Hundreds of students held sit-ins at Chicago public high schools in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza, as anti-Israel protests trickled down from the college campuses that they’ve upended in recent weeks.
Several dozen students participated in the demonstrations at each of half a dozen high schools, where some Jewish students said the demonstrations — and the schools’ decisions to allow them — left them feeling unsafe.
“I learned in the early months of high school that if you don’t fit with the majority ideology, people will only see you as one aspect and won’t like you. I’ve lost many lifelong friends this year for being a proud Jew,” said Jones College Prep senior Mira Rosenblum during a press conference in Chicago.
Her request to hold a vigil after Hamas’s October 7 onslaught was denied, Jones allowed hundreds of students to participate in a January walk-out along with other Chicago public schools calling for a ceasefire, the teen claimed.
Rosenblum said that she was subsequently “doxxed and called anti-black and Islamophobic for filing a complaint against the student leaders who compared themselves to Jewish rebels fighting against Nazi Germany.”
Jones College Prep did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“Anyone who is antisemitic and calls themselves pro-Palestinian is not pro-Palestinian,” a Jones protest organizer, who was identified only as Atticus, told the network.
“While we support students’ constitutional right to free expression, harassment, discrimination, and bias-based harm have no place in our school community and will not be tolerated,” Chicago Public Schools said in a statement.
