As left-wing activists march across college campuses and city bridges to protest Israel’s ongoing campaign against Hamas, some educators are doing their best to transplant anti-Israel propaganda into K–12 classrooms.
Teaching While Muslim (TWM), an organization working to “actively include social justice, anti-racist, and anti-Islamophobic curricula and educators in our schools,” is directed by Nagla Bedir, a high-school social-studies teacher in Perth Amboy, N.J., whose courses include psychology. Bedir co-founded the organization in 2018 to “create a more fully representative conversation within the education system” but has shifted its focus since Hamas’s October 7 attack to offer anti-Israel resources to pro-Palestinian teachers.
One such resource is a “Know Your Rights” pamphlet, which encourages teachers who “teach about or advocate for Palestine” to protect themselves against doxxing, “keep communication regarding protests, walk-outs, rallies etc. on your personal email rather than district-issued emails,” and contact a union representative if a teacher’s “cease-fire now” sign is called into question.
TWM also published a primer for social-justice educators describing how to “[talk] about Palestine in the classroom.” When discussing Israeli “apartheid,” the document notes, teachers should avoid using the terms “clashes” or “conflict,” as “these assume that Palestine is on the same level as Israel.” The document explains further that “Israel is backed and funded by the US army and is committing an ethnic cleansing and military occupation against Palestine; Palestinians have no access to electricity, fuel, water, and resources. Palestinians don’t have an army, either; This is not a war — both sides are FAR from equal power and access to resources.”
Teachers should also refrain from using the term “extremist” or “terrorist” in the classroom, as “these terms are often used in reference to Muslim or POC communities.” The document laments the way Hamas is referred to in media as “terrorists,” while Israelis are referred to as “people”: “This bias heavily shapes and impacts narratives and dehumanizes the Palestinian population in Gaza. It is important to avoid using language that doesn’t capture the whole perspective of resistance. Resistance against occupation, mass starvation, and mass destruction is not an act of terrorism.”
“There is no gray area here. This is a radical activist operation that is attempting to brainwash children while pushing antisemitic views,” said Michele Exner, senior adviser for Parents Defending Education, the watchdog group that discovered TWM’s playbook. “This is a direct violation of the trust parents should have in their school systems. Anyone who wants to use their official position to push this divisive and extreme ideology onto students should be immediately removed from their teaching responsibilities.”
TWM did not respond to a request for comment.
Most of TWM’s influence appears localized in the New Jersey area, journalist John Rossomando has reported. A TWM resource was emailed to Holmdel Township School District staff in January as part of a Muslim Heritage Month promotion. Holmdel’s superintendent later apologized for sharing what some community members called “biased and anti-semitic information.” At South Orange–Maplewood School District in March, something similar happened: The superintendent had to apologize to the district after staff distributed a TWM leaflet that said the U.S. is “a co-conspirator with Israel, preventing Muslim Palestinians from partaking in Ramadan as the Israeli Zionist occupation enacts a genocide against them.” South Orange–Maplewood’s superintendent called the document “deeply problematic and inappropriate for schools.”
Also in New Jersey, a citizen went on record at a Livingston Public Schools board meeting in February to ask the district to “check with the Social Studies supervisor about a resource entitled Teaching While Muslim that she feels is unacceptable and promotes lies about Israel.” In February, TWM hosted a rally against Livingston Public Schools to demand that the district “cease weaponizing our schools in support of genocide. Keep the Pro-Israel lobby out. Protect our students from Islamophobia.”
TWM also hosted a virtual “curriculum share” for around 80 New York City and New Jersey educators in February, during which organizers discussed how to teach students about the “Israeli occupation.” The group’s teaching resources are included in the Abolitionist Teaching Network’s toolkit, which is promoted via the Coalition for Liberated Ethnic Studies in the Vermont State Board of Education’s State Ethnic Studies Standards Framework and in 17 California school districts, PDE found.
Instead of labeling as “terrorists” the Hamas members and others who stormed into Israel on October 7 to murder, rape, and burn Israeli civilians, TWM recommends that teachers “explore what the definition of terrorism is” and ask students questions such as, “Who gets to decide the definition? Who gets to apply it and use it?”
TWM’s “Talking about Palestine in the Classroom” resource borrows language from the Middle East Eye, a Qatari-supported news outlet with links to Hamas. The consulting organization also encourages teachers to educate themselves by reading news from Democracy Now, Middle East Eye, and Al Jazeera, all three of which are anti-Israel media outlets.
TWM also directs teachers to educational psychologists who are well poised to address supposed apartheid-induced trauma, such as “the rage doctor,” Jennifer Mullan, who criticizes “white lab rats” for trivializing trauma, because, she says, “Whiteness as an entity can afford therapy.” In a note posted on Instagram to her “fellow colonized therapists,” Mullan said that “the violent murders of our Black and Brown brothers and sisters feel traumatic. Are Eurocentric Therapy providers ready to unpack that truly complex Ancestral trauma?”
Educators should also use accurate language, TWM notes, and provides as an example: “There is an occupation, apartheid, genocide of the Palestinian people.”
Bedir hosted a “Ramadan Takeover” of TWM’s Instagram account on April 1. She detailed her day and teaching plan, which included teaching “international diplomacy students [to explore] the connections between the Congo, Gaza, Niger, and the U.S.,” adding that her students had already “explored the history of Palestine and the Congo in some depth.”
During the Instagram takeover, Bedir was asked how she talks to her students about “what is happening in the world right now.” She responded with slides from an AP psychology lecture she taught — slides on cognitive dissonance that explained how to “reconcile our beliefs and actions to take action against injustice.”
“Maybe people feel rage and despair about oppression in the world, but they don’t act to change it. They form the belief, ‘it’s not in my power’ or ‘I can’t do anything,’ then make peace with their positivity,” one slide read. “Maybe people watch genocide and feel guilt about continuing their daily activities like they did before. They tell themselves, ‘me changing my life won’t do anything because Palestine’s so far away.'”