The Consulate General of Israel to the Midwest slammed Chicago’s recently appointed Board of Education president on Wednesday after Jewish Insider reported that he posted antisemitic content and supported Hamas.
“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,” the consulate stated.
“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,” the consulate added. “Jewish and Israeli parents in the city cannot feel safe under his leadership, nor can any student or parent with a moral compass.”
Since the terrorist attacks by Hamas in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, Johnson has posted or promoted a slew of antisemitic and pro-Hamas messages on Facebook, Jewish Insider revealed.
“I have been saying this since October 2023,” Johnson wrote in March. “People have an absolute right to attack their oppressors by any means necessary.” On New Year’s Eve, he wrote, “I say again, stop blaming Hamas.”
The Chicago Board of Education president also repeatedly engaged in Holocaust inversion, accusing Israel of committing the same crimes as Nazi Germany. “The Nazi Germans’ ideology has been adopted by the Zionist Jews,” he wrote in one post. “How can a group of people, who have suffered from the Holocaust, today join with the alt-right community?” he asked in another.
In November, Johnson shared a video that claimed that Zionists are not real Jews but actually Satanist “Luciferians.” He posted the video with the caption, “I would like to hear from my Jewish friend [sic] in reference to this post.”
In his official bio on the Education Board site, Johnson states that “he has been a consultant for Alpha Epsilon Pi, the world’s largest Jewish college fraternity, operating chapters on more than 190 college campuses in seven countries.”
AEPi told JNS that Johnson “is misrepresenting his relationship with Alpha Epsilon Pi.”
“He attended—at the invitation of one of our partners—a combat hate conference co-sponsored by AEPi and other organizations. He has never been employed by or volunteered for Alpha Epsilon Pi,” the fraternity told JNS.
“As an organization committed to developing the future leaders of the Jewish community, we are strongly opposed to the antisemitic thoughts and language used by Rev. Johnson and urge Chicago Mayor Johnson to remove him from the Board of Education as he is an abhorrent role model for children,” AEPi said.
Mitchell Johnson was named to lead the Education Board after all seven of the board’s previous members resigned on Oct. 4, amid a dispute between Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and the chief executive of Chicago Public Schools. The dispute related to the city’s school budget.
City and state elected officials condemned the Chicago mayor on Wednesday for failing to vet the antisemitic posts of his Education Board president.
“This situation is a failure of leadership and judgment on the part of Mayor Johnson and his executive team,” wrote 27 of Chicago’s 50 aldermen. “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.”
The statement also condemned the posts as antisemitic and called on the board president to resign.
Chicago-area Jewish groups, including the local representatives of the Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Committee, echoed the call for his resignation.
“It is deeply troubling—and quite frankly unacceptable—that after a year of dangerous and offensive antisemitic social media posts and statements, Rev. Johnson was appointed as president of the Chicago Public School Board in the first place,” stated Sarah van Loon, regional director of the AJC’s Chicago office.
“Chicago families, especially Jewish families, clearly cannot have faith that their children will be safe from harassment or discrimination and provided with a safe, nurturing learning environment as long as Rev. Johnson remains in his post,” she added.
Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, who is Jewish, said at a Wednesday press conference that he was disturbed by some of what he had seen but hadn’t read all of the posts in question.
“Can you miss things in people’s vets? Sure,” Pritzker said. “But it feels like Facebook posts are pretty easy to find, so you do have to ask the question, who vetted him?”
“I understand there’s quite a lot that he has posted online, and so there’s more to come,” Pritzker added. “A thorough final judgment should be withheld pending a look at that.”
The revelations about the posts by the Education Board president come amid tension between Chicago Jews and the city. The mayor, who voted in February to break a tie in the City Council and call for a ceasefire in Israel without mentioning Hamas or the hostages, waited several days after an Orthodox Jewish man was shot walking to synagogue on Saturday to issue a statement. And when Johnson did issue a statement, he didn’t mention that the victim was Jewish.
The Chicago Police Department announced 14 felony charges against the accused gunman—who reportedly entered the country illegally—but did not announce hate crime charges initially. Video footage appeared to capture the gunman saying “Allahu Akbar” either while shooting the Jewish man or in a subsequent two-and-a-half-minute shootout with police officers.
The Israeli consulate in Chicago said that the revelations about the Chicago Education Board president’s posts were part of a pattern of behavior toward Jews for the mayor.
“This is the latest example of the antisemitic hate that pervades the inner circle of Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson,” the consulate stated. “We expect that Mayor Brandon Johnson will disavow this inflammatory rhetoric and make a commitment to combating antisemitism in Chicago, in both words and actions.”
