Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson’s choice of Mitchell L. Ikenna Johnson to head the Chicago Public Schools is facing heavy criticism and spurring calls for the latter to resign after revelations that he engaged in a long series of antisemitic comments on social media.
After looking over his months of antisemitic posts, the Consulate General of Israel to the Midwest said it is “unfathomable” that he was been put in such an important position, and some have even called him a “vile Jew hater.”
Johnson has rebuffed the calls to resign, but he has apologized and pledged to protect all students, even Jewish students, as he takes over the school system.
Johnson told Chicago’s aldermen that he is “deeply sorry for not being more precise and deliberate in [his] comments” and admitted that some of his social media posts “could be construed as antisemitic,” WBEZ reported.
“Let me start by apologizing to the Jewish community for the remarks I posted, which were clearly reactive and insensitive,” Mitchell Johnson said. “Since that time, I have asked for and received feedback from my Jewish friends and colleagues who helped me be more thoughtful as I addressed these sensitive matters.”
Still, Johnson has engaged in a lot of hateful comments about Israel and Jews, not to mention coming to the support of Hamas, especially in the wake of the terror attack on Israel on October 7, 2023. But he has also engaged in antisemitic sentiment at least since 2018, according to WBEZ.
Since the October 7 attack, Johnson has shared dozens of posts praising Hamas and justifying the murder, kidnapping, and rapes of Israeli civilians.
In one post in December, for instance, Johnson asked, “How can a group of people who have suffered from the Holocaust; today join with the Alt Right Community?”
In other posts, Johnson compared Israel to Nazi Germany, according to JewishInsider.
“The Nazi Germans’ ideology has been adopted by the Zionist Jews,” Johnson wrote in February. “The Israeli government offers a renewal of Nazi language once directed toward European Jews, ‘savages, dogs, vermin,’” he wrote in March.
In another post, Johnson claimed that Hamas has “an absolute right to attack their oppressors by any means necessary!”
In other posts, he demanded that people “stop blaming Hamas,” said people “must move away from supporting Israel,” and called Jewish people he has known as “former friends.”
He also endorsed and echoed claims that Israel has been engaged in “genocide.”
“Let us go into 2024 with a commitment to change the narrative and force, yes force Israel to attone [sic] for its shameful attempt at genocide against the Palistinian [sic] people,” Johnson wrote.
Johnson also insisted that Jews in the U.S. must renounce Israel’s “crimes.” He even claimed that Zionists are “Luciferians.”
With the long list of antisemitic comments, many at city hall have worried about Johnson’s ability to protect Jewish students in the Chicago Public Schools.
Debra Silverstein, 50th Ward alderman, for one, said the social media screeds called “into question his ability to fairly represent Jewish students and families in Chicago Public Schools.”
Indeed, 26 aldermen joined together on a letter questioning Johnson’s suitability.
“We are deeply troubled by antisemitic and pro-Hamas comments made by Rev. Mitchell Ikenna Johnson,” the letter says. “This situation is a failure of leadership and judgment on the part of Mayor [Brandon] Johnson and his executive team,” the letter says.
“[Rev. Johnson’s] comments have crossed major red lines into overt antisemitism, both in his explicit support for Hamas and his insistence on collectively blaming all Jews for Israel’s military actions,” they said, calling for his resignation. “His continued role on the school board is non-negotiable.”
The American Jewish Committee Chicago and the Anti-Defamation League Midwest have also called on Johnson to resign.
The Consulate General wrote, “We find it appalling that Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson’s newly appointed president of the Chicago Board of Education, Rev. Mitchell Ikenna Johnson, has a history of making antisemitic statements, as reported by Jewish Insider.”
“It is unfathomable that a person such as Rev. Johnson has passed the vetting process. He is not fit for a public position, let alone a position with the responsibility to educate the next generation,” the organization added.
“This is the latest example of the antisemitic hate that pervades the inner circle of Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson. We expect that Mayor Brandon Johnson will disavow this inflammatory rhetoric and make a commitment to combatting antisemitism in Chicago, in both words and actions,” they wrote.
For his part, Mitchell Johnson has apologized but has refused to resign.
“The remarks I posted were reactive and insensitive, and I am deeply sorry for not being more precise and deliberate in my comments posted last year,” Johnson wrote in a statement, according to Chalkbeat. “Since then, I have asked for and received feedback from my Jewish friends and colleagues, who helped me be more thoughtful in the way I address these sensitive matters.” He added that he is “committed to making sure that antisemitism and hate of any kind have no place in Chicago Public Schools.”
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