A Brooklyn middle school incorporated the artwork of New York City First Lady Rama Duwaji into a seventh-grade social justice curriculum around the same time it temporarily barred a Holocaust survivor from addressing students.

MS 447 in Boerum Hill featured illustrations by Duwaji, 28, in a course called “Art for Social Change,” placing her work alongside that of celebrated figures such as Kendrick Lamar, Misty Copeland, and the Alvin Ailey Dance Company. Students were asked to examine “the message in Syrian-American Rama Duwaji’s art” and consider how her background shapes her creative work. Her illustrations carry headings including “People Will Rise Against Tyranny,” “Pulse of Protest,” and “Quiet Refusal to Be Spoken For.”

The lesson was sent home to parents last fall — the same period during which the school refused a request to have Holocaust survivor Sami Steigmann speak to students. Steigmann was eventually permitted to address students last month, following a public outcry.

The juxtaposition has infuriated parents and Jewish advocacy groups. “I was concerned about a double standard and not teaching in a critical manner, and just forcing a political ideology on students,” one MS 447 parent told the New York Post.

Moshe Spern, a city public high school teacher who leads Jewish United Teachers, was blunter. “MS 447 originally refused a Holocaust survivor over falsehoods but had no issue teaching the mayor’s wife’s antisemitic artwork,” he wrote on X. “Help this make sense?”

The controversy arrives as scrutiny of Duwaji intensifies. The Post reported Sunday that she created artwork for the New York City chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America as part of an anti-Israel campaign called “PalestineOnTheBallot.com,” which promoted Democratic primary candidates who rejected AIPAC funding and pledged support for the Not on Our Dime Act — legislation that would penalize charities found to support what it characterizes as Israeli settler violence.

Old social media posts have also surfaced showing Duwaji liking content that praised Hamas’ October 7, 2023, massacre, with additional posts criticizing Israel and the U.S. military. She subsequently deactivated the account.

Mayor Mamdani has claimed his wife is not a public figure so he doesn’t have to answer whether he supports her obvious radicalism.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)