Hundreds of Portland high school students and some of their teachers streamed out of schools Friday afternoon to protest ongoing bloodshed in Gaza, the latest sign that the crisis in the Middle East has emerged as a touchstone cause for the city’s vocal activist community.
But unlike other student-driven movements in Portland — including previous climate justice walkouts — the students’ calls for the district to support a ceasefire in Israel and a free Palestine has evoked strong opposition from some Jewish families, educators and students, who also say they are concerned about the Portland Association of Teachers’ public stance on the issue.
School board members have so far refused to accede to demands from student activists, including that lessons about “the ideology of Zionism and its roots in white supremacy [and] Palestinian liberation and social justice” be taught at all grade levels. They moved a recent board meeting online after an eruption of chants from pro-Palestinian audience members. Zionism is a movement that advocates for Israel as a Jewish homeland.
Student activists have also said they also want the district to release a statement calling for a ceasefire and condemning the Israel’s government prolonged military response to Hamas’ Oct. 7 terrorist attacks and hostage takings and to ensure that no district funds are spent on companies with ties to Israel.
“If these demands are not met, we can only promise a continual fight from an organized student body,” organizers with the group PPS Students for Justice in Palestine wrote in a letter to school board members that they submitted after Friday’s event.
At a poster-making event before Friday’s rally, organizer Chloe Gilmore, a Lincoln High student, said Portland students’ involvement grew organically in response to a torrent of news from the region, including coverage of the thousands of civilians killed in Gaza.
“We are not an anti-Jewish group,” Gilmore said. “One misconception that I have heard is that this rally could make Jewish students feel unsafe. But there are current Southwest Asian and North African students who have not felt safe in Portland Public Schools for its entire existence.”
An Ida B. Wells High student who is involved in the Jewish Student Union there said that in recent weeks, he has felt, “more uncomfortable with displaying my Jewish identity at school.” The student asked to be identified only by his first name, Noah, because he was concerned about retribution for speaking publicly about his views on the conflict.
“One of my teachers talked about it in class and said it was a one-sided war,” Noah said.
He and others in the class pushed back, he said, feeling that the classroom was a “safe space” in which to do so. Still, he said, most students aren’t learning enough in school about the conflict and a Jewish presence in Israel that stretches back for millennia to have a nuanced position on the issue.
Mo Eskayo, a substitute teacher for Portland Public Schools who helped out at a pre-rally poster-making event and is involved with Oregon Educators for Palestine, said teachers had been censored for showing support for Palestinian liberation.
“There have been teachers called into the principal’s office for putting up Palestinian flags,” Eskayo said. They pointed to state law that mandates teaching about the Holocaust, genocide and other acts of mass violence, but said teachers were being prevented from “contextualizing the current violence.”
Some Jewish parents, though, say they’ve been alarmed by public stances by the Portland Association of Teachers on the conflict, including repeated promotion of the walk-out on social media. The concerns echo those raised during the Portland teachers strike in November about the union’s posting about Palestinian advocacy events on social media..
After internal protests from Jewish union members and a meeting with the Jewish Federation of Greater Portland, teachers union leaders announced a social media pause. The union has since resumed regular pro-Palestinian event postings, while also posting that it “will not tolerate anti-Semitism, Islamophobia or any forms of hate” and convening a forum for Jewish teachers.
“School should be a politically neutral space where you teach kids to be critical thinkers,” said Ross Weinstein, a Jewish father with a child at a Portland middle school. “That isn’t what I see at PPS.”
Weinstein also said he was frustrated with a message that went out to middle and high school families on Thursday from Chief of Schools Jon Franco that alerted parents to the plans for the walkout and noted that children would need their permission in order not to be marked as absent and unexcused.
“The war between Israel and Hamas has affected many Portlanders in tangible, varied ways, and we recognize that some students feel a strong desire to advocate,” Franco wrote.
For Weinstein’s family, that messaging landed as a tacit stamp of approval and legitimization, he said.
A representative of the Jewish Federation of Greater Portland said the organization had hosted a call earlier this week that drew 60 families upset by the union’s promotion of the walkout. Spokesperson Bob Horenstein said the group is currently “organizing to fight back” against what it sees as “inappropriate anti-Israel activism that is making Jewish families feel unheard, marginalized and unsafe.”
Portland is not the only district in Oregon that has experienced student activism on the issue. About 100 students at Parkrose High School staged a walkout in early December, calling upon their district to release a statement in support of a ceasefire in the region.
Gilmore and other student organizers said they have also been in touch with youth activists from the Beaverton, Reynolds and Tigard-Tualatin school districts.
— Julia Silverman covers schools and education policy for The Oregonian and OregonLive. She can be reached via email at jsilverman@oregonian.com. Follow her on X.com at @jrlsilverman