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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