CIJR | Canadian Institute for Jewish Research
L'institut Canadien de Recherches sur le Judaisme

Analysis

Long-Term Psychological Impact of Jew-Hatred from Massachusetts Teachers Union, Experts Say

Chingshin new classroom 1.jpg - Wikimedia Commons
Chingshin new classroom 1.jpg - Wikimedia Commons

Mike Wagenheim

JNS, Mar, 14, 2025

“The framework includes one poster of a dollar bill folded up into a Jewish Star, and another with an image of George Habash, founder of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organization, above a silhouette of a terrorist armed with an assault rifle. There are also posters criticizing Zionism and calling for Israel to be erased.”

A clinical psychologist says that Israeli expat children are suffering psychological distress at schools in Massachusetts amid a documented effort by anti-Israel elements of the Massachusetts Teachers Association to inject the public school curriculum with biased content.

Miri Bar-Halpern, director of intensive outpatient treatment services at the Boston Child Study Center and director of trauma training and services at Parents for Peace, told JNS that she has been noticing an increase in mental health issues with her Jewish Israeli patients at the kindergarten through 12th-grade levels.

“There is an uptick of anxiety. There is depression. A lot of school avoidance. There is this fear of bullying, both from peers and from teachers,” said Bar-Halpern, who lectures at Harvard Medical School and holds a doctorate in clinical psychology. “They’re just afraid of going to school.”

“I have some patients who started self-harming,” she said. “I have patients that are saying that they don’t want to be Jewish anymore because everybody hates them.”

Sara Colb, deputy director for the Anti-Defamation League’s New England office, told JNS that there has been a significant amount of anti-Israel activity in the union since Oct. 7, which she thinks has spilled over into “more overt antisemitism.” ….SOURCE

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