School social worker’s post of bugs next to Jewish students cannot get a pass

There is a video that my organization posted last week. It shows our students in Jerusalem, gathered at a restaurant, celebrating Lag B’Omer. They are dancing. They are laughing. They are young people, full of life, expressing joy on one of the most festive days in the Jewish calendar.

A New York City public-school social worker watched that video and decided to post images of bugs on it.

Her name is Lauren Camiolo. She holds the title of ambassador for her school’s anti-religious bullying program.

Let that sink in.

I know these students. I have sat with them in classrooms, shared Shabbat meals with them and watched them wrestle with questions of faith, identity and meaning. They came to Jerusalem to learn and to grow. On Lag B’Omer, they went out to eat, to dance, to celebrate together. That is what appeared in our video. That is what Camiolo looked at and decided to respond to with images of vermin.

Comparing Jews to insects is one of the oldest and most lethal forms of Jew-hatred in existence. The Nazi propaganda machine built its entire architecture of genocide on precisely this premise—that Jews were parasites, vermin, creatures to be exterminated, rather than human beings deserving of dignity. This language preceded every mass atrocity committed against the Jewish people. The dehumanization always came first. The killing came after.

Camiolo may tell herself she was making a political point. She was not. She was reaching into a toolbox that has been used to justify Jewish murder for centuries, and she deployed it against a group of young people who were dancing at a restaurant half a world away in Jerusalem. And it was not the first time she attacked Jews online.

When the New York Post gave her the opportunity to explain herself, she threatened to call the police.

That response tells you everything. There was no remorse. No recognition of what she had done. The Post has also documented a continuing pattern of Jew-demonization that Camiolo has spread across social media for years. The very hatred she is professionally obligated to shield children from.

Many of the students in that video grew up in American cities, attended American schools, sat in classrooms not unlike the one where Camiolo works. They came to Jerusalem carrying questions about what it means to be Jewish in a world that increasingly treats Jewish identity as something to be ashamed of or attacked.

They found joy. They found community. They found themselves dancing on Lag B’Omer—a holiday that commemorates the life of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, a man who spent years in hiding to protect the Torah from those who wanted it destroyed.

And a New York City school social worker looked at their celebration and compared them to bugs.

The New York City Department of Education does not get to treat this as a human-resources matter requiring quiet review. This is not a performance issue or a lapse in professional judgment.

This is open, documented Jew-hatred from someone whose entire mandate is to protect children from exactly that. The contradiction is not complicated. The response should not be complicated either.

Jewish students in New York City are already living through a crisis. Antisemitic hate crimes accounted for 57% of all reported hate crimes in New York City in 2025. That’s 57% in a city where Jews make up roughly 10% of the population. These children need school environments where the adults around them are committed to their dignity, and where the person whose job is to protect them from hatred is not simultaneously producing it online.

Our students in Jerusalem are resilient. They will keep dancing. But the families of every Jewish child in New York City deserve to know that their schools are safe. Right now, they cannot be certain of that. The Department of Education must answer this.