TEL AVIV – Two Jewish ninth graders from a school in Cape Town, South Africa that bills itself as Zionist were disciplined for “taking a knee” in solidarity with Palestinians while Israel’s national anthem, “Hatikvah,” was played at a ceremony.
The term “take a knee” refers to a quarterback kneel in American football and specifically points to a controversial gesture of protest adopted by Colin Kaepernick and other NFL players during the playing of the US national anthem at a football game in 2016.
United Herzlia Middle School director of education Geoff Cohen said the kneeling was “inappropriate” and “demonstrated deliberate and flagrant disregard for the ethos of the school,” in an email to parents.
He added that the act constituted a “blatant flouting of the School Rules, Herzlia’s Zionist values.”
Cohen later told the Jerusalem Post that while the boys knelt in an act of protest against the Israeli government’s treatment of the Palestinians, the boys remained “Zionist in essence.”
Still, Cohen said the act prompted the boys to receive “disciplinary measures” that were “highly educational and not punitive,” but would not expound further.
Cohen defended the decision to punish the boys, explaining that while students of the school are “entitled to their opinions” and to express them in an open debate, humiliating the school at a “formal and prestigious event” was bad form.
“We encourage kids to protest and debate but not to publicly embarrass the school in front of their peers, teachers and dignitaries who were present,” said Cohen.
“We are a proudly Zionist school. The forum that they chose to protest in our opinion was embarrassing for us and for many people there. There are many forums within the school to express opinions and points of view, but this was not the right one.”
Kim, a former pupil at the school who today resides in Israel, condemned the boys’ act for misappropriating a cause foreign to them.
“If you take a symbol from another cause and don’t understand it fully and pay homage to it properly, I think that’s wrong,” she told Breitbart, noting that the pupils were “the perfect product” of United Herzlia’s policy of open debate.
Nevertheless, she said, for some at her alma mater “progressive politics is seen as the cool side to be on,” and the pupils were most likely seeking to “provoke a reaction” in what is largely a conservative, staunchly pro-Israel community.
Indeed, some members of that community are calling for the boys to be expelled, something Kim said would be a “PR nightmare” for Jews in a country with a history fraught with oppression.
The school sent an email to alumni saying that while “we welcome freedom of speech, we would encourage this to take place in a constructive manner.”
United Herzlia, read the email “is mindful of the diverse opinions in our community and do our best to uphold an inclusive environment within our schools.”
The taking a knee was “resolved amicably” with the pupils and their parents, the email said.
United Herzlia, which according to its website is “aligned to Orthodox Judaism and recognizes the centrality of Israel as the natural home of the Jewish People,” is no stranger to controversy surrounding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
In 2014, the deputy head boy at United Herzlia’s sister school, King David Victory Park Jewish day school in Johannesburg, sparked a maelstrom in pro-Israel circles when he donned a Palestinian keffiyeh at the World Debating Championships to express his “opposition to the human rights violations carried out against the people of Palestine,” according to a Facebook post.
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