A newly hired social studies teacher at Charles E. Brown Middle School is facing public criticism after parents discovered her undergraduate college thesis about the 2024 pro-Palestinian campus protests.

Maryam Abu-Hasaballah, a 2025 University of Connecticut graduate who studied history, was hired by Newton Public Schools to teach eighth grade history and social studies starting this fall. She wrote her senior honors thesis in 2025 about how UConn responded more aggressively to deter pro-Palestinian campus protests in 2024 than it did during the Vietnam War and Civil Rights protests of the 1960s and 1970s.

Criticism of Abu-Hasaballah’s hiring dominated public comment at the Sept. 14 school committee meeting. Five parents and residents of Newton and neighboring communities objected to Abu-Hasaballah’s use of the word “genocide” to describe Israel’s war in Gaza, questioning if she could teach about the Holocaust fairly and whether students will feel expected to adopt her personal political beliefs. 

It was the latest instance of tensions over Israel’s war in Gaza spilling into Newton, drawing strong reactions from the community.

As of Monday, it wasn’t clear how school officials are responding to the criticism. Neither NPS nor the Newton school committee responded to questions about whether the district finds that Abu-Hasaballah’s past writings make her unfit to teach history, whether the district is considering placing her on leave and whether the district takes issue with her use of the word “genocide” to describe Israel’s war in Gaza.

Abu-Hasaballah did not respond to questions about the community backlash and whether she feels safe and supported at her new job. Her name remains on the Brown Middle School teacher’s directory.

One strong voice of support came from the Newton Teachers Association. In a statement to the Newton Beacon, the union said that the district does “an exceptional job of hiring highly qualified educators.”

“The NTA condemns the recent attacks on a new college graduate just beginning her teaching career here in Newton,” the union’s statement said. “These have come at the hands of a small, shameless group with a history of assailing Newton educators … We expect that the Newton community will stand united in support of Maryam as she begins a long and fruitful career in the Newton Public Schools.”

In her thesis, Abu-Hasaballah argued that the “Pro-Palestinian Anti-Apartheid” campus movements of 2024 share much in common with the anti-war and racial equality movements of the 1960s and 1970s. She also called Israel’s war in Gaza “collective punishment” against innocent Palestinian civilians. 

“October 2023 marked a pivotal time on campuses around the world as the Israel-Hamas war began and civilians in Palestine suffered the consequences,” she wrote. The beginning of this war triggered series of events that would eventually lead to the genocide of Palestinians at the hands of the Israeli government.”

An excerpt of Abu-Hasaballah’s publicly available undergraduate senior thesis. (Photo by Madhri Yehiya)

The thesis does not mention the October 7 attacks by Hamas against Israel, in which 1,200 people were killed and 250 hostages were taken, prompting the massive retaliation in Gaza. Since the start of the war, more than 74,000 Palestinians have been killed, according to Gaza health authorities.

In September 2025, the United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory determined that the State of Israel has committed a genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Israeli leaders have repeatedly denied the military deliberately caused a genocide, claiming it targeted Hamas terrorists who hid among civilians.

Community outcry

During public comment at the Sept. 14 school committee meeting, five people in a row spoke against Abu-Hasaballah’s hiring.

Phoebe Olhava, a mother of two recent NPS high school graduates, called it “libel” to use the word “genocide” when describing the war in Gaza. Olhava also called anti-Zionism—opposition to Israel’s right to exist—a form of hatred against Jewish people, which she said includes characterizing Israel as evil, violent and against human rights. 

“This is not a political opinion. This is a libel,” she said. “What it does is it demonizes Jews. People who use this libel are demonizing Jews. And if we let this libel into our schools, where Jews are viewed as ‘genociders,’ they are being demonized, and the next step is violence against the Jews.” 

Joshua Krefetz, a father of two current NPS students, said he finds that Jewish residents are treated unfairly when reporting discriminatory incidents.

“Allegations of racism brought by Jewish people are treated differently than they are treated when any other group of people raises these issues,” he told the school committee. “Put in any other race or religion or anything for the way we’re spoken to by this city, and you might think that things need to change a little bit.” 

Not all of the teacher’s critics were from Newton. Lisa Shatz, a Brookline resident who said she heard of the hiring through Newton parents, said she took issue with Abu-Hasaballah’s characterization of accusations of antisemitism as a potential means of suppressing pro-Palestinian activism.

“Teachers are entitled to their political opinions,” she said. “My concern is what happens when someone whose work reflects highly ideological and deeply one-sided positions is hired to teach subjects directly related to those positions.”

Shatz said she urged NPS to consider whether the district’s hiring process adequately reviews whether candidates can teach controversial subjects fairly and whether there are safeguards against a teacher’s worldview becoming something students feel expected to adopt.

“Jewish students have an enormous stake in how [the Holocaust] is taught, but it is just as important, perhaps even more important, that non-Jewish students receive an accurate and unbiased education about it,” she added.

Sagit Sade Attia, national senior director of academic initiatives and the regional director of the New England Israeli-American Council, said she found it concerning that Abu-Hasaballah’s thesis does not include a discussion of the October 7 attacks or the historical context that led to the war in Gaza.

“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 the central context and competing perspectives?” she asked the school committee.

“Baseless” allegations

Sawa, a Newton-based peace organization that advocates for justice for Palestinians, Muslims and Arabs and inclusion for all, denounced Abu-Hasaballah’s critics in a statement to the Newton Beacon.

“The allegations against Ms. Abu-Hasaballah are baseless. Such attacks against our community and our educators is an old tactic to exert pressure to limit the discourse in our schools and our city,” the organization said. “The same groups and individuals leading this campaign also led and participated in other campaigns of defamation and intimidation.”

Sawa representatives cited the shutdown of a Palestinian photography exhibit at the Newton Free Library in May 2024, prompted by several pro-Israel protesters interrupting the event by chanting, singing and holding signs. More recently, Sawa members pointed to backlash against an Eid al-Adha celebration held at Newton’s War Memorial Auditorium in May. 

Two of the Newton parents who spoke against the teacher were involved in the campaign against the celebration of the yearly Muslim holiday, as part of a small group that wrote to Mayor Marc Laredo, accusing the event’s organizers of having ties to Islamic terrorist organizations.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations called it an “anti-Muslim hate campaign” filled with “baseless accusations … through a series of guilt-by-association claims intended to cast suspicion on Muslim neighbors.” Laredo told Boston.com that his administration fully supported the Eid celebration and found the claims made against its participants to be unfounded.

At an August 2024 NTA campaign rally for city councilor Bill Humphrey, pro-Israel protestors accused the teachers of supporting Hamas, antisemitism and terrorism. The NPS district faced a lawsuit in 2018 for a high school history curriculum that some parents found to be antisemitic and anti-Israel. In 2023, a group of parents critical of diversity initiatives blamed the district’s emphasis on racial equity and inclusion for falling test scores and lower academic achievement.

Shatz, one of the people who spoke at the school committee meeting, told the Beacon that these past issues are irrelevant to “preventative” concerns about Abu-Hasaballah’s thesis, as she has no evidence of the new teacher sharing her political views with students. Sade Attia told the Beacon she does not see this as a “movement” against Abu-Hasaballah and believes this is a matter of concern for more than just the Jewish community. Krefetz and Olhava did not provide additional comments.

The Beacon was unable to verify whether all of the parents and residents who spoke at the Sept. 14 school committee meeting were involved in the past campaigns against the teachers’ union, the school district and Muslim and Palestinian events.

“We stand by our educators and commend our school leaders for their rejection of such hate-filled bullying behavior,” Sawa members told the Beacon. “Newton is better than that.”