Tag: David Lefkowitz

RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #196: Danielle Khalaf and the ACLU

airs July 5, 2025 on Dave’s Gone By. Also watch here:  https://youtu.be/vYp0ZQLKcFQ

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for Independence Weekend 2025. 

Hatred to the right of us, hatred to the left of us—especially to the left of us these days—Jews can’t look at the news without nitwits giving us grief, and bigger nitwitslauding and defending them. 

The latest example comes to us from Detroit, Michigan, a city with so much Muslim integration, they might as well call it “Baby Beirut.” However, these people are not illegal terrorists; they are citizens and immigrants working, striving, paying taxes, and sending their kids to school.

One such kid is 14-year-old Danielle Khalaf. Of Palestinian origin, she does not like Israel very much. She also presumably watched one too many NFL games and noticed some athletes taking a knee rather than standing for the “Star Spangled Banner.” Well, little Danielle thought, “This is my chance to change the world!” . . . because who doesn’t take their political cues from a precocious, pubescent adolescent at East Middle School?

Instead of rising and saying the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, as millions of children have dutifully done since 1892, kooky Khalaf stayed seated and silent. That is her right as an American citizen: the prerogative to criticize the government, to wave the flag/wear the flag/or burn the flag, to buck peer pressure and march to your own drummer, even if the drummer plays like Lars Ulrich. 

I’m sure Danielle, a stubby potato of a girl, who you can tell will be a middle-aged cat lady by the time she’s 22, dreams of being “courageous” like Greta “Look at Me” Thunberg. But Khalaf is far from the first person to pass on the Pledge. Atheists have long bristled at the “under God” part, and people with harelips can’t pronounce “indivisible.”

So Khalaf is entitled to her narcissistic snit over America’s military support of Israel. But her teacher, Carissa Soranno, was not happy about it and called the girl out over her Gaza grandstanding. Maybe Soranno’s pro-Israel. Maybe she’s just appalled by the girl’s refusal to pledge allegiance to this nation and no other. Soranno told her, quote, “Since you live in this country and enjoy its freedom, if you don’t like it, you should go back to your country.” When the girl repeated her sit-down protest the next day, Soranno called her “disrespectful” and said she should be ashamed of herself.

This hurt Danielle’s feewings. She was “traumatized,” she said. Awww. So traumatized she tattled to the American Civil Liberties Union. Ughhh. They filed a lawsuit against the school district and the teacher for violating Khalaf’s rights and for making her suffer, quote, “extensive emotional and social injuries.” (gasp) If a snowflake melts in a cafeteria, does it make a whine?

Nabih Ayad, a spokesperson for the Arab-American Civil Rights League, rebuked the teacher in the press, calling her insensitive for picking on a student who was merely exercising her constitutional right. The school district then said it had taken “appropriate action” against Soranno.

And maybe that’s reasonable. A teacher should display more maturity than a 14-year-old over whom she has power, and the woman’s response to Khalif was harsh, disparaging, maybe even inappropriate. Soranno acted in the heat of a moment that she might have finessed or counted to ten and avoided. But she also spoke her truth: this teenager thumbing her nose at America hurt the teacher’sfeelings.

So why isn’t the ACLU defending her? Why does Princess Jasmine get to snub the stars and stripes—a slap in the face to everyone who ever fought and died for this country, by the way—why is her free speechlessness protected, but the teacher’s isn’t? Soranno didn’t smack the kid. She didn’t dock her grade. She didn’t put baby in the corner and make her wear a dunce hijab. She didn’t glue her eyes open and force her to watch Schindler’s List. She merely called Khalaf shameful and disrespectful, and asked her, insultingly but fairly, if this country’s military choices are so hateful to her, why doesn’t she snag a one-way ticket to any country in the Arabsphere, where, of course, young women are free to do whatever they please?

Before she becomes another brainlessly woke college student blocking traffic and sleeping in a green tent, maybe this 14-year-old should learn that just because your actions are legal doesn’t mean you’re not responsible. If you give me the finger, and I call you an asshole, why does the ACLU protect your finger but attack my asshole? That didn’t come out right, but you know what I mean: freedom of speech works both ways. If Khalaf can make her stupid statement, Soranno should be able to denounce her. The school district then has the right to chastise Soranno, while patriotic parents have the right to berate the school.

Nothing is more American than a free exchange of anger, mistrust, and derision, all of it protected, as it should be, by the founding fathers. Danielle Khalaf is getting all sorts of sympathy for sitting, but I stand with Soranno. And when it comes to the ACLU’s lamebrain lawsuit, I paraphrase the Pledge and hope the teacher receives the justice meant for all. 

This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York. Yankee Doodle dammit. 

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—> https://youtu.be/vYp0ZQLKcFQ

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