By Daniel Stefanski |
Arizona’s schools chief is literally turning his back to antisemitism.
Earlier this month, the Arizona Department of Education posted a picture on “X” of Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne at a recent Board of Regents meeting with the caption, “Superintendent Horne will not tolerate antisemitism. When protestors started speaking in support of a terrorist organization at the Arizona Board of Regents meeting, he turned his back to hatred.”
This gesture from Horne follows a recent press conference he hosted to “denounce antisemitic and anti-American materials provided by two organizations at a high school club event that made Jewish students feel unsafe.” The high school where this action occurred at was Desert Mountain High School in Scottsdale.
Horne minced no words in alerting the public to the dangers to students by the presence of these materials at this school – or any school in the state, saying, “The materials presented to these students were profoundly antisemitic in particular and anti-American, in nature. Some of the material states that ‘Palestinians have been subject to killings, torture, rape, abuse, and more for over 75 years.’ This is a ‘blood libel’ similar to the blood libels used in the Middle Ages to get people to go out and kill random Jewish people.”
In an interview with a national outlet, Horne explained why this issue has been so important to take a stand on, saying, “All of my extended family were killed in the Holocaust. So I grew up with just my parents and my sister. No grandparents, no nieces and nephews, no uncles or aunts. They were all killed. So when I see signs of antisemitism developing in the United States, you can imagine it’s something that affects me personally.”
Daniel Stefanski is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.
