Chicago’s new school board president apologizes for social media posts criticized as anti-Semitic

The Rev. Mitchell Ikenna Johnson, the new president of the Chicago Board of Education, apologized to Jewish communities Wednesday and said he would protect all students after he faced criticism and calls for his resignation — from City Council members, school board candidates and pro-Israel politicians and organizations for his social media posts about the war in the Gaza Strip.

Johnson said he would not resign, as 26 council members have called for him to do, but expressed “deep apology for not being more precise and thoughtful in my comments.” He acknowledged that some of the posts he shared “could be interpreted as anti-Semitic.”

“Let me start by apologizing to the Jewish community for statements I published that were clearly reactive and insensitive,” Johnson told the Chicago Sun-Times and WBEZ in an interview. “Since then, I have asked for and received feedback from my Jewish friends and colleagues, which has helped me be more thoughtful as I navigate these sensitive issues.”

A review of Johnson’s Facebook account showed that from October 2023 until several months ago, he frequently wrote pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel posts on social media, many of which were hostile and inflammatory toward Jews.

Jewish Insider first reported Johnson’s posts on Tuesday, calling them “anti-Semitic” and “pro-Hamas.”

The Hamas attack on Israel in October 2023 killed 1,200 people, according to Israeli authorities.

Israel subsequently killed more than 43,000 Palestinians in 13 months of attacks, according to Gaza health authorities. Tens of thousands more remained under the rubble and were missing. Parts of the besieged enclave are facing famine as a result of the Israeli blockade, according to the United Nations.

Ald. Debra Silverstein (50th), the city council’s only Jewish member and an outspoken supporter of Israel, said the school board president’s communications cast “question on his ability to fairly represent Jewish students and families in Chicago Public Schools.”

“We are deeply troubled by the anti-Semitic and pro-Hamas comments of Rev. Mitchell Ikenna Johnson,” said the letter signed by 26 council members, who called on him to apologize and resign. “This situation is a failure of leadership and judgment on the part of Mayor (Brandon) Johnson and his executive team.

“(Reverend Johnson’s) comments crossed major red lines and escalated into outright anti-Semitism, both in his explicit support for Hamas and in his insistence on collectively blaming all Jews for Israel’s military actions,” they said.

“His continued role on the school board is non-negotiable.”

The American Jewish Committee of Chicago and the Anti-Defamation League of the Midwest, two pro-Israel groups, said Wednesday that the Rev. Johnson should step down as board president. The Israeli Consulate General in the Midwest did the same.

The mayor’s appointment of Johnson, who is not a relative, had already been under scrutiny — including from some of the same aldermen — since the previous Board of Education meeting. resigned en masse it became an embarrassment for the mayor this month amid a battle with CPS CEO Pedro Martinez over the school system’s budget woes. The board’s new president is facing questions about late child support payments and being disbarred by law nearly 30 years ago.

Asked about the situation at an unrelated news conference, the mayor said he would “continue to resist and fight back” against anti-Semitism. He said he appreciated that Rev. Johnson apologized and would “work toward restoration and healing.”

Johnson, the board’s president, said he has worked with Jewish communities to combat anti-Semitism for years. Johnson said, “As president of the board, (I) am committed to ensuring that hatred of any kind has no place in the Chicago Public Schools.

“I don’t agree that at a time like this we can talk about difficult topics without being insensitive,” he said.

Johnson also supported the Palestinians.

“The way the Palestinian community is treated is appalling,” he said.

“I would agree to two different things. First, Hamas’ actions on October 7 were inexcusable. I also agree that the actions of any army that unjustifiably kills civilians is inconsistent with the actions of those of us who have objective experience of fighting for justice.”

Rev. Johnson has previously supported Israel on social media and said he still supports its right to exist. And after the mass shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018, he linked “the struggles and crimes against humanity committed against people of African descent” to the mass murder of Jews during the Holocaust.

“And if we remain silent… crimes against humanity seem to be the loudest voices we hear,” he wrote at the time. “So let us, the fighters against hate, stand up and be held accountable.”

Johnson on Wednesday also referred to the killing of three Jewish students who fought for civil rights in Mississippi in 1964. “I believe that the history of the Jewish community and solidarity with the African-American community is a relationship that should always be maintained.” – he said.

But from October 2023, Johnson turned his attention to the war in the Gaza Strip. There is also a long history Black-Palestinian solidarity.

“How can a group of people affected by the Holocaust; joining the alt-right community today?” Johnson wrote last December.

“The ideology of the Nazi Germans was adopted by Zionist Jews,” he wrote in February. “The Israeli government is proposing to renew the use of Nazi language once referred to European Jews as ‘savages, dogs, vermin,’” he added in March. Most of these messages now appear to have been deleted.

In the past year, senior Israeli government officials have regularly used inflammatory language, calling Palestinians “human animals,” “savages” and “children of darkness.”

In a December 2023 post, Johnson shared a video of writer and journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates sharing his experiences visiting the Occupied Palestinian Territories and what he called Israel’s apartheid government. Johnson commented: “I suspect my Jewish friends, or perhaps “former” friends, will post a retraction of this post. I cannot support Israel until it relents and ends apartheid.”

Rev. Johnson wrote on New Year’s Eve: “Let us enter 2024 with a commitment to change the narrative and the power, yes, to force Israel to atone for its shameful attempt at genocide against the (Palestinian) people.”

In March, he wrote that his “heart breaks into additional pieces when I remember the people I work with and count as my friends in the fight against anti-Semitism, who today not only defend Israel’s ongoing acts of genocide, but also tell me to my face, that I was funny.”

Many countries accuse Israel of committing genocide and have taken the case to the International Court of Justice, which has found compelling evidence to support their case. The United States and Israel deny that the war in the Gaza Strip constitutes genocide. Additionally, some of the world’s leading human rights organizations have concluded that Israel runs a supremacist apartheid regime in the Palestinian territories, a characterization Israel and its allies reject.

Johnson also sometimes painted Jews with a broad brush, asking, “How long will the Jewish people in America tolerate these crimes?”

That same month, he also wrote: “I’ve been saying this since October 2023. People have the absolute right to attack their oppressors by any means necessary!!!”

Last year he acknowledged that his comments could be criticized. But in one post he wrote: “I am not an anti-Semite. I am against injustice.”