Several Lexington Public School families were upset about a presentation on antisemitism that was given at Diamond Middle School on May 11 and 12. In response to their concerns, the district sent an email to students, apologizing for how the presentation made some of them feel.
But viral posts on X, Fox News, and elsewhere turned the local incident into a national story — without essential context and factchecking. LexObserver spoke to the school principal, superintendent, parents, and others to understand what really happened.
The district hired TribeTalk, a Newton, MA-based nonprofit that offers schools lessons on antisemitism, to give seventh graders a presentation. The talk was in response to a recent incident in which hateful graffiti was found in a school bathroom, and was presented around the same time students concluded a social studies unit on genocide and the Holocaust. The talk focused on antisemitism, not the Holocaust as social media posts suggested.
After the presentation, some students came home from school feeling confused about whether it is antisemitic to say things like “free Palestine” or criticize the Israeli government. Those takeaways made their parents concerned about the nature of the presentation.
“When we began hearing from students about the outside group’s discussion and workshop, it became clear that the school’s intended outcome (helping students recognize and stand up against antisemitism) was not the outcome produced for at least some students,” Andrew Harris, an LPS parent who was concerned about the presentation, told the Observer.
Johnny Cole, the principal of Diamond, started talking to school leadership about having a discussion about antisemitism in March, a few months after antisemitic graffiti was found in a school bathroom.
An LPS staff member who belongs to the district’s Jewish affinity group suggested Cole and Jane Hundley, LPS’s social studies curriculum coordinator, consider tapping TribeTalk to give a presentation. Hundley, Cole, and Diamond’s four seventh-grade social studies teachers met with TribeTalk to create a presentation they all agreed was appropriate. They suggested many edits, including asking for a “broader definition and explanation of the swastika,” Hundley said, because many Diamond students practice Dharmic faiths such as Hinduism where the ancient symbol has a different meaning.
“TribeTalk incorporated all of our feedback, I felt like they were really flexible and good listeners,” Hundley said.
Cole let Diamond families know the presentation was going to happen in three of his weekly “DRUM beat” newsletters — on April 10, April 17, and May 8.
LexObserver asked both the school and TribeTalk for a copy of the presentation but did not receive it. Cole told LexObserver the district does not have a copy, and TribeTalk did not reply to the Observer’s request. LexObserver did obtain a summary of the presentation from Cole.
As part of TribeTalk’s event, students, in small groups, discussed a scenario where a girl posted a picture of a challah (bread eaten by Jews on the sabbath) on Instagram and captioned the post saying she used her grandmother’s recipe. Another person commented on her post, “Looks good I guess, but…#FreePalestine.”
The point of that scenario was to explain that using “free Palestine” — in that context — is antisemitic, Cole explained to the Observer.
“I sat with a couple of student groups that looked at that scenario and it was really awesome hearing them say, ‘you know, by itself, free Palestine isn’t antisemitic but since she’s talking about being Jewish, she’s not talking about Israel, and that’s the response, that does seem kind of antisemitic,’” Cole recalled.
Students filled out cards after the presentation to share what they learned and give feedback. Most had positive reviews. Some students asked for there to be more Palestine-related content. Teachers also had a debrief discussion with students after the presentation. No red flags were raised then, Hundley said.
But, as Kathleen Lenihan, a member of the School Committee pointed out, students aren’t always fully honest about their feelings in school.
“We’re talking about seventh graders, and they don’t necessarily want to look like they’re upset in school, they want to look like, ‘I’m cool, I’m holding it together,’ and then they get home and then it all comes out,” she said.
A few days after the presentation, Cole and LPS Superintendent Julie Hackett heard from 12 concerned parents.
“There were several families whose students felt really harmed by the presentation because they didn’t feel that their perspective, family background, and history was seen,” Cole said. “We have several students who have family in the Middle East who are worried their parents aren’t going to be able to come home, they may not survive what’s happening over there.”
Some parents were worried TribeTalk’s presentation could have been politically motivated, because the group sent students home with Blue Square Alliance stickers after the talk. The Blue Square Alliance was founded by Robert Kraft, the owner of the New England Patriots, an outspoken supporter of Israel.
“If there’s a conflation of these things, I’m worried it will make more people have resentment and associate Judaism with the actions of a military,” Harris explained.
The district gave feedback about the Blue Square Alliance stickers to TribeTalk, noting those stickers “can be challenging for some families,” Cole said.
While those parents had some concerns about the presentation, they also felt it was important that the school address antisemitism.
“Everyone that I’ve spoken to agrees we need to talk about this stuff, this is important,” Harris said. “I think how we talk about it is important, too.”
Harris said he and the other parents asked Cole and Hackett to clarify intended learning and emotional outcomes with families and acknowledge that for some students, the presentation missed the mark. The parents also asked Hackett and Cole to express regret about how the presentation made people feel and a desire to move toward a place of solidarity against all forms of hate.
So Cole and Hackett worked together to write an apology letter and sent it to Diamond’s seventh graders.
“This is challenging stuff that we are discussing with students and we want to always make space for all of the feelings that come up,” Cole said.
Their intention in sending the letter was not to apologize for having a talk about antisemitism, but to apologize for how it made some people feel. Cole and Hackett emphasized to the Observer that they do not regret having the presentation.
“We absolutely remain steadfast in our commitment to fight antisemitism and all forms of hate,” Cole said. “We do not regret having this session.”
Harris felt satisfied with the conversations he had with the district after the presentation but feels LPS still has more to learn.
“I left feeling like there was openness to collaboration, a willingness to try to address the concerns, and I think also really importantly, they have an awareness that this is not a simple thing,” he said. “I am very hopeful that everyone wants the same fundamental thing: the safety and wellbeing of our kids. Because of that, I think we can figure this out with time and effort and community.”
Another parent told the Observer she feels ‘okay’ about the district’s response, but felt it would have been better to have a broader anti-hate conversation and not just focus on antisemitism.
“In a district like ours that touts ‘we all belong’ we need to be teaching intersectionally and not singling a group out for any reason,” Katie Flynn, a LPS parent, wrote to the Observer. “Not a single kid wears a singular identity — each child must be seen and heard for their true complexity.”
Cole and Hackett’s letter to Diamond students had what Cole called an “unintended consequence” — it reached the national news, without context. Lenihan and Hackett said they’ve received many emails from people outside of Lexington, criticizing the district and School Committee for apologizing for teaching seventh graders about the Holocaust —even though that is clearly not what happened.
Fox News published an article with the headline, “Middle school principal slammed over apology to students offended by Holocaust lesson” on June 24. The X account, @StopAntisemites, posted a screenshot of Cole’s letter on June 21, stating in the caption “William Diamond Middle School Principal Johnny Cole sent an email apologizing to Arab, Muslim, Palestinian, and Lebanese students who were offended by a mandatory Holocaust lesson.” That X post has over 1 million views.
“There really just seems to be this fundamental misunderstanding because people don’t have that context. [Some people] think the letter is about the Holocaust unit that is taught in our social studies classes and that is not what it is about,” Lenihan said. “This was about a workshop about antisemitism that we learned a lot from and we don’t regret doing but that we want to use what we learned to make it better going forward for our students.”
LPS plans to continue to give lessons on antisemitism going forward and welcomes feedback from the Lexington community.
“We are not going to stop this work, we are leaning into the work, it’s important, and when things get hard in our system, we don’t quit, we don’t give up, we just keep working and learning and growing until we get better,” Hackett said. “We think that the next time around, we will have an even better, stronger approach to a really important topic.”
Despite being framed as “setting the record straight,” this article only reinforces the perception that school leadership remains tone-deaf. In fact, it may be even more damaging than Principal Cole’s original letter because it doubles down on many of the same missteps. The absence of public responses to this article should not be interpreted as agreement or acceptance. On the contrary, there is growing frustration and anger among many Jewish families in Lexington and beyond.
Notably absent from both this article and Principal Cole’s original letter is any meaningful acknowledgment of how Jewish families felt upon receiving that letter. While school leadership continues to justify its decision to send it, there remains no expression of remorse for the hurt and alienation many members of the Jewish community experienced as a result. The focus remains on defending the decision rather than recognizing its impact. The article also highlights an ongoing tendency to conflate antisemitism with differing perspectives on current events in the Middle East.
The school leadership responded to some families who felt uncomfortable with the session. “We have several students who have family in the Middle East who are worried their parents aren’t going to be able to come home, they may not survive what’s happening over there.” That concern is entirely valid. However, it raises an obvious question: Was equal consideration given to Israeli students and Jewish American students who also have family members in the region and share similar fears? Neither the article nor the original letter acknowledges their experiences. Lebanese and Palestinian students are specifically mentioned, yet there is no corresponding recognition of Israeli students or of Jewish students directly affected by antisemitic incidents within the school community. The support for those students was not addressed.
The treatment of Jewish solidarity symbols is equally troubling. It takes only a few moments to learn about the origin and mission of the Blue Square campaign: “Our mission is to educate and inspire unengaged Americans to stand up to Jewish hate by recognizing that hate of any kind increases hate of all kinds” (bluesquarealliance.org/about-2/). Yet the article suggests that the Blue Square was conflated with “actions of a military.” Such reasoning is difficult to understand. By that logic, should the New England Patriots be viewed as taking a position on Israel simply because their owner, Robert Kraft, founded the Blue Square initiative? The association is both tenuous and wrong.
At the same time, universally recognized symbols of antisemitism appear to have been diluted. The swastika, which was reportedly found multiple times at Diamond over the past two years, was modified in educational materials to include a broader definition because some faith traditions have historically used similar symbols with different meanings. While that historical context may be relevant in certain settings, the modern swastika carries an unmistakable meaning for Jews and for much of the world. In a discussion about antisemitism, its significance should not be softened or obscured.
Finally, the article appears to shift responsibility onto the outside organization that facilitated the antisemitism session. There is no acknowledgment that holding a session focused on antisemitism was an appropriate and necessary response to incidents affecting Jewish students. Supporting Jewish students and families should not require broadening the conversation to every form of hate before action can be taken. Other communities absolutely deserve opportunities to address prejudice and discrimination directed at them. Those conversations are important and should occur. However, recognizing antisemitism and responding to it directly does not diminish the experiences of others. Just as many people rejected the notion that “All Lives Matter” was an appropriate response to concerns raised by the Black Lives Matter movement, a focused discussion about antisemitism should not automatically be reframed into a broader conversation that dilutes the specific concerns of Jews and their allies.
Jewish students and families deserve the same recognition, empathy, and support that would be extended to any other community facing targeted acts of hatred. Unfortunately, this article suggests that school leadership still does not fully understand that.
-Danit Levy Netzer