Holocaust survivor Sami Steigmann estimates that he has spoken to more than 300,000 students in the last 17 years and had hoped to address some more this month at MS 447, a middle school in Brooklyn, N.Y. But Arin Rusch, the school’s principal, chose not to have him.
A New York Post article cited Rusch writing a letter to parents, stating: “In looking at his website material, I don’t think that Sami’s presentation is right for our public-school setting, given his messages around Israel and Palestine.”
Steigmann said that he doesn’t believe there is anything on his website that is inappropriate or not factual, and that he’s never had a problem with a school administrator in the nearly two decades that he has gone the speaking route. The 85-year-old New York City resident even had a small role in the 2025 film “Eleanor the Great,” the directorial debut of 41-year-old actor Scarlett Johansson.
He said at the very least, the principal could have contacted him. He was expecting to address kids on Dec. 3.
She didn’t have the decency to call me,” he told JNS. “She should have some professionalism. I wasn’t given any reason why I was not wanted. Years ago, neo-Nazis objected. I would expect that from them, but not from a Brooklyn principal.”
JNS left a message with a staffer at MS 447 to ask Rusch some questions, but he principal did not return the call.
Despite an atmosphere of growing antisemitism in major U.S. cities, particularly New York City, since the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, Steigmann maintains his optimism, practicing what he preaches.
“This is a good thing,” he said of the incident. “Hopefully, this will go viral, so many can see the exposure of bias that is going on. That a principal would act this way, without giving any reason, is a sign that absurd things are going on.”
He took the viral notion even further, appearing on “Sid & Friends in the Morning” on WABC radio, as well as Zev Brenner’s radio show, which is livestreamed on YouTube.
‘ I was given no reason’
Since the incident, Steigmann said he’s been flooded with requests to visit academic institutions. In fact, on Dec. 3, he said he spoke to about 80 students at Byram Hills High School in Armonk, in Westchester, N.Y.
“It went great,” he said. “Everyone was very nice.”
He said no questions were asked about Israel, and no one asked about him not being allowed to speak at the Brooklyn school. He said the presentations he gives are not political. But if students ask him questions, he will answer honestly and respectfully, he said, and expects the same from his audiences. He also encourages students to do their own research on antisemitism, particularly as it relates to the years of World War II and the Holocaust.
Steigmann is pro-Israel, and his appearances, including the ones on Dec. 3, were arranged by the nonpartisan Israel education organization StandWithUs.
In interviews, Steigmann has said he believes that Israel did not commit genocide against Palestinians during the two-year war Israel fought with Hamas in the Gaza Strip. He defines Zionism as the idea of a Jewish state in Israel with self-determination. Asked if either of these two points—or something else altogether—was the reason the principal didn’t allow him to appear, Steigmann answered that he couldn’t be sure.
“I have no way to know what the story is because I was given no reason,” he replied.
Steigmann said he was surprised that in the New York Post, someone from the mayor’s office agreed with the decision not to have him as a speaker. However, New York City’s outgoing mayor, Eric Adams, wrote in a post on X on Dec. 4: “Let me be very clear, I’ve previously met with Sami Steigmann, and he is ABSOLUTELY the right person to speak with kids about the atrocities of the Holocaust.”
Steigmann said he was pleased to read the mayor’s post.
“I was glad to see the mayor’s statement, and I appreciate it,” said the octogenarian. “I’ve met him and know him, so it never made sense that his office would not approve of me.”
Former Democratic Assemblyman Dov Hikind, founder of Americans Against Antisemitism, said he was extremely disturbed by the original news and the New York Post’s report that a spokesman from the mayor’s office backed the principal.
“It’s outrageous, disgusting and pathetic,” Hikind told JNS on Dec. 3. “How did the [New York] Department of Education say this was OK? Shame on them! To reach the point where a Holocaust survivor is rejected from speaking at a school, you have to wonder how much worse it can get. People are such cowards; they are so afraid they are going to offend someone on the radical left. Canceling a Holocaust survivor who is 85 reaches a new level of sickness and disgust.”
‘We are living in a strange time’
The Holocaust survivor said one of the reasons he enjoys speaking to students is to help them develop critical thinking skills. He said he often tailors his presentation to what a specific school prefers: He first tells administrators what he would like to say and asks about their policies.
Inna Vernikov, a Republican who represents District 48 in Brooklyn for the city council of New York, stated that the move made little sense.
“It’s particularly disgusting to see someone like Sami Steigmann, who lived through the horrors of the Holocaust, treated like a political pariah by a New York City public school when he has spoken in front of thousands of students about his experiences,” Vernikov messaged JNS. “The potential First Amendment violations and other legal issues of this denial should be addressed so we can stamp out a rapidly forming pattern in our schools: a blatant exclusion of Jewish voices in the classroom.”
Steigmann said that at a time of rising Jew-hatred in America, it’s important to teach the younger generations about the Holocaust, especially since fewer and fewer survivors are left to do so.
Still, he told JNS that he hopes people remain positive and peaceful in these tumultuous times.
Steigmann was born in Czernovitz (Chernivtsi), Bukovina, part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire belonging to Romania (now part of Western Ukraine) on Dec. 21, 1939. This Chanukah, he will turn 86.
He noted that it is imperative to have Holocaust curricula in public schools, with enforcement that it actually be taught.
“There’s a lesson to be learned from everything,” he said. “We are living in a strange time where right is wrong, and wrong is right. But I am always an optimist.”
