Exclusive | NJ high school accused of banning yellow ribbons honoring Israeli hostages: Blatant antisemitism

A New Jersey high school banned yellow ribbons meant to symbolize support for the Israeli hostages during a club fair — a “blatant’’ display of antisemitism, furious critics say.Some Fair Lawn High School parents and the group StopAntisemitism also complained that the presence of Israel’s flag during the event, which was partly promoting a trip to Israel, was not allowed because the administration deemed it too “political” — while members of the Muslim Student Association were allowed to display a keffiyeh.“What happened at Fair Lawn High School is an alarming case of hypocrisy and blatant antisemitism,” said Liora Rez, founder of StopAntisemitism.“This incident is nothing short of a direct violation of Jewish students’ rights to express their identity and humanitarian concerns.”About a third to 40% of the 35,000 residents in Fair Lawn in Bergen County, just 17 miles from New York City, are Jewish.  A Fair Lawn parent said the public school district’s failure to address complaints about alleged antisemitism has been a simmering issue for some time.“The incident at Fair Lawn High School’s Club Fair is not an isolated event but part of a disturbing pattern of antisemitism that I and other parents have been battling for years,” said Adi Vaxman, founder and president of Operation Israel, a group that provides humanitarian relief to Israel, to The Post on Sunday.“Despite numerous meetings with the board of education and the superintendent, promises of inclusion in anti-antisemitism efforts have gone unfulfilled,” Vaxman said.Her daughter, Maya, is a student at the high school.“The administrator’s claim that the yellow hostage ribbon — a humanitarian symbol calling for the release of innocent civilians abducted from their homes and held in subhuman conditions by Hamas — is ‘political’ is deeply offensive and unacceptable,” the irate mom said.Vaxman claimed that by comparison, the black-and-white keffiyeh, “a symbo...