In May 2024, community members encountered a Palestine booth as one of the cultures represented at Croton-Harmon school Cultural Night. For some families in the district, the materials at the booth were a breaking point — not an isolated incident, but a culmination of years of concern about antisemitism in the schools. What followed was a year-long effort to get the school district to formally address antisemitism. That effort became entangled with two separate but related controversies: a bitter debate over how antisemitism should be defined, and a national reckoning over whether schools can maintain diversity and equity policies under a hostile federal administration. The three threads — antisemitism concerns, the contested IHRA definition, and the DEI policy collapse — became intertwined in ways that left almost no one satisfied. ## "99 Incidents" In the months after the Cultural Night incident, a group of parents founded PASA — Parents Against School Antisemitism. By October 2024, the organization had 167 members, about 75% of them parents of current students. PASA founder Michelle Minoff, Director of Community Engagement at Temple Israel, presented survey data at the October 10, 2024 Board of Education business meeting. The results of the opt-in survey were stark: every respondent said antisemitism was impacting students, and the group had collected reports of 99 incidents between December 2020 and June 2024 — half of which, members said, were never reported to the district. {{quote:yt-lxE06e6IiXQ:8}} At the December 5 meeting, Minoff described what Jewish students were experiencing in specific, uncomfortable detail: "Pennies are tossed at Jewish students as jokes, swastikas are scrawled in bathrooms and on water fountains, students are told to wear gold stars by their classmates — but again, they're just kidding." {{quote:yt-RsiQIof4ZBs:1708}} A junior named Jeremy, who identified himself as class president, testified that an official acknowledgment of antisemitism "would allow for a common understanding of the issue." {{quote:yt-RsiQIof4ZBs:1708}} The incidents were real. The question was what to do about them — and that's where things got complicated. ## The IHRA Definition: A Tool With Baggage PASA's central policy recommendation was that the district adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's Working Definition of Antisemitism, commonly known as IHRA. Adopted by dozens of governments and hundreds of institutions worldwide, the definition is endorsed by the Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Committee as the standard framework for identifying antisemitism. But IHRA is also one of the most contested definitions in contemporary civil liberties debate. Of its eleven illustrative examples, seven relate to Israel — including language that characterizes "denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination" or "applying double standards" to Israel as forms of antisemitism. Critics — including Kenneth Stern, the American Jewish Committee expert who led the original drafting of the definition in 2004 — have argued forcefully that IHRA was never meant to be adopted as policy by schools or governments. "It was intended to be a monitoring tool," Stern told the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee. He warned that campus adoption "will make it impossible for faculty to do their jobs" and could actually increase antisemitism by appearing to give Jewish students special protections. The concern is not theoretical. Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and multiple UN bodies have described Israeli policies toward Palestinians using terms — apartheid, ethnic cleansing — that IHRA's examples could classify as antisemitic. More than 1,200 Jewish academics signed a letter opposing federal legislation based on the definition, calling it "a dangerous conflation of criticism of Israel with antisemitism." Alternative frameworks exist. The Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism and the Nexus Document were both developed specifically to address IHRA's shortcomings — drawing clearer lines between antisemitism and political criticism of Israel. ## A Village Divided This debate came to Croton's village government before it reached the school board. On August 20, 2025, prompted by a letter from local clergy, Mayor Brian Pugh brought a resolution to adopt the IHRA definition before the Croton Board of Trustees. (The Croton Chronicle covered the vote in detail.) Notably, the clergy's letter indicated they would have been open to the village crafting its own definition of antisemitism — IHRA was not the only option on the table. The meeting was contentious. About two dozen residents spoke during public comment, with roughly 60% opposing adoption. Critics argued the definition had been used nationally to suppress legitimate criticism of Israel's military actions in Gaza. Croton resident and journalist Michelle Celarier published a detailed analysis of the definition's problems, noting that Croton had no equivalent special definitions for racism, sexism, or homophobia. Supporters argued the definition provided a necessary common framework and that the village had a responsibility to take a clear stand against antisemitism in a climate of rising hate. The board voted 3-2 to adopt. Trustees Nora Nicholson and Cara Politi voted no. Trustee Maria Slippen voted yes, arguing that the IHRA definition specifically — rather than a locally drafted alternative — was necessary because it represented an internationally recognized standard. Politi cited the "already demonstrated use of the IHRA definition nationally to suppress criticism of Israel and its war in Gaza." The aftermath was swift. Within weeks, nearly 70 residents signed a letter asking the board to add clarifying language — specifying, among other things, that advocating for Palestinian rights, describing Israeli actions as genocide, or wearing a keffiyeh should not be considered antisemitic. At the September 10 meeting, three separate motions were introduced but all failed or were withdrawn. The board took no further action. ## The School Board's Different Path At the Croton-Harmon Board of Education, the IHRA question played out differently. An ad hoc committee — working on an equity policy (designated Policy 0105) since 2021 — considered whether to incorporate the IHRA definition into the district's framework, at the urging of PASA and likeminded parents. But the committee reached a different conclusion. At the January 9, 2025 Board of Education business meeting, committee member Neal Haber reported: "The inclusion of the IHRA definition might result in a push to provide definitions of many other potential areas of bias — anti-Asian, anti-Islamic — and rather than creating a laundry list of different groups, it was felt better not to include that definition." {{quote:yt-6DBu2fCHQMo:5825}} The decision not to include IHRA in the equity policy pleased neither side. PASA felt the district was refusing to take antisemitism seriously. Critics of IHRA felt the broader equity policy was still needed. ## Policy 0105 Dies Then the equity policy itself was killed. On March 13, 2025, at the Board of Education business meeting, the ad hoc committee announced that Policy 0105 would not come before the board for a first reading. The reason: the federal political climate. The Trump administration had issued executive orders targeting DEI programs, launched a whistleblower portal encouraging reports against schools with equity initiatives, and threatened federal funding cuts. "We will not be doing any further work at this point in time on Policy 0105," committee chair Neal Haber announced. {{quote:yt-53vV66enyG8:4539}} The community response was fierce. Elisa Silverglade, who had attended the committee meeting, called the decision "cowardice": "Standing down from the DEI policy is not going to make you any safer in this environment. If they're making a list of pro-DEI schools, you're already on that list." {{quote:yt-53vV66enyG8:5}} Former board member Linda Jones framed it in broader terms: "Public education is under attack. It begins at the federal level with the gutting of the US Department of Education, threats of withdrawal of federal funding for local schools, and pitting community members against one another using the recently launched DEI whistleblower portal." {{quote:yt-53vV66enyG8:5}} ## Where Things Stand By May 2025, Policy 0105 was no longer added to board agendas. The ad hoc committee pivoted to social media policy and was eventually disbanded. At the village level, the IHRA resolution remains in effect, unamended. NYC's new mayor revoked the city's IHRA adoption in early 2026, prompting the Croton Chronicle to editorialize that Croton's mayor should revisit the issue as well. At the school district level, the IHRA definition was neither adopted nor formally rejected — it was simply set aside along with the rest of the equity policy. The district has taken some steps independently: faculty at CET received education on antisemitism, and in April 2025, CHHS students visited the Museum of Jewish Heritage — A Living Memorial to the Holocaust. Neal Haber delivered a presentation on antisemitism for the CET community. In January 2026, students at PVC heard from a speaker from the Human Rights Education Center after a hate symbol was found on campus. The incidents that PASA catalogued — 99 in total, half of which members said were never reported to the district — remain at the center of this story. Whether the institutional response has been adequate remains an open question in Croton-Harmon. This article draws on Board of Education meeting transcripts from October 2024 through March 2026, reporting from the Croton Chronicle, and background research on the IHRA definition. Speaker attributions are based only on self-identification at public meetings.