Newton, Massachusetts, a city of 90,000 with close to 18,000 Jewish residents, has hired a teacher with apparent family ties to Hamas. The new hire, Maryam Abu-Hasaballah, provided intellectual air cover for anti-Israel protesters at the University of Connecticut in her 2025 senior thesis which falsely accused the Jewish state of genocide and downplayed hostility toward Jews expressed by the protesters.
Parents are fighting back.
While a student at the University of Connecticut, Abu-Hasaballah wrote a senior thesis about post October 7 protests at the school. The thesis made no mention of the rapes, murders, and kidnappings perpetrated by Hamas during the October 7 massacre that preceded the protests.
Jewish activists, including parents with children in public schools in Newton, Massachusetts, expressed their concerns over the recent hiring of Maryam Abu-Hasaballah, an eighth-grade history and social studies teacher at the city’s Charles E. Brown Middle School.
While a student at the University of Connecticut, Abu-Hasaballah wrote a senior thesis about post October 7 protests at the school. The thesis made no mention of the rapes, murders, and kidnappings perpetrated by Hamas during the October 7 massacre that preceded the protests. To make matters worse, Abu-Hasaballah, who accused UConn officials of targeting pro-Palestinian protesters because of their ties to the Jewish state, apparently has family ties to a Hamas fighter who was killed days after he participated in the October 7 attack.
The parents voiced their anger at the Newton School Committee’s September 14, 2026, meeting. Officials had failed to post the meeting time properly on its website, nearly denying members of the public an opportunity to comment on the hiring.
Still, the parents persevered and raised issues that the School Committee simply cannot ignore.
In a strategically wise move, they made no mention of Abu-Hasaballah’s apparent family ties to a Hamas fighter who was killed by Israel soon after he participated in the October 7 attack. Instead, they asked if someone who wrote such a distorted thesis about campus protests at UConn could be trusted to teach history and social studies to impressionable middle school students.
Lisa Shatz, a Brookline resident and a member of its Town Meeting, set the tone and parameters for the discussion. After telling the School Committee that Abu-Hasaballah is entitled to her opinions, she asked, “What happens when someone whose work reflects highly ideological and deeply one-sided positions is hired to teach subjects directly related to those positions?” After summarizing the one-sided nature of Abu-Hasaballah’s thesis, Schatz asked, “When publicly available academic work demonstrates a highly politicized and one-sided understanding of subjects a candidate may teach, is that relevant?”
Shatz closed her testimony before the School Committee with two challenges: “Does Newton’s hiring process adequately consider whether candidates can teach controversial subjects fairly? And what safeguards ensure that a teacher’s political worldview does not become the worldview students are expected to adopt?”
After telling the School Committee that Abu-Hasaballah is entitled to her opinions, she asked, “What happens when someone whose work reflects highly ideological and deeply one-sided positions is hired to teach subjects directly related to those positions?”
Sagit Sade Attia, the National Senior Director of Academic Action at the Israeli-American Council, took a similar approach when she addressed the School Committee, stating she had “serious questions about whether [Abu-Hasaballah’s] academic preparation demonstrates the historical breadth and balance necessary to teach our children about complex and highly sensitive subjects.”
In her reading of the thesis, Attia said she found “extensive discussions of the protests and the Palestinian perspective” but could not find “any historical context explaining the events that led to the war in Gaza.”
“The October 7th, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel was not addressed at all,” she added. “About 1,200 people were murdered that day, including babies, civilians, children, and elderly people. There were also reports of sexual violence, kidnapping of 250 people, and horrific acts of brutality broadcast through telegrams by the terrorists themselves, including attacks on people in their homes and the Nova Music Festival. In addition, over 3,300 were wounded that day.”
Attia concluded her testimony with a devastating question, “How can an eighth-grade history teacher teach students to critically examine current events and historical conflicts if her own academic work does not demonstrate engagement with essential context and competing perspectives?”
Another parent with two children in Newton Public Schools, Josh Krefetz, complained about how Newton officials responded to concerns about Abu-Hasaballah’s hiring.
“[Parents] were told, among other things, regarding the hiring process, ‘Our hiring committee is an interdisciplinary team inclusive of NPS staff members with different roles and professional and cultural backgrounds, including Jewish staff members.’” Krefetz reported. “In this case - we don’t care if there was a Jewish staff member,” he said.
“When you tell us, ‘Don’t worry, there was a Jew’-imagine telling a black person, ‘Don’t worry, there’s a black man on the Supreme Court, what are you worried about?’” Krefetz said. “Put in any other race or religion, or anything, for the way we’re spoken to by this city, and you might think things need to change a little bit.”
Phoebe Olhava, a Newton parent whose two sons graduated from Newton Public Schools in 2022 and 2025, told the School Committee that these days, Jews are fighting the newest form of Jew-hatred-anti-Zionism-which portrays Israel as uniquely evil and violent among the nations of the world. This narrative is advanced by the false allegation of “genocide” by activists, Olhava stated.
“If we let this libel into our schools, where Jews are viewed as genociders, they are being demonized. And the next step is violence - violence against the Jews.”
“People who use this libel are demonizing Jews,” she said. “If we let this libel into our schools, where Jews are viewed as genociders, they are being demonized. And the next step is violence - violence against the Jews.”
All in all, it was a pretty robust response to the issues raised by Abu-Hasaballah’s thesis.
The question now is how Newton Public School officials will respond in the weeks ahead.
As they say, “All eyes on Newton!”
And perhaps you, too, can take note of who your school is hiring and if necessary, follow in the footsteps of the Newton Jewish population.
Published originally on September 23, 2026.
