“Silenced in the Classroom” : Colorlines
December, 2008
By Seth Wessler
Sixth-grade students at the newly opened Khalil Gibran International Academy in Brooklyn were probably surprised last year when they opened their Arabic books to find photographs cut from the pages. “We cut pictures of mosques out of the Arabic books,” said Hassan Omar, an Egyptian man who until last spring taught Arabic and humanities at the academy, the country’s first Arabic-English, dual-language public school. “We are afraid that anything could be taken out of context.”
“They should have fought back,” he [Rashid Khalidi] said, referring to the city [of New York]. “The only way to deal with these factions that tread in falsehood and intimidation is to push back as hard as possible.”
It was not exactly what teachers and the planning team had expected. The Khalil Gibran school was to have been a refuge in the midst of post-Sept. 11 New York City, a place where a mixed group of Arabic speakers and non-Arabic speakers would learn together. The school, which opened in 2007 with a sixth-grade class, was designed to grow into a middle and high school in the spirit of the more than 65 dual-language schools in New York City, which teach in Spanish, Creole, Russian and other languages. By graduation, it was expected that Khalil Gibran students would have a command of Arabic and an understanding of the cultural context in which the language exists.
But this past September, many of the original sixth-grade students had not returned as seventh graders. The school has cut back on Arabic language instruction, is no longer set to become a high school and has moved twice in its first year of operation. The founding principal, Debbie Almontaser, was forced to resign following a media storm over the meaning of the word “intifada,” and the school is being led by its third principal. None of the original teachers remain at the school, and those who have left claim they were fired or forced to leave because of the stress.
It came to this, critics say, because the school was targeted by a network of conservative organizations and their media outlets that have long been in the business of attacking educators with any perceived links to Palestine. In the words of Jeffrey Weisenfeld, one of the cohort’s most prominent speakers and a powerful trustee at the City University of New York, the school would have been a breeding ground for an Islamist “religious crusade” and anti-Israel extremism posing “a danger to the social fabric of the country.”
While the idea of sixth graders leading a religious crusade might sound ridiculous, the conservative groups succeeded in their attacks. Today, the school appears mired in an atmosphere of fear, tension and instability. Read more…
New York Times : “Complex Feelings in Brooklyn’s Mix”
October 5, 2008
By KAREEM FAHIM
Inside a friend’s office on Fifth Avenue in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, Zein Rimawi, a Palestinian-American store owner, said Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s bid to change the term limits law struck him as fundamentally unfair.
But for Mr. Rimawi, a controversy that accompanied the opening of the school [KGIA] only deepened mistrust of the mayor’s administration. He said that Mr. Bloomberg had not supported the school’s founding principal, Debbie Almontaser
“He supported it, and now he himself he wants to change it. God bless America,” Mr. Rimawi said. “I have been living here for 25 years, and I see the United States becoming like a country from the Middle East. Your freedom is taken little by little, justice is taken little by little, the middle class disappeared, and money is playing a very big role to determine who your representative is.”
Outside, Mr. Rimawi proudly pointed out the stretch of Fifth Avenue between 65th and 75th Streets, full of Arab-owned businesses: jewelers and law offices, supermarkets and dessert shops. And like members of Brooklyn’s other ethnic groups, like the Italians, the Greeks and the Jews, he gave credit to his people for restoring the neighborhood and keeping real estate prices high while driving the crime rate down.
But he said it felt as if there was a great distance between Bay Ridge’s Arab and Muslim community and the government run by Mr. Bloomberg. Arabs, among one of the fastest-growing groups in Bay Ridge’s multiethnic mix, felt ignored, he said. Read more…
Brooklyn Eagle : “Leader of Arab Women’s Group Honored at Borough Hall Dinner”
9-29-08
by Brooklyn Eagle
BROOKLYN — After being targeted by the media in an attempt to shut down New York’s first Arabic dual-language public school, and after a year of fighting the appropriation of their “Intifada NYC” T-shirt, Arab Women Active in the Arts and Media’s founding director Mona Eldahry was honored by Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz at an annual Ramadan event.
“Because of AWAAM, my daughter is comfortable speaking to adults and expressing herself in public,” says Naima Remmak.
Brooklyn Borough Hall’s 5th Annual Iftar dinner at Borough Hall Courtroom this past Wednesday honored a handful of Muslim community leaders during the holy month of Ramadan.
“Positive recognition from an elected official in this time of growing anti-Muslim and anti-Arab sentiment is an important gesture of affirmation and solidarity,” says AWAAM Media Mentor Roopa Singh. “With this citation, Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz and the Iftar Committee are sending a positive message to our embattled communities, the message that we should continue to strive for fair media coverage and equal access to education, public safety and civic institutions.” Read more..
The Indypendent : “City Pushes Arab-American School to the Brink”
September 12, 2008
Alex Kane
In the summer of 2007, Muhammed Fakir Shahada was looking for a New York City middle school for his daughter Serena, who was about to enter the sixth grade. After attending a fair for new middle schools that summer, Fakir, who wanted his 12-year-old daughter to learn Arabic, which most of his family speaks, settled on the Khalil Gibran International Academy (KGIA), the city’s first dual-language Arabic public school, then located in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn.
many parents “are already pulling our children out of the school or are thinking of not returning next year” and noting that discipline problems among students caused by a poor learning environment “continue to go unaddressed.”
By the end of the school year, Fakir regretted his decision. “I kept telling my kid that [the school year] was going to get better, but it got worse,” he says. A year later, Fakir has pulled his daughter from KGIA, and this September Serena began seventh grade at a different school.
Designed to be a beacon of multiculturalism, KGIA was surrounded by controversy from its inception (see below). Parents, students and educators say that inadequate classroom resources, an unresponsive school administration, lack of support from the New York City Department of Education (DOE) and teacher firings pushed the school to the brink of failure. Read more…
Brooklyn Eagle : “New Building, Same Old Controversy for Brooklyn Arabic School”
DOE Disputes Charges by Group Trying To Bring Back Ex-Principal
9/3/08
by Mary Frost
FORT GREENE — To say that the Arabic-themed Khalil Gibran International Academy (KGIA), a dual-language grade 6-12 public school in Brooklyn, had a bumpy first school year would be a massive understatement.
Founded with the aim of providing the city’s children with a foundation in Arabic language and culture, the little school and its students soon became a ping pong ball in a game played by forces beyond its control.
the Department of Education “reneged on its original commitment to continuing KGIA as a 6th to 12th grade program and has not made a commitment beyond grades 6 through 8.”
Attacks by conservative groups, multiple location changes accompanied by parent protests, the resignation of the founding principal, a continuing lawsuit, discipline problems and charges of inept handling by the city’s Department of Education (DOE) are just a few of the highlights of the school’s first year. Read more…
Same The Village Voice : “Time Next Year: Post Slams Arabic School with Recycled Source”
Posted by Roy Edroso
September 3, 2008
The New York Post reports that the Khalil Gibran International Academy isn’t doing so well. It has a total of just 90 students. Some might find this a welcome change from public school overcrowding, but the Post fault the previous “roller-coaster school year” and parents’ “discord with school Principal Holly Anne Reichert,” who took over after KGIA’s “former principal, Debbie Almontaser, resigned under pressure after failing to condemn ‘Intifada NYC’ T-shirts distributed by an organization with links to her.”
That controversy, readers may remember, was largely stirred by a massive Post press campaign against Almontaser.
The Post was kinder to Reichert when she began her term by blasting her predecessor, but later went after Reichert and the school, citing in January “a learning environment that some parents characterized as ‘chaotic,’” a charge with one named source, Muhammed Fakir, whose daughter Serena attended. A Post editorial repeated the parents-say-chaotic charge. Read more…
Press Release: Sept. 2
ON FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL, A REDUCED KHALIL GIBRAN FACES CHALLENGES:
Lack of Commitment by DOE, Complete Turnover of Founding Teachers and Questions of Leadership
NEW YORK — This week, New York City’s first dual language Arabic school, Khalil Gibran International Academy (KGIA), opens without its full Arabic language instruction, effective leadership, or any of its five original teachers or its social worker.
The Department of Education’s (DOE’s ) process of abandoning KGIA’s original mission
began last year when the Mayor, along with the Department of Education and New Visions for
Public Schools, a partner agency that develops small new schools, forced the founding
principal to resign from her position because of a racist anti-Arab smear campaign organized by right-wing interest groups.
Recently, the Department of Education reneged on its original commitment to continuing KGIA as a 6th – 12th grade program and has not made a commitment beyond grades 6 through 8. This change dramatically weakens the mission of the academy and makes it impossible for it to be a successful dual language program. The school’s plan had been structured around a rigorous 6th through 12th grade academic program encompassing cross cultural understanding and strong Arabic language skills.
The number of required hours of Arabic instruction has also been reduced significantly. The Department of Education recently cut the school’s Arabic language program from five to three days per week, removing a fundamental branch of the school’s curriculum. The language immersion program had originally been designed to provide daily Arabic instruction in order to equip students with fluency in a second language.
Although the school had been formerly situated near the Atlantic/Pacific train stop in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn, this Tuesday it will open at 50 Navy Street at the edge of Fort Greene, far from the borough’s Arab-American community and subway stations. The city decided to move the school without parent
consultation or involvement. Not until after the school year ended were KGIA parents finally able to
voice this and other concerns in a meeting with the DOE and New Visions, though their concerns were dismissed.
In a public letter sent by KGIA parents to the Mayor and Schools Chancellor, parents said the newly appointed principal to KGIA was not exhibiting leadership or commitment to the school’s mission and was excluding parents from the decision making process: “Under the current leadership, we have little faith that this will ever be the school we want for our children. We are calling on the Department of Education to provide our school with better resources and leadership to educate our children. We want the school we were promised—the one envisioned and created by founding principal Debbie Almontaser. Our children deserve no less than that,” the letter said.
Since May, all five of the school’s teachers and its social worker have left or been pushed out. The DOE has failed in providing support to the school, its staff or parents, creating an unstable learning environment for students.
Parents Withdraw Children
An inaccessible location for KGIA students paired with neglected parent concerns and little commitment to the school’s original vision and mission has led to many parents withdrawing their children from the program. In a statement made during the school year, Muhammed Shahadat, whose child went to KGIA this past year, said: ”One of the reasons I had sent my child to KGIA was because I wanted her to go to a school where parents had a voice. Before the school opened, we were told that parents would be welcome to visit their children’s classrooms.” However, parents were not allowed into classrooms, and at least one parent who spoke out about issues within the school was prohibited by security from entering the facility.
KGIA opened last September with its founding principal Debbie Almontaser pushed out of the picture. The DOE forced Ms. Almontaser to resign after a series of religious and ethnically-charged attacks by right wing fringe groups and the New York Post. The school has since undergone two replacement principals, neither of whom are closely involved with the communities they are serving.
Following Ms. Almontaser’s forced resignation, the school underwent a principal selection process that excluded Almontaser and two other qualified Arab-American candidates from interviewing for the position.
What has happened at KGIA is a clear example of the impact that Mayoral control of NYC schools has had in marginalizing parents, educators and community members from decision-making that affects their children.
Since Ms. Almontaser was ousted, a coalition of Brooklyn and Manhattan-based organizations formed in response to the DOE’s biased policies. “The DOE and its partners at New Visions may have expected that people would be outraged for a short time and that everything would go back to normal. But with this kind of injustice, it’s essential to continue demanding accountability,” said Adem Carroll, a member of the Muslim Consultative Network, one of the sponsoring groups of the Coalition in Support of KGIA. Hundreds of signatures have been gathered on several petitions defending the school and the former Principal (see www.kgia.wordpress.com).
Along with Mr. Carroll’s organization, members of the coalition include Brooklyn for Peace, Center for Immigrant Families, Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, Greater New York Labor-Religion Coalition and Arab Women Active in the Arts and Media, along with many parents, teachers and community members.
—— - ——— ———
“For those of us working in the field of education, the treatment of Debbie Almontaser represents a threat not only to our rights as educators and citizens in a democratic society; it is also an attack on the small-schools movement and on the push for diversity and equity within our system of public education. Will bigotry be allowed to decide which public schools can exist and who can lead them?”
(Letter to Mayor and Chancellor signed by leading educators across the country, including Lisa Delpit, Michelle Fine, Maxine Greene, Paula Hajar, Susan Klonsky, Mike Klonsky, Carol Lee, Deborah Meier, Pedro Noguera and many others.)
# # #
“Cultivating Arab Culture” : The National
8/3/08
Lee Bailey
Chestnut Hill is one of Philadelphia’s most genteel neighbourhoods, a beautifully shaded, hushed bastion of the oldest of the city’s old guard. Just past the manicured grass tennis courts of the Philadelphia Cricket Club, founded in 1854, is Chestnut Hill Academy, an all-boys school founded in 1851. A little further down the road is the academy’s sister establishment, the all-girls Springside School, founded in 1879.
But for all its blue-blooded tradition, a wind of change is rustling through this leafy enclave. In recent summers, Springside has played host to a very different sort of institution, founded in 2002: it’s a camp called Al Bustan, and its mission is to teach children and teenagers the fundamentals of Arab culture using the arts.
The camp’s umbrella organisation, a non-profit also called Al Bustan, contracts with some Philadelphia public schools …It is this kind of overlap with state education that has ignited controversy elsewhere in the US. New York City’s publicly-funded Khalil Gibran International Academy has become a lightning rod for controversy.
During the past three weeks, 55 children aged six to 16 have come every weekday to Springside to participate in Al Bustan (“the garden” in Arabic). A tour of the building can be an assault on the ears, but a pleasant one: a chorus of children counting aloud in Arabic gives way to the giggling of teenagers shooting a video dispelling ethnic stereotypes, their chatter then drowned out by the impressive thunder of traditional Arab drumming. Embroidery stitched by tiny hands adorns the hallways, and everyday objects ranging from blackboards to toilets are colourfully labelled in both English and Arabic. Read more…
James Zogby Interviews Debbie Almontaser
6/26/08
Up next is going to be Debbie Almontaser, former principal of New York City’s first Arabic public school and the controversy that is surrounding that school.
Thank you for being with us.
We’ll be right back with Debbie Almontaser.
JZ: Welcome back, I’m Jim Zogby, my next guest is Debbie Almontaser, she’s the former principal of the Khalil Gibran International Academy, New York City’s first public school dedicated to the study of the Arabic language and culture.
17-year veteran of the New York City public school system known as a bridge builder among Muslims, Christians and Jews in New York City.
Currently serves as director of special projects in the New York City Department of Education.
She was forced to step down as principal of the Gibran Academy last August.
I want to tell that story and get her reaction to it but she’s joining us now live from our studio in New York.
Thank you so much for being with us, Debbie.
DA: Thank you, James.
JZ: The idea was hatched about three years ago and then about a year and a half ago the Department of Education approved it.
And at that point things began to fall apart almost rather quickly.
Daniel Pipes and The New York Sun and “The New York Post” took on this issue and created a bit of hysteria.
It was ìMadrasa comes to Brooklynî and all the rest of it.
You were forced to resign and take another post and the school opened be another principal who didn’t even speak Arabic and it has not gone well, the “New York Times” did a rather excellent piece describing the fact that the school under the new leadership didn’t come off as one might have hoped, as you might have hoped it would have come off.
So now there’s a sort of re-examination of the whole thing.
To see a dream become a nightmare.
Talk to us a little about what it’s been like for you personally to go through this?
DA: Well, Jim, as an educator and Arab-American leader in New York City, someone whose spent a great deal of time building bridges between diverse communities and really dedicating my life to the public school systems as an educator.
You know, to have something like this happen was deeply disturbing.
As well as disappointing.
Being that so many people know who I am and what I represent, the fact that I am a mother of a national reservist who served at ground zero for six months.
The fact that I have a large number of family members who have served in the military, five of my nephews have all been deployed to Iraq.
Several other members of my family who are in the New York police department.
All of this information never made it into any of the inform ation that was spun out there about this school.
And to see myself, you know, turned into this caricature that did not resemble who I am and what I stood for was deeply, deeply disturbing and sad because this is not what America is about.
It’s about encouraging and celebrating the efforts of many people of different faiths and traditions and cultures to come to this country and to carve out something called the American dream.
JZ: I’ve dealt with the cast of characters that you’re dealing with now for many years, and I was stunned when I saw the statements that they made about you personally, and about the school.
As just horrifying and bigoted, on face value bigoted.
I was struck by that.
One of the comments that Daniel Pipes made was the very teaching of Arabic, learning Arabic implies learning a Pan-Arab and Pan-Islamist mindset that you couldn’t do it without inculcating these kinds of extremist values and he at one point described
something about the biggest danger is not the extremist Muslims, it’s the moderate Muslims like you because you’re subverting the society in a gentle way.
A gentle kind of subversion.
Were there people in leadership roles who understood that this was just patent bigotry, and not anything more sophisticated than that — bigotry, not anything more?
DA: From the very start when this school was approved in February of 2006, um 2007, I’m sorry.
The support was incredible.
Th e Department of Education, the mayor’s office was incredibly supportive.
And felt New York City would benefit from such a school being in this city, Unfortunately, they were not prepared for such heinous attacks on the school as well as on me, the individual.
And so as much as they tried to stand up to some of these claims on Fox news and what have you, it was not enough.
But the support was there from all different communities, the Jewish community, the Christian community.
People within the academic world, people I’ve worked with for many years who saw the significance and relevance of such a school especially because the school’s mission was to develop global citizens who would become bridge builders and ambassadors of peace and hope.
JZ: Let’s get callers out there in the conversation; the numbers will be up onscreen.
JZ: There was one episode in particular that got blown up into something really quite large.
We’ll call it the T-shirt episode.
It reminded me of the Kevin bacon the six degrees of separation story.
Somebody had seen it at an Arab festival wearing a T-shirt that said ìIntifada, New York City,î it turned out that T-shirt was distributed by an art collector who had an office part-time in a Yemeni-American center that it turned out you were one of the board members of, and you got all tied up into that and the quote that was taken from you when asked what the word intifada means you defined what20the word meant and “The New York Post” ran with that.
Describe what I left out in that story and what was done with it, pretty difficult situation.
I remember the headline in “The New York Post.”
DA: Well, the Arab organization that you mention is a youth empowerment organization for girls, serving inner city youth, and they were using a space in an organization which I sat on the board to run a summer youth program.
This organization is providing, you know, a resource that is void within the Arab and Muslim communities as well as with the broader communities, teaching young women how to use the arts and media to tell their own stories and have a voice.
What happened was as you described, this T-shirt was at the Arab heritage park festival which they found out about this festival by the intensive research that they did on me as an individual and found out that I was the one who spearheaded Arab Heritage Week, and its inauguration here in New York City in 2005.
So they found out about the event, took a picture of this T-shirt, did their research, and made this tenuous connection that I had something to do with it and should be forced out of the position being that I endorsed such a T-shirt.
The press release was put out there, and the media called the Department of Education, they called me, and I simply said to them this T-shirt and its organization have nothing to do with me or this school.
And therefore, there ’s really no story here to tell.
I am a principal of this school.
I sit on a board of an organization as many other principals do; this does not have anything to do with my role as principal.
And from that point on “The New York Post” insisted on an interview. The original agreement was to put together a statement, he sent over the questions.
I answered them, the Department of Education press office was supposed to develop it into a statement.
Time ran out.
And at 4:30 they called me, the press office of the department and said you have to do this interview.
It’s in your best interest to do the interview.
He’s running out of time, and you must do it.
It’s either you or he’s going to print what was in the press release.
And I made it very clear that “The New York Post” does not have my interest or the school’s interest, based on their anti-Arab anti-Muslim sentiment that has continued for years.
So the interview took place, he asked me about the organization and the T-shirt and I simply said to him the organization and its T-shirt have nothing to do with the school or me as the principal, therefore there’s really nothing to talk about.
Moving forward into the discussion, he asked me for the root word of the word intifada and I simply said to him, you know, as a reporter, you should have been doing your homework and his response was, I did and I came up with many definitions but I was not able to locate the root word of the word intifada.
While I was on the phone with him there was a press person from the Department of Education on the phone with me who did not jump in and say Debbie, you don’t have to respond to this or this is an unfair question.
And therefore, as an educator I simply responded by saying to him the root word is ìshake offî however, you have to understand this word as evolved and developed different means for different mention for different people based to be Palestinians-Israeli conflict where thousands of people have been killed, for many people this word has developed a negative connotation. Moving forward in the interview he then said ìwell we have reason to believe that these young women are training for Gaza-style uprising in New York City.î
[laughter]
And as an educator as a mother, seeing these young women being vilified who don’t have the opportunity to go away to camp or be put into these prestigious summer camps, this was a way for them to utilize their time and learn something, and for him to vilify them was something that I simply as an educator and a mother could not see happen and I simply said to him I don’t believe these girls are going to be engaging in any violent act.
They are just, you know, in a summer program finding their voice through the arts and media, nothing more, nothing less, and we went on to respond to other questions about the school.
The next day he portrayed me as defending the T-shirt and the girlsí actions in creating the T-shirt.
And he made it seem that I minimized the historical context of the word intifada, and as you can see from my balanced response to him, and knowing full well when I responded that had I wanted to make sure that I maintained neutrality and not plunge myself
into the political arena, by simply giving the root word and further explaining how this word has evolved and means different things for different people —
JZ: And from there it became a terror school and you became a supporter of terrorism and that’s what led to your forced resignation.
Listen, we’re running out of time but I’m so glad you had a chance to talk us through the whole story.
We’re not going to be able to get into any calls but I did want to have you do exactly what you did, which was sort of talk to our international viewers and our local viewers here about what happened.
Tell me just right now quickly because we have little time, are you getting support from the city, is Mayor Bloomberg supporting you because I know you’d worked on a commission with him?
Are you getting support from the city at all?
DA: Absolutely not.
Not from Mayor Bloomberg, in fact Mayor Bloomberg, it was his directive to have me removed, but I am getting extensive support from the broader New York City public, rabbis, ministers, community leaders from differen t communities have come together
and coalesced and formed a group called ìCommunities in Support of the Khalil Gibran International Academy and Debbie Almontaserî who put up this elaborate website that has information outlining everything that’s happened from the beginning to the present.
www.kgia.wordpress.com.
JZ: Thank you, so much, Debbie, we’re out of time, sorry for the callers, but I really wanted to have you have a chance to hear this story.
My thanks to Dennis Kucinich, George Abed, and Debbie Almontaser and see you next week on “Viewpoint.”
LETTER TO MAYOR REQUESTING MEETING FROM COMMUNITY LEADERS, KGIA PARENTS, AND CONCERNED INDIVIDUALS
May 6, 2008
The group of community leaders and concerned individuals below wrote and asked to meet with the Mayor, but he (his office) turned them down. Rabbi Matalon wrote on behalf of the group twice more but they still said no. They said it was because of the lawsuit; however, the Mayor regularly talks about things he’s being sued about.
Dear Mayor Bloomberg,
As members of the religious, higher education, and K–12 communities of New York City, we request a meeting with you to discuss the current status of Debbie Almontaser, the founding principal of the Khalil Gibran International Academy, and the growing threat to democratic education imposed by a small group who make the hateful and unfounded claim that “radical Islam” is being promoted in the school system
There is a general consensus among fair-minded New Yorkers, confirmed by this past week’s article in the New York Times, that Ms. Almontaser was the victim of a campaign of religious and ethnic bigotry that threatens the integrity, diversity, and democracy of public education K – 12. The impact has gone well beyond the wrong that was done to Ms. Almontaser. New York City’s public education system is recognized nationally and internationally for our commitments to pluralism, the small schools movement, and our rich history of dual language programs.
The episode has sent a chill through the small school movement and dual language programs, both of which, as you know, are such a vital part of our City’s public school system, and has dangerously circumscribed the range of acceptable discussion, debate and even hirings in our colleges and universities. In the City at large, the attacks on Ms. Almontaser and KGIA have re-ignited the forces of hate and intolerance, censorship and intimidation that have afflicted not only the Arab and Muslim communities since 9/11, but the Jewish communities, the world of higher education, and public K – 12 educators.
We would like to meet with you to enlist your help not only in rectifying the grave injustice done to Ms. Almontaser, but to also address these other critical issues affecting all New Yorkers.
We look forward to hearing from you.
Sincerely,
Imam Shamsi Ali, Islamic Cultural Center of New York
Professor Louis Cristillo, Teachers College, Columbia University
Professor Michelle Fine, The Graduate Center–City University of New York
Professor Ofelia Garcia, Teachers College, Columbia University
Dr. Paula Hajar, educator
Deborah Howard, consultant and member, KGIA Design Team
Rabbi Rolando Matalon, Congregation B’nai Jeshurun
Professor Deborah Meier, Steinhardt School of Education, New York University
Pomposa Pena, PTA president, Khalil Gibran International Academy
Muhammed Shahadat, parent, Khalil Gibran International Academy
Rabbi Burton L. Visotzky, Jewish Theological Seminary
*affiliations for identification purposes
Please respond to:
Rabbi Rolando Matalon
212-787-7600 ext 234
