Around 100 Jewish educators from the US and Israel have canceled a study trip to Italy after being told to sign a statement condemning Israel, according to a report.
The teachers had planned to travel to the Reggio Emilia region later this month to study the Reggio Emilia Approach, a style of education long embraced by Jewish preschools. The host organization, Reggio Children, demanded participants sign a pledge before attending, according to the Times of Israel.
Manhattan Day School head Pesha Kletenik said participants were allegedly profiled over support for Israel before being asked to sign the statement.
“Our identities were made public, and our personal and institutional social media profiles were reviewed and characterized as demonstrating our support for Israel and the IDF,” Kletenik said in a statement.
The required pledge read: “I distance myself from the occupation of Gaza and the violation of children’s and human beings’ rights in the occupied territories as well as in every place [sic] in the world.”
The shocking demand came after a protest by some parents associated with Reggio Children, who objected to the Jewish educators’ participation over alleged support for Israel and the Israel Defense Forces. The host group was also reportedly drafting another statement calling for “militarization out of schools” before the participants decided not to attend.
Melissa Davis, of Washington DC’s Milton Gottesman Jewish Day School, said the pledge was the result of “the ripple effects of global antisemitism.”
Davis said the abandoned trip was “a loss for our community in the near term — our teachers, and in turn, their students will not be enriched by this experience,” in a statement.
Italian politician Ivan Scalfarotto ripped the requirement. Asking “Jews, as Jews, to distance themselves from the policies of the Israeli government is antisemitism,” he said.
The incident comes as antisemitism in Italy continues to rise, with social spaces where it is acceptable to be Jewish having shrunk, according to the Center of Contemporary Jewish Documentation. A survey last year found about 15% of Italians view attacks on Jews as “justifiable.”
Roughly 1,200 people, mostly Jews, were massacred by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023, which set off the war in Gaza.
The Reggio Emilia Approach has been widely adopted in Jewish early childhood education, making the cancellation particularly significant for the network of schools that had invested in sending teachers to the program’s birthplace.