Chicago: Hate Letter Forces Islamic Day School to Shut Down on Friday
The all-girls Aqsa School received the letter by mail on Thursday and reported it to the police and the FBI. The school also increased its security and alerted other Islamic schools in the area.
The letter praised the killing of Wadea Al-Fayoume, a 6-year-old Palestinian-American boy who was stabbed to death in Plainfield Township last week.
The letter also used racist, anti-Palestinian and anti-Muslim language, according to school officials. The school's principal, Tammie Ismail, said the letter echoed some of the hateful rhetoric that dehumanizes Muslims and Palestinians in some media outlets.
"I do feel a lot of the rhetoric used in this letter echoes a lot of the really hateful rhetoric that some media outlets have put out ... It dehumanizes Muslims and Palestinians in particular. Because when you dehumanize people, then terrible things happen because then you see them as the 'other,'" she said, CBS News reported.
Ismail said many of her students were traumatized by Wadea's murder and by the images of Palestinians killed in Gaza. She said the school wanted its students to be proud of their identity and not feel afraid or ashamed.
She said the school brought in mental health professionals to help the students cope. She also said many parents were nervous for their children's safety and wanted them to stay home.
The school decided to cancel its in-person classes on Friday and send home packets for younger students and online classes for older students.
The school had already canceled a "fall festival" scheduled for Saturday "due to recent events happening to our brothers & sisters in Palestine and rising tensions here in our very own community." In a Facebook post, the school wrote, "Safety is our number one priority."
The Bridgeview police said they were investigating the anonymous letter that communicated hate toward the Muslim community. They said the school officials chose to opt for a remote learning day.
Source: Agencies
