Fire Chicago School Board President Mitchell Johnson immediately. He’s a vile Jew hater. – Updated – Wirepoints

It is unfathomable that a person such as Rev. Johnson has passed the vetting process. He is not fit for a public position, let alone a position with the responsibility to educate the next generation.

-Consulate General of Israel to the Midwest

By: Mark Glennon

“Unfathomable,” indeed. Is it possible that Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and his staff are incompetent enough to have overlooked repeated, extreme antisemitism shown by the mayor’s newly appointed school board president? Or did they turn a blind eye to it?  Either way, the moral bankruptcy of Chicago’s government is again on full display.

Fire Mitchell L. Ikenna Johnson immediately. If Mayor Johnson won’t do it, the city council and state must force him to, by whatever means they have. Gov. JB Pritzker apparently disagrees and wants to give the school board president the benefit of the doubt. “And all I can say is that I think we should hear from the chair more about what his positions really are. He’s written things, but, you know, people can change, theoretically, change their views,” Pritzker said on Wednesday. Wrong. If Pritzker won’t act the General Assembly should cut off Chicago funding until Mitchel Johnson is fired.

Some of Mitchell Johnson’s views toward Jews were first reported Tuesday by Jewish Insider. On Wednesday, 26 members of the Chicago City Council called for Mitchell Johnson’s resignation.  The aldermen said in a joint statement that since the October 7, 2023 attack by Hamas on Israel, “Rev. Johnson has posted frequently on social media about the conflict between Israel and Hamas. His comments have crossed major red lines into overt antisemitism, both in his explicit support for Hamas and his insistence on collectively blaming all Jews for Israel’s military decisions.” That’s spot on.

Among the things Mitchell Johnson has said or written since October 2023, as reported by those sources:

“The Nazi Germans’ ideology has been adopted by the Zionist Jews,” Johnson wrote in February. “The Israeli government offers a renewal of Nazi language once directed toward European Jews, ‘savages, dogs, vermin,’” he wrote in March.

Johnson’s posts did not just attack Israel and Jews. He routinely made clear his support for Hamas: “I have been saying this since October 2023. People have an absolute right to attack their oppressors by any means necessary!!!” he wrote in March.“I say again, stop blaming Hamas.”

On Nov. 1, a video that Johnson shared featured a caption saying that Zionists are not real Jews but actually “Luciferians” — Satan. “I would like to hear from my Jewish friend in reference to this post,” Johnson stated.

In what sounds like a threat, he wrote, “My Jewish colleagues appear drunk with the Israeli power and will live to see their payment. It will not be nice and I care not how and what you call me.”

Other examples are in the Jewish Insider column.

The joint statement by the Chicago City Council members and one by the Consulate General of Israel to the Midwest are reproduced in full below. Returning to that statement from the consulate, what’s truly “unfathomable” is that antisemitism has reached the point that it has in America, brought to us by folks who are among those forever lecturing us about hate and the threat of fascism.

–Mark Glennon is founder of Wirepoints.

UPDATE 10/30/24: Mitchell Johnson has now issued an apology, as reported by Chalkbeat: “The remarks I posted were reactive and insensitive, and I am deeply sorry for not being more precise and deliberate in my comments posted last year,” Johnson wrote. “Since then, I have asked for and received feedback from my Jewish friends and colleagues, who helped me be more thoughtful in the way I address these sensitive matters.” He added that he is “committed to making sure that antisemitism and hate of any kind have no place in Chicago Public Schools.”

That’s apparently good enough for Mayor Johnson. Also from the Chalkbeat article: Mayor Brandon Johnson said is “seeking atonement” for making antisemitic comments but did not call for his removal as requested by just over half of the City Council. “I know Rev. Mitchell Johnson has worked hard as a faith leader in his interfaith work,” the mayor told reporters Wednesday after a City Council meeting. “I know he has since come forth and has apologized for his comments and how harmful that they have been to the people of the Jewish community.”

Not good enough. Hit the road, Mitchell Johnson.

UPDATE 10/31/24: Gov. Pritzker has now called on Mitchell Johnson to resign, saying the following: “Any person charged with the stewardship of the Chicago Public School Board must exemplify focused, inclusive, and steady leadership. The views expressed in the current Chair’s posts – antisemitism, misogyny, fringe conspiracy theories – very clearly do not meet that standard. We owe it to our students, families, and teachers to provide the highest quality education, and that begins at the top by setting a positive example of kindness and inclusivity. Given that he has failed to live up to these values, I believe it is in the best interest of our schools and our children for the Chair to resign.”

UPDATE: 10/31/24: Mitchell Johnson has now resigned as president of the school board, at the request of Mayor Johnson.

Chicago City Councilman 

“We are deeply troubled by antisemitic and pro-Hamas comments made by Rev. Mitchell Ikenna Johnson, Mayor Brandon Johnson’s newly appointed Chicago Public School Board President. The thousands of Jewish families who send their kids to Chicago Public Schools deserve representation who values them and does not express hate towards the Jewish community. We call on Rev. Johnson to apologize and step down from his position immediately.

This situation is a failure of leadership and judgment on the part of Mayor Johnson and his executive team. Earlier this month, Mayor Johnson told reporters his appointees would be thoroughly vetted before they were sworn in. It is clear that did not take place.

Since October 7, 2023, Rev. Johnson has posted frequently on social media about the conflict between Israel and Hamas. His comments have crossed major red lines into overt antisemitism, both in his explicit support for Hamas and his insistence on collectively blaming all Jews for Israel’s military decisions.

Hamas is an internationally-recognized terrorist organization. It is responsible for the deaths of thousands of Israelis, Palestinians, and Americans, and last fall it carried out the worst attack against Jews since the Holocaust. Calling Hamas’s October 7 attack an “absolute right” and justifying it as resistance against oppression, as Rev. Johnson did in March of this year and on other occasions, is abhorrent, inexcusable, and disqualifying from public service.

Rev. Johnson took his disdain for Jews even further, holding American Jews responsible for the actions of a military halfway across the world. In December, he wrote: “My Jewish colleagues appear drunk with the Israeli power and will live to see their payment.”

There are dozens more antisemitic statements from Rev. Johnson. His continued role on the school board is non-negotiable, both he and Mayor Johnson must act now to correct this terrible mistake.”

The Consulate General of Israel to the Midwest

“We find it appalling that Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson’s newly appointed president of the Chicago Board of Education, Rev. Mitchell Ikenna Johnson, has a history of making antisemitic statements, as reported by Jewish Insider.

By saying, following Oct. 7th, that “People have an absolute right to attack their oppressors by any means necessary,” Rev. Johnson explicitly supported and justified the largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, where over 1,200 people were slaughtered, raped, and kidnapped, including many US citizens.

Rev. Johnson’s additional statements referring to Jews as Satanic and comparing Jews to Nazis constitutes pure and blatant antisemitism. It is incomprehensible that someone with these antisemitic views was appointed to lead the Chicago Public School system, designed to promote education, coexistence, and inclusion. Jewish and Israeli parents in the city cannot feel safe under his leadership, nor can any student or parent with a moral compass.

It is unfathomable that a person such as Rev. Johnson has passed the vetting process. He is not fit for a public position, let alone a position with the responsibility to educate the next generation.

This is the latest example of the antisemitic hate that pervades the inner circle of Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson. We expect that Mayor Brandon Johnson will disavow this inflammatory rhetoric and make a commitment to combatting antisemitism in Chicago, in both words and actions. “