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18 | MARCH 30 • 2023
was born Catholic. I defend people who
are Jewish and Arabic. I am a liberal, but
I find myself being excluded from pro-
gressive causes because of my supportive
views about Israel. I have my daughter
here who is also stridently pro-Israel.”
He continued addressing the board:
“We are not going to solve the Israeli-
Arab or Israeli-Palestinian conflict here,
and I don’t know how we are going to put
the toothpaste back in the tube. I hope
you can find a way to heal this room
because, obviously, it’s not happening yet.”
STUDENT COMMITTEE REACTS
Addressing the board, members of the
student DEI committee said they stood by
their decision to include Arraf in the pre-
sentation and rejected the apologetic tone
of the two emails the district sent out with-
out their permission or consultation. They
stated that students deserved to hear of her
experiences in Israel, a region that during
her presentations she only described as
Palestine.
The committee members, none of whom
were Jewish, took turns reading from
their statement. It read: “There has been
an immense amount of discourse about
what the prompt was. The actual prompt
for the panelists read: What oppression or
discrimination did you face, and how did
the people around you help to make it bet-
ter, and if applicable, how did racism and
ignorance affect you in high school?
“In the planning process, we thought it
would be important to have a Palestinian
on the panel, and a large group of students
appreciated her presence.”
The student committee statement stated
that at no time did Arraf say that Jewish
people killed Palestinians, which was met
with applause. However, the JN has record-
ings of the assemblies where Arraf said
Israel was committing genocide against
the Palestinians and was blocking essential
medical care in the Gaza Strip. As to why
there were no Jewish panelists, the com-
mittee stated that last year’s diversity day
presentation featured local rabbis.
“We understand that people in our
community are hurt, and this was never
our intention. It deeply saddens us that
this is a result of an assembly that was
created in order to bring people together.
We apologize to all communities for the
hate that’s taking place and for the flaws
in our assembly, but we will not apologize
for having a Palestinian speaker and giving
Arab and Muslim students representation.”
OUR COMMUNITY
Jay Kozlowski takes his turn
addressing the audience.
optiquedetroit.com
Happy Passover!