Central Bucks says teacher’s anti-Israel social media posts don’t violate policies. Some parents say he’s ‘brainwashing’ kids.

A Central Bucks West High School teacher did not break district rules with his anti-Israel advocacy, district officials said this week after reviewing complaints by parents that his social media posts spread antisemitic content and inspired a Muslim student group to do the same.

Complaints about Youssef Abdelwahab, a Spanish teacher and adviser to the high school’s Muslim Student Association, were investigated by the Central Bucks School District, according to acting superintendent James Scanlon, who said he couldn’t provide details on personnel matters.

“There were no policy violations,” Scanlon said.

Several parents criticized Abdelwahab during a school board meeting Tuesday night, accusing him of “brainwashing” students through an Instagram account set up for a business he runs selling durag head coverings with designs inspired by kaffiyehs, a traditional Arab headdress viewed by supporters of the Palestinian cause as a symbol of fighting for Palestinian rights. Abdulwahab’s critics have also circulated a 45-page letter addressed to Scanlon that called for his firing.

An unsigned copy of the letter was provided to The Inquirer, which verified the district had received it.

The letter included a photo showing the handle for his Instagram account written on a classroom whiteboard. The complaint noted that Abdelwahab had tagged students in some posts, and claimed that at least 26 Central Bucks students follow his business or personal account.

(Under Central Bucks’ policies, teachers can have social media accounts. Teachers are not allowed to follow students on social media, but students are free to follow them, Scanlon said.)

The controversy comes amid a highly contentious debate over free speech and its limits spurred by the ongoing Israel-Hamas war. In the Philadelphia area, the fallout at educational institutions includes the December resignation of University of Pennsylvania president Liz Magill, who had faced backlash over her congressional testimony on antisemitism. At the local level, several area school board directors have resigned over social media posts criticizing Israel.

Now the issue is inflaming Central Bucks, a politically divided district that has become known as a lightning rod for national culture-war clashes.

Parent Fania Karlitsky told school officials Tuesday she was outraged that a teacher had used an emoji with a raised fist in a post about Yemeni billboards honoring a U.S. airman who lit himself on fire to protest Israel’s killing of Palestinians. She didn’t name Abdelwahab publicly at the meeting, but described the same allegations as contained in the letter.

“What message does this send to students who are suggestible and impressionable and may themselves be struggling?” Karlitsky said at the school board meeting, noting that many district parents shared her concerns.

She highlighted how a few days after the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel by Hamas, Abdelwahab posted a message that read: “Resistance is justified when people are occupied.”

“It is fundamentally wrong to radicalize Central Bucks students with propaganda,” Karlitsky said.

Another parent, Inna Pyatetsky, said Abdelwahab had “superimposed” his political agenda on the Muslim Student Association, “where students have been seen to repost the same content.”

“This is not an inclusive environment,” said Pyatetsky, who said that people with Israeli flags in their social media photos had been blocked from following the Muslim student club.

In a statement to The Inquirer on Friday, Abdelwahab said the Muslim Student Association, which started this fall, seeks to build “not only positive relationships amongst Muslims but also with non-Muslim students.”

But it has come under fire from “unknown adults outside the school community,” Abdelwahab said, who have been “stalking” the social media account for his headwear business, as well as the accounts of students in the Muslim group.

“I love and take pride in supporting all students at my school as a teacher, as an MSA club adviser, and as an unofficial liaison to ethnic minority students,” Abdelwahab said. He said adults had “created a defamation campaign against me and the MSA students, harming my reputation as a proud educator simply because they are adamant on silencing Muslim student voices and violating their rights.”

About 10 current and former Central Bucks students spoke on his behalf Tuesday, describing how “Mr. A” provided crucial support to students of color who had felt marginalized in a predominantly white district. The students said they do not know any other Muslim teacher in the district, where he is also one of just a handful of teachers of color.

“Everyone deserves a safe space,” Mary Ayata, who started the Muslim Student Association at Central Bucks West, said at the school board meeting Tuesday. She said the accusations against Abdelwahab were “deeply rooted in Islamophobia and racism,” and a “direct attack” on both her club and the students in it.

Abdelwahab is an adviser, not the club’s leader, she noted. As such, he supports student-initiated activities, including Friday prayers and presentations and discussions.

Teachers’ speech has been controversial in Central Bucks in recent years. The new Democrat-led board recently rolled back a policy enacted by the previous Republican majority that barred teachers from advocating to students about “partisan, political or social policy issues.” The measure was criticized as targeting Pride flags and support for LGBTQ students.

The letter to district officials charged that Abdelwahad had violated that policy while it still was in effect, alleging that he “advocated to students” through his Instagram account and his role with the Muslim Student Association.

The letter highlighted a poster at the high school for a Feb. 27 event hosted by the association encouraging students to protest the state’s financial support for Israel. The poster invited students to “collectively write a letter to PA state treasurer listing ways we can better use the $$ here in PA, rather than for killing more innocents in Gaza.”

Under the direction of another teacher, Central Bucks students wrote letters in support of Israel, according to a former Central Bucks West student who spoke at Tuesday’s meeting. “The situation is deeply insensitive to our Palestinian students,” said the former student, Ginny Morgan, who came to the U.S. as a Syrian refugee and described being bullied and targeted by jokes about 9/11 while a student in the district.

Morgan also pushed back on criticism of students wearing kaffiyehs, which the letter to Scanlon described as popularized by former Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

Wearing a keffiyeh is “hate speech that is made to evoke a fear reaction in Jewish and Israeli students when they see it,” the letter said, citing case law to contend that student free speech — while largely protected — is not unlimited in public schools.

Morgan, who wore one to the school board meeting, told district officials the keffiyeh holds “deep cultural significance for Palestinians.” Labeling it antisemitic is “insensitive” and reflects a need for more education, she said.

Some board members briefly addressed the debate Tuesday. “It’s not OK to scapegoat or go on a witch hunt for a teacher who is doing his job,” said Mariam Mahmud, who called for addressing both Islamophobia and antisemitism in the district. She praised Muslim and Jewish student groups at the high school for organizing an interfaith event.

Board member Heather Reynolds, who is Jewish, said students “have come together to do what maybe some adults can’t do, or haven’t been able to do.”