Jewish leaders in Minneapolis are calling on the local teachers’ union to cancel an upcoming seminar featuring a speaker with a history of antisemitic remarks who “hates Jews,” according to the city’s Jewish mayor. 

Taher Herzallah, the associate director of outreach and community organizing for American Muslims for Palestine and a graduate student and teaching assistant at the University of Minnesota, has said that Jews are “enemy No. 1.” Herzallah is slated to speak at a seminar on Friday evening called “being an educator in a time of war & genocide.” The event is sponsored by Minneapolis Federation of Teachers Educators for Palestine and will be held at the MFT office. 

On Oct. 17, 2023 — 10 days after Hamas’ attack in southern Israel —  Herzallah posted a video of himself online stating that, “anybody who has any relationship or any support or identifies themselves as a Jewish person or as a Christian Zionist, then we shall not be their friend. I will tell you that they are enemy No. 1 and our community needs to recognize that as such.” In the spring, Herzallah was active in the illegal anti-Israel encampments on the University of Minnesota campus. ​​“We are prepared to disrupt,” he told MPR News at the time. 

“I don’t want someone who hates Jews to be teaching our teachers on how they should in turn be teaching our students,” Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said in a video posted to X, urging for the removal of Herzallah at the event. “This is hate, pure and simple. This is a slap in the face to students in our MPS system and their families, and a slap in the face to a number of teachers that do not agree with this sentiment.”

Last November, MFT walked back a resolution calling for a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war after members of the school district and the local Jewish Community Relations Council said that the language, which condemned U.S. support for “Israeli occupation and apartheid” and expressed support for the “BDS” movement to boycott, divest from, and sanction Israel, was harmful to Jewish members and students.

“This is far worse,” Frey, who is Jewish, said. “My hope and what I’m advocating for is that this seminar, with this particular individual, does not take place.” 

Frey told local outlet TC Jew Folk that he planned to speak directly to MFT President Marcia Howard. Howard did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Jewish Insider. Frey declined to provide comment beyond his initial statement.  

Herzallah’s history of antisemitic and anti-Israel statements predates Oct. 7 —  and involves calls for violence against the Jewish state. In 2014, when he was the national campus coordinator for AMP, he told the organization’s national conference that “The State of Israel is a lie.”

“Israelis have to be bombed, they are a threat to the legit­i­macy of Pales­tine, and it is wrong to main­tain the State of Israel,” he said. “It is an ille­git­i­mate cre­ation born from colo­nial­ism and racism.”

Ethan Roberts, deputy executive director of the Minnesota JCRC, told JI that Herzallah “should absolutely not be able to move forward” with speaking at the event. 

“We cannot have someone who says that Jews are ‘enemy No. 1’ training public school teachers on how to teach Palestine in the classroom and indoctrinate your co-workers,” Roberts said. 

Herzallah’s history of antisemitism first came to light in the local Jewish community last November, according to Roberts, when Herzallah ran for Anoka County commissioner (he lost the race 75%-25% to incumbent Mandy Meisner, who was endorsed by Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison). 

“This guy is a hardcore Jew hater… he’s notorious in orchestrating Jew hatred on college campuses,” Roberts said. “He wanted to weaponize the county board in the suburban county to spread the hatred of Jews and it fell flat in the state, but here he is coming back into Minneapolis schools.”