The Department of Education “spit” in the face of Arabs with the appointment of a Jewish woman as principal of the city’s new Arabic-themed school, a Muslim activist said yesterday.
“It doesn’t make any sense,” Zein Rimawi said of the appointment of Danielle Salzberg.
“It’s like somebody spit in our face as Arabs,” said Rimawi, a founder of the Islamic Society of Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, and an organizer with the Arab Muslim American Federation.
“They didn’t hire an Arab principal [for] a Chinese school. It doesn’t make any sense.
“This is no respect to our community. Where is the respect?” he asked.
Salzberg is an Orthodox Jew who had worked to develop the curriculum at the Khalil Gibran International Academy.
Her predecessor, Debbie Almontaser, a devout Muslim and fluent Arabic speaker, quit under pressure last Friday after a furor over her comments to The Post defending “Intifada NYC” T-shirts to which her organization was linked.
