disagreements with Mayor Brandon Johnson.

Mayor Johnson has already found himself in hot water with Chicago’s Jewish community for his various actions related to Israel’s war in Gaza, including his decision in January to cast a tie-breaking vote on a citywide ceasefire resolution. . Then, in August, he referred to the war against Hamas as “genocidal.” Chicago’s only Jewish council member, Debra Silverstein, said in April: “I don’t think the Jewish community feels like he has our back.”

The mayor found himself further embroiled in controversy on Tuesday after he posted a statement offering “thoughts and prayers” to the victim of a shooting in the city, not mentioning that the victim was an Orthodox Jew walking to a synagogue. By contrast, following the 2023 murder of a six-year-old Palestinian-American boy in Chicago, he was quick to denounce the attack as a “despicable hate crime.”

Rev. Johnson’s appointment, Goldenberg told Jewish Insider, marks “the latest example of Mayor Johnson elevating himself and surrounding himself with people with a history of enabling anti-Semitism and expressing views out of touch with the mainstream Jewish community. “Worrying is an understatement.”

Rev. Johnson has not yet issued a statement on the letter.