allowed to blast hate speech to the entire 
school?” 
On the day after the assemblies, the student 
stopped in a girl’s restroom between classes. 
In a locked handicapped stall, she noticed that 
several girls had gathered and were having a 
conversation about what had happened at the 
diversity assemblies. She heard them whisper-
ing things about Jews. 
When another friend entered the bathroom, 
the student whispered to her to listen, and the 
friend confirmed what the student had heard. 
“We both heard them swearing that ‘these 
Jews are blowing everything out of proportion.
’ 
During lunch, we went to the office to report 
the incident about girls swearing about Jews 
and saying derogatory things about Jews,
” 
she said. “We reported it word for word to 
the office attendant who took our statement, 
and there were several other students there to 
report additional incidents at the same time.
“Then the attendant told me, ‘Please don’t 
share this around the school. Please don’t tell a 
bunch of people. We don’t want it to be blown 
out of proportion.
’ There are other kids who 
were also confronted with hateful incidents. It 
was just a very hectic day at school.
” 
When the JN informed school officials 
about this incident, Bloomfield Hills Director 
of Communications Karen Huyghe said the 
matter is under investigation by the district’s 
Administrator of Public Safety Patrick Sidge.
Sophomore Noah Freedland attended the 
first assembly of the day. At first, he said he 
appreciated Arraf describing her childhood, 
growing up with an Arabic name and chang-
ing it to Heidi in grammar school to make her 
feel less different. 
“I thought she was going to stay on that 
path, but then she kind of transitioned into 
talking about Palestine,
” he said. “Then she 
started talking about how she worked with 
Palestinian children hanging out with Israeli 
children, and I thought that was really power-
ful and like a cool thing. 
“But then she did a 180 and said the 
Palestinian children had to go through hours 
of checkpoints with guns pointed at them by 
the brothers and sisters of the other Israeli 
kids. 
“That’s when I realized what she was saying 
was not true,
” he said. “Yes, there are check-
points, but they are there for security reasons. 
Then, she started talking about how Israel is 
committing genocide against Palestinians, 
which scared me a little because I didn’t want 

people thinking that Israelis and Jews are bad 
people who are oppressors, when they have 
been oppressed all throughout history.
” 
Freshman Benjamin Bak attended the third 
assembly. He said the person introducing 
Arraf said, “Our next speaker, Huwaida Arraf, 
will be speaking about Israel’s illegal blockade 
of the Gaza Strip.
”
“Israel is blockading the Strip to keep 
Hamas from coming through and murdering 
Israelis,
” said Bak, who has family in Israel, 
family serving in the Israel Defense Forces 
and a set of grandparents who were Holocaust 
survivors. He is knowledgeable about the 
Palestinian-Israeli conflict by spending much 
time in Israel with his Israeli family and then 
through an online course and from hours of 
research and self-study. 
“What she said was completely biased and 
wrong,
” he told the JN. “She was telling us all 
that Israel is the oppressor and she accused 
Israel as being an apartheid state — that’s just 
false. She also said Judaism and the Israeli 
government are not the same, but, in one of 
her speeches, she called it the ‘Jewish Israeli’ 
government.
”
When Arraf started giving out biased infor-
mation, Bak got up and left the auditorium. 
But he caught up with Arraf at the end of the 
day when she was alone talking with another 
woman and the school’s diversity team was on 
the other side of the auditorium. 
“I decided to confront her about the Israel-
Palestinian conflict and other points she made 
that were false,
” he said, saying they talked for 
about 10 minutes. “She just kept reiterating the 
same anti-Israel propaganda. 
 “With Jewish politicians in Michigan 
threatened, the incident at Temple Beth El’s 
parking lot and the fact that antisemitism is on 
the rise, this is triggering antisemitism at the 
high school, and it’s all very scary for Jewish 
kids.
” 

ADL REPORTS ON ARRAF
Ironically, the March 14 program was an 
outgrowth of an initiative that BHHS began 
last September with the ADL. According to 
Regional ADL Director Carolyn Normandin, 
ADL Michigan trained faculty and some stu-
dent leaders in its No Place for Hate program. 
According to the organizations’ website, 
No Place for Hate is being used by more than 
80 Michigan schools as a student-driven initia-
tive that empowers schools and communities 
to promote respect for individual and group 
differences, while challenging prejudice and 
bigotry. 
Normandin stressed emphatically, however, 
that ADL had no knowledge that Arraf had 
been invited to speak at the high school and 
the organization would have never recom-
mended her as a panelist. 
In fact, in numerous reports, the ADL has 
categorized Arraf as a divisive disruptor to 
coexistence between Israelis and Palestinians 
through her activism on American col-
lege campuses. She also is a co-founder of 
the pro-Palestine International Solidarity 
Movement.
In its 2012 report, for example, the ADL 
said Arraf, who founded the Free Gaza 
Movement, described Israel as a “colonial 
apartheid regime” and alleged that its laws are 
designed to discriminate against Palestinians. 
She also spoke out against Israel’s blockade 
of the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, calling it 
“collective punishment.
” 
On her Twitter feed, Arraf continuously 
expresses support for a BDS campaign against 
Israel — most recently praising the mayor of 
Barcelona, Spain, for breaking all institutional 
and academic ties with Tel Aviv. Her feed also 
indicates she supports a one-state solution to 
the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — which would 
eliminate the Jewish state — on the grounds 
that a two-state solution doesn’t recognize 
Palestinian right of return.
“Students come up with projects for the 
(No Place for Hate) program and, last year at 
BHHS, this program went off without a hitch,
” 
Normandin said. “This program was supposed 
to focus on the guests’ experiences of discrim-
ination in high school. This person completely 
co-opted the entire program, stood on her 
soapbox and made the day about her politics. 
She intentionally sowed division among stu-
dents in a very major way.
” 

 

Contributing Editor Keri Guten Cohen added to this 

report. 

OUR COMMUNITY

continued from page 25

26 | MARCH 23 • 2023 

“THIS PERSON 
COMPLETELY CO-OPTED 
THE ENTIRE PROGRAM 
… AND MADE THE DAY 
ABOUT HER POLITICS. 
SHE INTENTIONALLY 
SOWED DIVISION AMONG 
STUDENTS IN A VERY 
MAJOR WAY.”

— CAROLYN NORMANDIN, ADL

