{"id":59955,"date":"2025-12-03T19:21:05","date_gmt":"2025-12-03T19:21:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/59955\/"},"modified":"2025-12-03T19:21:05","modified_gmt":"2025-12-03T19:21:05","slug":"holocaust-survivor-calls-rejection-to-speak-at-nyc-middle-school-censorship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/59955\/","title":{"rendered":"Holocaust survivor calls rejection to speak at NYC middle school censorship"},"content":{"rendered":"

A pro-Israel Holocaust survivor who was turned away from speaking to Brooklyn middle schoolers<\/a> about antisemitism called the rejection \u201ccensorship\u201d and slammed the Adams administration for defending the principal\u2019s controversial denial.<\/p>\n

Sami Steigmann, 85, insisted that if principal Arin Rusch actually spoke to him, he would have been able to convince her that he would steer clear of hot-button Middle Eastern events \u2014 but he was never given a chance before being denied the opportunity to talk to kids at MS 447 in Boerum Hill. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cMy role is to educate the next generation about the Holocaust, about what hate can do. About the attempt to annihilate a group of people,\u201d he told The Post.<\/p>\n

\u201cI teach about preventing hate. How can you prevent hate if you don\u2019t talk about it?\u201d Holocaust survivor Sami Steigmann told The Post. Instagram \/samisteigmannspeaks<\/p>\n

\u201cI teach about preventing hate,\u201d he added. \u201cHow can you prevent hate if you don\u2019t talk about it?\u201d<\/p>\n

A parent initially wrote to Rusch about the possibility of welcoming Steigmann to the school last month to delve into combating antisemitism, which has been on the rise across the Big Apople and nation since Hamas\u2019 Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel.<\/p>\n

Steigmann was imprisoned in a Nazi labor camp as a young child between 1941 and 1944 with his family, subjected to starvation under brutal conditions.<\/p>\n

Rusch, however, shot down the suggestion to let Steigmann speak, claiming that his views would not be \u201cright for our public school setting, given his messages around Israel and Palestine,\u201d according to a Nov. 18 letter to the parent.<\/p>\n

While Steigmann readily acknowledged his strong pro-Israel, anti-Hamas stance in speeches, he said he never makes comments on the subject in school buildings.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do not talk about politics in school,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s not a forum to talk about politics.\u201d<\/p>\n

Steigmann talks about antisemitism at schools and other forums. Sami Steigmann<\/p>\n

\u201cShe didn\u2019t have the courtesy to call me,\u201d he added of Rusch, calling the rejection \u201ccensorship, absolutely.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Holocaust survivor has spoken with other students as young as elementary age \u2014 and even to members of the Church of Scientology, noting, \u201cI don\u2019t discriminate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Steigmann was even more stunned that Rusch\u2019s decision was defended by top school officials and the Adams administration. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhile this speaker wasn\u2019t the right fit, we will continue to ensure our students hear from the living survivors of this history into the future,\u201d a City Hall spokesperson said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat shocked me is that Mayor\u00a0Adams agreed [with the decision]. He doesn\u2019t know what he\u2019s talking about,\u201d Steigmann said. \u201cEverything is upside down.\u201d<\/p>\n

Adams defended the school\u2019s decision to reject Steigmann. Luiz C. Ribeiro for New York Post<\/p>\n

The mayor\u2019s office did not immediately return a request for comment Wednesday. <\/p>\n

City public schools have dealt with numerous controversies that have angered the Jewish community, including the Department of Education linking to a \u201cStop Gaza Genocide\u201d toolkit in a newsletter<\/a> and anti-Israel students targeting a Jewish teacher<\/a> at a Queens school two years ago.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A pro-Israel Holocaust survivor who was turned away from speaking to Brooklyn middle schoolers about antisemitism called the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":59956,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[3862,15608,98,100,99,4337,15400,57,32205,9,24,63,58],"class_list":["post-59955","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-antisemitism","tag-boerum-hill","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-department-of-education","tag-holocaust","tag-metro","tag-middle-schools","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59955","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59955"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59955\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59956"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59955"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}