The president of the Chicago School Board apologizes for Facebook posts criticized as anti-Semitic

UPDATE: CPS BOARD CHAIRMAN RESIGNES

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

Johnson said he would not resign, as 26 city councilors had called on him to do, but said he was “deeply sorry that I was not more precise and deliberate in my comments.” He acknowledged that some of the posts he shared “could be construed as anti-Semitic.”

“Let me begin by apologizing to the Jewish community for the comments I posted 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 that has helped me be more thoughtful in addressing these sensitive topics.”

A review of Johnson's Facebook account found that from October 2023 until several months ago, he frequently made pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel posts on social media, many of which referred to Jewish people in hostile and inflammatory ways.

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

According to Israeli authorities, 1,200 people were killed in Hamas' attack on Israel in October 2023.

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

Ald. Debra Silverstein (50th), the City Council's only Jewish member and a vocal supporter of Israel, said the school board president's posts “call into question his ability to fairly represent Jewish students and families in Chicago Public Schools.”

“We are deeply disturbed by the anti-Semitic and pro-Hamas statements made by Rev. Mitchell Ikenna Johnson,” said a letter signed by 26 councilors calling on him to apologize and resign. “This situation is a failure of leadership and judgment by Mayor (Brandon) Johnson and his leadership team.

“(Rev. Johnson's) comments crossed major red lines toward overt anti-Semitism, both in his explicit support of Hamas and his insistence on holding all Jews collectively responsible for Israel's military actions,” they said.

Gov. JB Pritzker questioned at a separate news conference Wednesday how closely Rev. Johnson was vetted before taking the helm of the school board.

“If you are asking whether I approve of the comments made, I do not, and I must say that to the extent that someone is proposed for a position, particularly a position as important as the presidency of the Chicago Schools, In my opinion a review is vital. That doesn’t seem to have happened here.”

The American Jewish Committee Chicago and the Anti-Defamation League Midwest, two pro-Israel organizations, said Wednesday that Rev. Johnson should resign as board chairman. The same was true for the Consulate General of Israel in the Midwest.

The appointment of Johnson, who is not related, as mayor was already under consideration after the previous Board of Education — including by some of the same city councilors resigned en masse this month, an embarrassment for the mayor amid a dispute with CPS CEO Pedro Martinez over the school system's budget woes.

The new CEO was confronted with questions about his delinquent child support payments and his legal disqualification almost 30 years ago.

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

Johnson, the board chairman, said he has been working with Jewish communities to combat anti-Semitism for years. Johnson said, “As board chair, I am committed to ensuring that hate of any kind has no place in the Chicago Public Schools.”

“I don’t think we can have conversations about difficult issues at a time like this without being insensitive,” he said.

Johnson also reiterated his support for the Palestinians, saying: “The way the Palestinian community has been treated is abysmal.”

“I would agree on two different things. First, Hamas' actions on October 7 were unforgivable. I also agree that the actions of an army that unjustifiably kills civilians are at odds with those of us who have objectively fought for justice.”

Rev. Johnson had previously supported Israel on social media and said he still supported its right to exist. After the mass shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018, he linked the “fight and crimes against humanity committed against people of African descent” to the massacres of Jews in the Holocaust.

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

Johnson on Wednesday also referred to the murder of three Jewish students fighting 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 nurtured,” he said.

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

“How can a group of people who suffered from the Holocaust; “Will you join the Alt Right community today?” Johnson wrote last December.

“The ideology of the Nazi Germans was adopted by the Zionist Jews,” he wrote in February. “The Israeli government is offering a renewal of Nazi language once directed against European Jews, 'savages, dogs, vermin,'” he added in March. Most of these posts appear to have now been deleted.

Senior Israeli government officials have routinely used inflammatory language over the past year, calling Palestinians “human animals,” “savages” and “children of darkness.”

In a December 2023 post, Johnson published a video by author and journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates in which he recounted his experiences visiting the occupied Palestinian territories and what he described as apartheid Israeli government. Johnson commented: “I suspect my Jewish friends, or perhaps 'former' friends, will refute this post. I cannot support Israel until it gives in and gives up (its) apartheid regime.”

Rev. Johnson wrote on New Year's Eve: “Let us enter 2024 with a commitment to change the narrative and compel, even compel, Israel to make (atonement) for its shameful attempt at genocide against the (Palestinian) people.”

In March, he posted that his “heart breaks even more when I think of the people I work with and consider to be my friends in the fight against anti-Semitism, who today not only defend Israel's ongoing genocides, but also defend me.” “I said to my face.” I was ridiculous.”

Many countries accuse Israel of genocide and have taken the case to the International Court of Justice, which has found plausible evidence to support their case.

The United States and Israel have denied that the war in Gaza is a genocide. In addition, some of the world's leading human rights organizations have stated that Israel operates a supremacist apartheid regime in the Palestinian territories, but Israel and its allies reject this characterization.

Rev. Johnson also painted Jews with a broad brush at times, asking, “How long will the Jewish people of America tolerate these crimes?”

That 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!!!”

He admitted last year that his comments could be met with criticism. But he wrote in one post: “I am not an anti-Semite. I am against injustice.”