Paulette Yousefzadeh Greenfield remembers, almost too well, the afternoon of April 24, 2024. She received a text from her son Shai Greenfield, then a seventh-grader at Campus Middle School.
“It said,” she recalled, “‘Mom, you’ll never guess who they picked for Arab American Heritage Month.’”
Over the school’s public address system, Shai heard that US Representative Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) was being honored by his school.
“My first thought was, she’s Somali,” said Yousefzadeh Greenfield. “Why would they pick her?
“Then I got more and more angry thinking about who she is, what she stands for, what she has said and done.”
Omar has been vocal in her opposition to Israel and has spewed anti-Semitic sentiment, especially after the darkness of Oct. 7, 2023. Many of Omar’s remarks have been cited in House of Representatives resolutions, including one on May 7, 2024 that called for Omar’s censure.
After the Hamas attack, Omar said Israel’s military response was “an act of terrorism.”
On April 26, 2024, while visiting Columbia University’s anti-Israel encampments, Omar referred to Jewish students as “pro-genocide.”
In 2021, long before the war in Gaza, Omar compared Israel and the US to Hamas and the Taliban, tweeting, “We have seen unthinkable atrocities committed by the US, Hamas, Israel, Afghanistan and the Taliban.”
In 2019, Omar suggested that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) was trying to buy political influence by saying “It’s all about the Benjamins, baby.” This was at a time when AIPAC did not contribute to political campaigns.
In 2012, Omar tweeted: “Israel has hypnotized the world, may Allah awaken the people and help them see the evil doings of Israel.”
Yousefzadeh Greenfield’s blood boiled. She wrote a lengthy letter to Campus Middle School principal Lissa Staal, CCSD superintendent Chris Smith and assistant superintendent La Toyua Tolbert.
“I feel that selecting Ilhan Omar was, albeit likely unwittingly, an attempt to normalize Islamosupremacist JewHatred and Israelophobia,” the letter read.
The letter continued: “Which other JewHating, anti-American terrorist supporting, anti-Semitic blood libel propagandists does the school have on its list for hosannas and praise this month?”
Principal Staal responded to Yousefzadeh Greenfield, saying she did not have a part in selecting Omar in connection with Arab American Heritage Month. Staal suggested a meeting in person. Yousefzadeh Greenfield had members accompany her who are part of an anti-Semitism task force at Cherry Creek Schools.
“Looking back now, she (Staal) believes that the process of selection needs to be improved,” says Yousefzadeh Greenfield, “so that this sort of thing doesn’t happen again.
“She made a point to say, ‘I don’t even support Ilhan Omar.’”
Still, the damage was done, another in the long list of anti-Semitic episodes in the Cherry Creek School District, many of which were first revealed during public board of education meetings in May, 2023 (IJN reported). One month later, the district committed to an implementation of the anti-Semitic task force.
“I think they’re (the district) not fully aware (of the anti-Semitic issues in the district),” says Yousefzadeh Greenfield. “I think they want to do better if for no other reason than to improve their image. I think they show some willingness to hear our side.
“I think what’s really important to drive home is that anti-Semitism is like a virus and viruses mutate,” says Yousefzadeh Greenfield, a former research associate at the Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy at Columbia University, “and the latest iteration of anti-Semitism is on the nation state level, which is Israelphobia.
“Anti-Semites believe they can get away with their anti-Semitism by using the word Zionist. You know, when someone says ‘I don’t have a problem with Jews, just Zionists.’”
In the meantime, Yousefzadeh Greenfield worries about protecting son Shai — and others — from prevailing undertones at Campus Middle School and the Cherry Creek District.
According to Yousefzadeh Greenfield, Shai said that sometimes on his walk to school — and this was in sixth grade — there were kids he believed had an Arab background of Muslim faith whom he heard, bragging about beating up a Jewish kid.
“It’s a tough age, and a tough stage,” she says. “He’s also trying to go through it by empowering himself and by being his own advocate.”
Eighth grade has already begun at Campus Middle School. One more year, and Shai will head to Cherry Creek High School, which has been a relative incubator for anti-Semitic actions.
In 2023, Rikki Mor, parent of then-Cherry Creek High School student Tali Mor, addressed the district board, saying: “What would you do if your child’s classmate sent them a snapchat video that showed a swastika? Kids are throwing pennies on the floor and telling the Jews to pick them up. Students are yelling at the kids, saying, ‘Kanye was right,’ and that ‘Hitler did not do a good enough job.’”
Parents like Yousefzadeh Greenfield and so many others are holding their collective breath, hoping that the 2024-25 school year will be different.
“We’ll just see how eighth grade goes and how he feels about high school, and then hopefully we can talk to other parents and get a sense of where we are with things,” says Yousefzadeh Greenfield, who, with husband Jason Greenfield, has two other kids along with Shai, ages 11 and 9.
“We’ll go to a few of these task force meetings and see how receptive the staff is.
“I hope I’m doing the right things,” says Yousefzadeh Greenfield, 47, who has lived in the Denver area for six years, after living in New York, Colleyville, Texas, and Chicago, where she grew up.
“That’s just what I wish for and pray for — the wisdom to know what the next step is.”
Yousefzadeh Greenfield has a family history in Middle East strife. Her parents, Flora and David Yousefzadeh, were born in Iran. David attended medical school at the University of Teheran.
The couple emigrated to the US in 1970 prior to the Islamic coup in 1979.
Flora’s family fled Iran, like much of the Jewish population there did, after Ruhollah Khomeini seized power.
“I just think it’s really important for Jews to listen to one another, including to the voices of the Jews of the Middle East who can talk about what life is like under Islamic rule,” says Yousefzadeh Greenfield. “And what a ‘Free Palestine,’ quote, unquote, would look like, looking at Oct. 7 as a dress rehearsal.”
© IJN 2024