Follow Up Statement on Hume-Fogg

Last week, a group of students at Hume-Fogg Magnet School encouraged their fellow students to wear keffiyehs to school. The messaging for the event included the image of a keffiyeh covering the entire map of Israel.

When we learned of the situation, we contacted multiple parties at Hume-Fogg to ensure that Jewish students would have spaces where they were safe and comfortable in the school, to ensure that no student felt pressured to participate, and to discuss opportunities for nuanced and accurate student conversations and education about Israel.

Our primary concern is to ensure that all our local schools are places where Jewish students are comfortable learning and that they can fully express their identities, including their support for the State of Israel.

This past Monday, Jewish Federation CEO Judy Alperin, along with other Federation staff members, met with the principal and other administrators of Hume-Fogg, as well as members of Metro Nashville Public Schools administration. They engaged in a productive conversation to better understand what happened, and to identify areas for improvements to school policies and procedures.

Today, Judy met again with administrators at Hume-Fogg, bringing with her members of the region’s Anti-Defamation League. The goal of this meeting was to educate further about antisemitism and to create a plan to ensure these types of situations do not happen in the future.

The Jewish Federation is committed to ensuring that all our area schools are spaces where Jewish students are comfortable learning, growing and fully expressing their identities – including their support for the State of Israel. We must ensure that conversations about Israel and Zionism in our community’s schools are fact based, fair, and nuanced, allowing for critical thinking and understanding rather than indoctrination.

We are pleased to share that everyone involved in the recent events is first and foremost focused on the well-being of our students and dedicated to moving forward in partnership together.

Our thanks to the administration at Hume-Fogg and Metro Nashville Public Schools for their swift response, and compassionate attention to this situation. We look forward to building on these relationships and continuing to support our students and families.

As we head into the High Holidays, we wish you all a Happy New Year, a meaningful season, and a Shabbat Shalom.