22 | JANUARY 25 • 2024 J
N

OUR COMMUNITY

month of debate that occupied
members even as they
conducted a superintendent
search and contended with
longstanding equity issues.
Both topics were raised
briefly but not tackled at the
board meeting; one member,
making an unsuccessful
case to table the resolution,
said the tensions over Israel
and Gaza were scaring away
high-quality superintendent
candidates.

“Where else have I heard
people told, ‘Stay in your
place’?” Jeff Gaynor, a Jewish
board member who supported
the resolution, told JTA before
the meeting. He then quoted
Martin Luther King Jr.: “The
time is always right to do what
is right.”
Gaynor and Rima
Mohammad, a Palestinian
board member whose term
as president coincidentally
ended during the meeting,
were the most vocal
advocates of a ceasefire. The
two issued a joint statement
in the days after the Oct. 7
attacks reading, “We stand
together, as a Jew and a
Palestinian, in the interest of
our common humanity.”
During the meeting, Gaynor
said his Jewish background
led him to call for an end to
Israel’s war in Gaza.
“During my five years of
Hebrew School leading up to
my bar mitzvah, I donated
money to plant trees in Israel.
Much of my moral compass
is based on what I learned
during sermons in synagogue
every Saturday morning,” he
said, adding, “I will not defend
Hamas; it is not an agent for
peace. Neither is Netanyahu’s
government.” (During the
public comment period, one
Jewish speaker called Gaynor

a “shonda,” the Yiddish word
meaning shame.)
“I hope we continue the
dialogue,” Gaynor told JTA
after the motion passed.
“There’s a lot of repairing
to do, a lot of empathy to
be had.” Asked what he
thought of the resolution’s
final wording after the
amendments, he said, “It was
fine.”
Mohammad argued sharply
against the resolution to table
the resolution, saying that
doing so would harm families
like hers and communicate
to those who argued for the
resolution in public comments
that their voices do not matter.
In total, 122 people signed
up to speak at the meeting,
including the head of the local
Jewish Federation, which
opposed the ceasefire call and
said it had “created a hostile
atmosphere” in the district;
several Jewish parents who
said they felt hurt by the
resolution; and representatives
of the Detroit chapter of the
anti-Zionist group Jewish
Voice for Peace.
Jewish opponents of the
resolution carried signs

reading “Focus on Education”
and “Slippery Slope,” while
pro-Palestinian supporters
held placards reading “Stop
Funding Genocide” and “We
Are Against U.S. Military Aid
to Israel.”
“We feel marginalized,
we feel scared,” Josh Rubin,
a Jewish parent in Ann
Arbor, said during his public
comment period, adding he
and his family were planning
to move away because they no
longer felt safe sending their
children to school.
Several times, two longtime
local pro-Palestinian activists
were reprimanded but not
removed for interrupting
speakers, insulting board
members and attempting to
start chants of “From the river
to the sea, Palestine will be
free”; others cheered or booed
speakers on both ends of the
debate.
Voices opposing the
resolution were outnumbered
by the pro-Palestinian
speakers and supporters,
including several district
teachers who signed a petition
supporting the resolution;
some Palestinian-American

students; a Palestinian district
parent who said many of
his relatives had been killed
in Gaza; and a speaker who
played an audio clip of what
they said were children inside
a hospital in Gaza being
bombed.
“This is not helpful to
anyone,” Marla Linderman
Richelew, a Jewish local civil
rights attorney and past
president of the parent-teacher
association of one of the high
schools, told JTA before rising
to speak against the resolution.
Her daughter, she said, had
been the victim of antisemitic
bullying in the district when
students filmed themselves
telling her the Holocaust never
happened, and she says the
school district told her they
didn’t have enough resources
to address it.
“I think we are just
confused. I think we’re all
trying to figure out what to
do and how to deal with this
conflict that we did not even
know we had,” she said about
Jews in Ann Arbor. She added,
“I think it’s going to be a
learning experience for all of
us.”

Members of the
Ann Arbor Public
Schools board
wordsmithed a
resolution calling
for a ceasefire in
the Israel-Hamas
war, Jan. 18, 2024.

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