A long-planned study trip to Reggio Emilia, Italy, meant to immerse Jewish early-childhood educators in the city's famed teaching philosophy, collapsed days before departure after participants said they were asked to sign a statement distancing themselves from the occupation of Gaza. Nearly 70 educators from Jewish schools across the United States pulled out, according to the educators themselves, after what organizers described as mounting antisemitic pressure and safety concerns surrounding the trip.
The Paradigm Project had organized the trip for 68 Jewish educators from the United States, according to JTA, though other accounts of the delegation's size vary. Jewish Insider reported that more than 70 educators from Jewish schools canceled the planned visit, while a separate Jewish Insider report put the total closer to 100 Jewish early-childhood educators from the United States and Israel combined. The educators had been scheduled to travel to Reggio Emilia from Oct. 11 through Oct. 16 to study the Reggio Emilia Approach, a globally influential model of early-childhood education that originated in the northern Italian city, as reported by ABC7 New York.
A Pledge Participants Say They Were Asked to Sign
According to educators who spoke with Jewish Insider, participants were asked to sign a statement reading, in part, “I distance myself from the occupation of Gaza and the violation of children's and human beings' rights in the occupied territories.” Jen Schiffer, a Jewish preschool director from Port Washington, described the trip as innocent before it turned antisemitic, per ABC7's reporting. Dr. Pesha Kletenik, associated with Manhattan Day School on the Upper West Side, called the experience exceedingly antisemitic and said it was one of her most painful experiences as a Jew, according to the same ABC7 account.
Educators also said their personal and institutional social-media profiles were reviewed and characterized as demonstrating support for Israel and the IDF, Kletenik told Jewish Insider. ABC7 reported that educators said their social media was analyzed for possible ties to Israel, its military and the occupation in Gaza, and that they learned of threats of protest in Italy ahead of their arrival. Schiffer said organizers could not guarantee the educators' safety, and the American organizers ultimately canceled the trip on Oct. 7, citing what they called antisemitic pressure being placed on the group, per JTA. Kletenik questioned why an American citizen would be asked to comment on a foreign government's policies, ABC7 reported.
City and Program Dispute the Framing
Reggio Children, the organization behind the program, told JTA that the disputed wording had been included only as material for discussion in a private WhatsApp group and was never official participation language. Reggio Emilia Mayor Marco Massari told Jewish Insider that the city's education charter was intended to be open for discussion, not a requirement that visitors sign on to a particular position. The mayor said the city remains open to schools from around the world and wished to share an additional commitment to defending children's rights in occupied territories and worldwide amid the situation in the Middle East, according to ABC7.
Despite the cancellation by the American contingent, a separate delegation of 22 educators from Israel arrived in Reggio Emilia and took part in the program, JTA reported. Reggio Children has maintained relationships with American Jewish and Israeli educators for roughly three decades, a spokesperson told the Jerusalem Post. Seven educators from Wilshire Boulevard Temple's early-childhood centers in Los Angeles had been scheduled to join the now-canceled American trip, per JTA.
Ripple Effects at Other Schools
The fallout reached beyond the canceled delegation. Steve Freedman said the Solomon Schechter Day School of Bergen County withdrew an educator from a separate trip planned for November, and that the school felt sad, with educators believing 68 American Jews had been singled out, according to ABC7's reporting. Schiffer said she did not think she would ever be able to return to Reggio Emilia, per the same ABC7 account.
The dispute unfolds against a broader rise in antisemitic incidents across Italy. The Observatory on Antisemitism recorded 401 antisemitic incidents in the country between January and June of this year, out of 621 total reports received, according to the European Jewish Congress. That figure marked a 14 percent decrease from the same period in 2025 but remained roughly three times higher than the 2019–2022 average, with Israel-related antisemitism accounting for 198 incidents, the largest single ideological category tracked by the Observatory.
