Holocaust Survivor Non Grata

Rejection of 85-year-old “motivational speaker” reveals a stark shift in attitudes toward Jews in NYC public schools.

Sami Steigmann wasn’t angry or upset when a Brooklyn middle school principal rejected a request that he speak to students about living through the Holocaust.

“I was elated,” he said in his thick Israeli accent, almost giddy.

“Hopefully, this will go viral, not only nationally, but internationally. We have to teach a whole new generation not to hate.”

The 85-year–old is media savvy. MS 447 Principal Arin Rusch’s snub of Steigmann, first reported in the New York Post, has gone global – from Yahoo!News to The Times of Israel and Jerusalem Post.

Mayor Eric Adams immediately denounced the principal’s decision. On Monday, Steigmann got word via City Council member Inna Vernikov that the Department of Education would invite him to speak after all, but it has not yet set a date.

Besides a couple local TV spots, however, mainstream news outlets, including the New York Times, have largely ignored the brouhaha, and Steigmann’s rejection stirred outrage mainly in the Jewish media..

The lackluster interest exposes a seismic shift in attitude toward Jewish people and causes since Oct. 7, 2023, after the terror attacks in Israel, the mounting civilian death toll in Gaza, accusations of genocide, and the rise of pro-Palestinian protests.

“Since October 7, it has become socially acceptable to hate Jews, and in certain districts in the Department of Education, tacitly encouraged,” a high school teacher confided. “Jewish students and staff have been dealing with harassment and open hostility for almost two years.”

Little wonder that Steigmann became persona non grata in a NYC public school.

The New Yorker tells audiences he lived with his parents in a labor camp in Ukraine from 1941 to 1944, at ages 1-1/2 to 4, and was subjected to Nazi medical experiments which caused lifelong physical pain. He recounts how a German woman fed his starving family, risking her life to save theirs. He later served in the Israel Defense Forces.

“I talk about my experiences. I give advice. I motivate them to be the best they can be. I teach them that the Holocaust happened because the world did nothing, and things kept escalating. So I want to empower them to become up-standers. Knowledge without action doesn’t mean anything.”

Karen Feldman, a former social-studies teacher and Holocaust educator at Robert F. Wagner Middle School in Manhattan, brought Steigmann in as a guest speaker at least twice – and never needed a principal’s or DOE approval, she said. But that was more than a decade ago.

“He was sweet. He tried to be funny. He tried to be very upbeat about such a complex and depressing story, and he understood that kids need positive motivation.”

Steigmann’s invitations to speak in NYC public schools have fallen sharply since the start of the Israel-Hamas war.

In recent years, he has made controversial statements in the media, such as equating opposition to Israel and Zionism with antisemitism.

Vehement critics of Israel and its bombing in Gaza – widely blasted as genocide – might take offense at Steigmann’s website, which features a PowerPoint with an Israeli flag as the backdrop on slides. It defines Zionism as the “right of Jewish people to feel safe and secure in their homeland” and “a social justice movement.”

“In every generation, they try to annihilate us. We prevailed. What’s happening in Israel, we will prevail,” he says.

Steigmann has not hidden his disdain for Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, a Democratic socialist who vows to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Natanyahu if he visits New York because the International Criminal Court has charged him with war crimes.

“Mamdani, you do not deserve to be mayor of New York City,” Steigmann says in a video posted on Instagram by an Israel supporter. “You are also anti-Jew, a Jew-hater, because you have decided not to condemn global intifada. That is not freedom of speech – that is incitement!”

Steigmann, when shown the video, stood by his statement: “Global intifada is against every Jew worldwide. I am right to call him a Jew hater,” he said.

“But I didn’t say that in schools.”

Steigann hopes Mamdani will reverse his refusal to denounce the phrase “globalize the intifada,” saying it reflects “a desperate desire for equality in standing up for Palestinian human rights,” not a battlecry for violence. He promises as mayor to “protect Jewish New Yorkers.”

Steigmann insists he won’t talk politics with students, and that he would follow a principal’s directions on what to avoid. However, Rusch, the MS 447 principal, never called him.

NYC public schools have seen a surge of pro-Palestinian student walkouts, rallies and hateful incidents in the last two years.

At Hillcrest High School in Queens, a Jewish teacher hid in an office while 400 students rioted through the halls calling for her ouster. At Origins High School in Brooklyn, a teacher and dean complained of kids giving the Hitler salute and boasting they loved the German dictator.

Holocaust survivors “can really help build empathy and counter antisemitism,” Rusch wrote a parent who suggested that Steigmann speak at MS 447. The principal deemed him unacceptable.

“I don’t think Sami’s presentation is right for our public school setting, given his messages around Israel and Palestine,” Rusch emailed the parent.

Yet other political messages make it into the MS 447 curriculum. The school offers an “Art for Social Change” class featuring illustrations by Mamdani’s wife Rama Duwaji, a Syrian-American artist. One image in the curriculum shows grim-faced protesters arm in arm, the women in a kefiyah and checkered scarf symbolic of Palestinian pride.

The class also focuses on “social justice art” from the suffragette movement, the Black Panthers, the 1960s anti-war protests, and Black Lives Matter.

Adams blasted his own press office for “prematurely” issuing a statement supporting the principal’s decision, and endorsed Steigmann: “He is ABSOLUTELY the right person to speak with kids about the atrocities of the Holocaust.”

Schools Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos posted on X: “While our school leaders are empowered to select guest speakers most appropriate for their students, I want to acknowledge and sincerely apologize for the hurt caused by this recent decision at MS 447.”

“We are committed to repairing that harm,” Rafael Alvarez, the local superintendent, said in a letter to the community. In a phone call to Steigmann, “we agreed to partner together on an educational opportunity for students in our public school system.”

The school also arranged visits to the Museum of Jewish Heritage, which has exhibits on the Holocaust, and the Jewish Children’s Museum “as a starting point,” Alvarez wrote.

Ever the optimist, Steigmann is joyful about the olive branch extended by DOE officials, although they haven’t yet set a date for him to address students.

“We won!” he declared. “It’s a great victory for the Jewish people.”