Jewish groups concerned after Chilliwack trustee wears a keffiyeh to school board meeting

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CHILLIWACK — Roughly two months after an incident at Imagine High prompted an apology from the SD33 superintendent over biased content around the Israel-Palestine conflict, a human rights organization that combats antisemitism in Canada has expressed concern after a Chilliwack trustee wore a green keffiyeh to the most recent meeting of the Chilliwack Board of Education.

Aron Csaplaros, regional manager in British Columbia for B’nai Brith, one of Canada’s leading human rights organizations, says the decision by Chilliwack trustee Margaret Reid to wear a green keffiyeh at the June 11th meeting of the Chilliwack Board of Education is worrisome.

According to National Public Radio, the keffiyeh can be defined as a traditional Arab headdress. It is often made from cotton and decorated with distinctive woven patterns. While it comes in many different colours, NPR noted, over the past 100 years, the black and white keffiyeh has become synonymous with Palestinians.

Csaplaros says the wearing of the keffiyeh, or any political symbol, to a school board meeting is highly inappropriate given that the keffiyeh has become a striking political symbol regarding the current war between Israel and Hamas.

“School districts must be both apolitical and welcoming to students from diverse backgrounds, and the public display of such a politicized and divisive symbol by a School Board Trustee violates this principle,” Csaplaros said.

Back in April 2024, B’nai Brith Canada says it became aware of what it called a concerning video clip of a teacher at Imagine High in Chilliwack. The video that circulated on X/Twitter showed an unidentified Imagine High teacher delving into the history of the Israel-Palestine discord in what B’nai Brith says was heavily biased and devoid of historical context. B’nai Brith says footage taken by a student shows the teacher using the word “Jews” and “Jewish” in an antisemitic manner.

The incident reportedly occurred during a Grade 12 Genocide Studies class and the lesson, as captured on film, was outside the scope of provincial curriculum, B’nai Brith asserts.

B’nai Brith says Aron Csaplaros, its regional manager in British Columbia, engaged with the superintendent of SD33, Rohan Arul-pragasam, and received a formal apology.

“Our BC Regional Manager @aron4895 promptly engaged the Superintendent of @ChilliwackSD33 and obtained a formal apology,” B’nai Brith said in April 2024. “Further, B’nai Brith was promised that measures were already being taken to ensure such an incident would never occur again and was informed that an investigation into the teacher and the incident were underway. Critically, the Superintendent also vowed to ensure that the students involved would be provided with an unbiased and properly contextualized history of the Israel-Palestine conflict.”

B’nai Brith said it would continue to ensure that Chilliwack School District “takes all the action required to rectify the situation,” on behalf of the Jewish community.

Given what transpired at Imagine High just two months ago, this latest incident is concerning, Csaplaros says.

“This incident is especially alarming in the Chilliwack School District, which has still not yet accounted for the problematic behaviour of one its teachers in April who was filmed by a student making both antisemitic comments, and teaching both incorrect and misleading information about the Israel/Palestine conflict,” Csaplaros said. “The politics of a foreign conflict should not make their way into the School Boards of our country.”

Michael Sachs, the executive director of Jewish National Fund Canada Pacific, said he wonders how many times Reid wore this same keffiyeh prior to the massacre that occurred on October 7 in which Hamas terrorists waged the deadliest attack on Jews since the Holocaust — committing unspeakable atrocities against babies, women and families and taking hundreds of innocent civilians hostage.

“It is highly inappropriate for a school board trustee, someone that parents trust to be an impartial official, to cavalierly wear something that has become a symbol, not of statehood, but of war and massacre on October 7th,” Sachs said.

Fraser Valley Today emailed Reid Wednesday seeking comment on her decision to wear a keffiyeh, and notified her about its intent to seek comment on her Instagram post. FVT also messaged Reid on her Facebook account. As of 10 a.m. Thursday morning (June 20), Fraser Valley Today had not heard back from Reid, who was first elected to the Chilliwack school board in October 2022.

Screenshots of both the Chilliwack Board of Education meeting on June 11, as well as trustee Reid’s Instagram account, depict Reid wearing a green keffiyeh. She wrote on Instagram Tuesday, June 11: “Last meeting of the school year and I wore my beautiful Keffiyeh .”

Reid included heart emojis in red, black and green in her Instagram post, apparently in reference to the flag of Palestine, which is also red, black and green.