Minneapolis mayor, Jewish group want teachers' union to cancel event with antisemitic speaker

MINNEAPOLIS — Mayor Jacob Frey and others are calling on the Minneapolis teachers’ union to cancel an upcoming seminar featuring a speaker who has openly expressed antisemitic views.

Taher Herzallah is scheduled to speak at a Friday event called “being an educator in a time of war & genocide” at the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers Local 59 office. The event sponsored by MFT Educators for Palestine.

Frey, who is Jewish, said on social media Tuesday night that the group should cancel the seminar with Herzallah, who has called Jewish people “enemy No. 1.”

“That is not the person I want teaching our teachers to teach our students,” Frey said in an interview. “The beautiful thing about kids is they want to be friends with everyone, not everyone but Jews. ... We all want to send our kids to a school where we know they will be safe and loved for who they are.”

Herzallah is the director of outreach and grassroots organizing for American Muslims for Palestine, which the Anti-Defamation League has called one of the most influential, active anti-Israel groups. He is also a member of the Columbia Heights Park and Recreation Commission and ran an unsuccessful campaign for the Anoka County Commission earlier this month. He is also a PhD student at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities.

A Florida lawsuit alleges Herzallah has called for violence against Israel, saying, “Israelis have to be bombed, they are a threat to the legitimacy of Palestine, and it is wrong to maintain the State of Israel. It is an illegitimate creation born from colonialism and racism.”

He said last year “Anybody who has any relationship or any support or identifies themselves as a Jewish person or as a Christian Zionist, then we shall not be their friend. I will tell you that they are enemy No. 1 and our community needs to recognize that as such” according to a video posted by Canary Mission, which documents “hatred of the USA, Israel and Jews on North American college campuses and beyond.”

Herzallah did not immediately return a call seeking comment Wednesday.

The president of the teacher’s union, Marcia Howard, said the union plans to have members of the group and those with concerns to meet and discuss the issue today. The union has a joint executive board meeting Wednesday night, but Howard said leadership should empower them rather than come down like an iron fist.

“More incendiary rhetoric was found from that speaker,” Howard said. “They need to talk as union members about what we all are comfortable with in our house.”

Steve Hunegs, executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Minnesota and the Dakotas, said the teachers’ union is “platforming a notorious Jew-hater” and should “disassociate itself from this event and repudiate the speaker and everything that he represents.”

WCCO reports the St. Paul teachers’ union will vote next week on a resolution introduced by its Progressive Caucus to sign onto a letter urging the Biden administration to stop military aid to Israel in hopes of a ceasefire in Gaza.

The U.S. on Wednesday vetoed a United Nations Security Council resolution calling for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas because it was not contingent on the release of the hostages held in Gaza.

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