A Thread:
I had a bit of a #Purim story in my week.

A known anti-Israel, BDS supporter, one-state solution speaker was scheduled to speak to my son’s Gr 11 class at school.

This speaker was recommended by a very trusted former staff member and was not thoroughly vetted.

Let me back up a little to give the full story.

For context: I live in a smallish city 36K ppl. It is considered a mini-Biblebelt in a vastly secular nation.

At one time, my city was famous for having the most number of churches on a single stretch of road.

There are a lot

of church going folks. And the Christian community is, for the most part, gracious, and cooperative with each other despite doctrinal differences.
I have friends and coworkers at pretty much every church in my city. (50+ churches)

Everybody knows everybody.

We live in a mountainous region and so our options for radio stations a very limited. I can probably count on my hands the number of stations that come in clearly where I live.
Even though we receive the nationally broadcast paid-for-by-taxpayers station, some of the programs

are local, staffed by local people. So I have met in person a number of local radio personalities. (Again— small city)
I usually listen to the local morning show programming as I drive my kids to school. I don’t listen to the radio in my house. Just in the car. Some days that...

means I listen a lot because, hi mom of 3 busy teens .

Some days I don’t listen to the radio hardly at all. I don’t have many errands those days and as I said before. I don’t listen to the radio in my house.

Friday, Feb 28th I happened to catch a short 15-20 min segment of

the local morning show.
The fact that I heard this segment at all proved later to be purely Providential. Had the producer of the show placed this segment anywhere else in the program, I would have completely missed it. It literally started playing moments after starting my van.

Had I missed this segment, I would have been completely oblivious to the fact that a person from Toronto was going to tour my region speaking on the plight of the Palestinian people by vilifying, and delegitimizing Israel. I did not see any posters advertising his talks. No one

in my community mentioned him as an upcoming speaker. Had I not heard it on the radio that morning, I might not have thought anything of having a speaker come to speak about Israel and Palestine at a Christian highschool.
As it was, I heard him mention a few things that flung up

red flags for me.

He called Israel an apartheid state. He called Jews “settler-colonialists”. He called Palestinians the indigenous people of the land. And he promoted the “one-state” solution as the only way for the region to have peace. (I won’t go into why those are )

The reason those things are is a topic for another thread.
So all of Friday, Saturday and Sunday I was concerned because it was specifically mentioned on the morning show that this speaker would be speaking in my city.
Monday I still felt uneasy. Who was this guy. When and

where was he scheduled to speak. I needed to investigate. I listened to the morning show again online to glean as many details as possible. I googled what details I could but all the links I was finding did not list my city’s specific details. I emailed the speaker’s tour...

organizer and requested details. While waiting for a response, I google the man himself.
What I found was not good. What I found was a history of anti-Israel rhetoric, half-truths and blatant lies. A platform given by this man to a Holocaust denier and conspiracy theorist.

Then I got an email from the speaking tour with dates, times, and places of all his talks. He had 3 engagements in my city alone. One in the public library, and two in churches.
Of the 3 locations, one church stood out as if it were lit up in giant neon letters. Most of this

congregation is made up of families with children that attend my children’s school. The pastor’s son is in my daughter’s class. My daughter enjoys their biweekly girls club earning badges for various skills staffed by my own friends and coworkers. (NB. I also work at my kids’...

school).
Do they know who is coming to preach at their church? Do they know what he espouses?
I had just spent hours reading articles on the conflict and about this man. I was debating whether or not to attend some/all of his talks to protest/rebuttal his claims.
While all of

this was swirling in my head, my eldest son came home from school saying, “Mom, we are having a special speaker come to our school on Wednesday. He is going to speak on Israel-Palestine.”
Uh-oh, I thought. Could it be? The man I had spent all day researching was coming to our

school?
I sent an email to my son’s teacher asking for more details. He confirmed the name of the speaker. Yes, it was the same man I had been researching all day. I texted the principal ASAP!
We arranged to meet the next morning.
I was sincerely hoping that he just wasn’t aware

of who was coming to speak.
It turns out he wasn’t. A very trusted former staff member recommended this speaker and that trust was the barrier to a full vetting.
Tuesday morning I pled my case. I expressed my concerns. I expressed my agreement that Palestinians suffer but spoke

the fact that much of their suffering comes via their own governing body, the PA.
The principal graciously heard me out, tried to reassure me that this speaker was given a very short latitude on what he could speak about. He was to be restricted to only ecological improvement

and social justice. I was assured that teachers would be present to follow-up intensely with students and reframe anything that deviated from the restricted topic. He invited me to come and make notes of any subtle or coded language to assist teachers in their follow up. He asked

if I had any suggestions.
Sensing defeat, I made one suggestion: that parents be notified of the speaker and invited to come hear for themselves. The principal sent the email notifying and inviting parents before I reached my car in the parking lot.
Feeling as if I had failed,

I prayed as I walked to my car. Asking a miracle.
I am just realizing that I left out a few important details:
1. I am Jewish by descent. My grandma was born in Gilead Hospital in Israel. Meryam Katz. She was abandoned at birth and adopted by a Christian missionary lady who ran

a home for abandoned children. Jews, Arabs, and British children were all welcome there. This missionary adopted 8 girls. Some Jews, Arab and British. My grandma was one. They grew up in a house in Ramallah. They fled Ramallah after 1948 because of death threats against them.

The other detail I left out was that on Monday night, I called another parent at our school. She also is of Jewish descent. I let her know of the upcoming speaker only for the grade 11&12’s. It wasn’t until later that I remembered that her son is a yr younger than mine.
She was

Very concerned also. I told her of my plan to speak to the principal the next day and asked her to pray also.

So back to me walking to my car, feeling like I had failed. I continued on my day and went to my next appointment. While in my next appointment, another parent started

texting me asking if I knew details of this speaker and to please call her.
Hmm, word had gotten out.

This parent also did not have a student in Gr 11/12 and did not get the email invite.

After my appointment, I called her and we spoke back and forth about concerns. She

had concerns in addition and far beyond mine. I told her about my meeting and how I was intending to go to the talk, record it, and make notes of any problematic language that might need addressing afterwards.
This was only one hour after leaving the principal’s office.
By the

time I drove home, the talk was cancelled.
I was elated!
But it was only Tuesday, and there were 3 other talks, that I knew of, scheduled in my city.
More research was needed and more prayer as to what my course would be and more appointments to make.

(To be continued...