A math teacher at Park Slope Collegiate is facing calls for her job after posting an image depicting soccer star Lionel Messi as a crying, groveling figure with an exaggerated nose, wearing a yarmulke and rubbing his hands together — a caricature closely resembling the antisemitic internet meme known as the Happy Merchant. Maysa Jarara posted the image to Facebook under the name Maysa in July, captioning it simply, “the look on his face is priceless.”
The post, first reported by the New York Post, surfaced amid online conspiracy theories circulating during the World Cup that claimed Jews control FIFA, soccer's regulatory body, and worked behind the scenes to benefit Messi's career — claims that spread despite Messi having visited Israel as part of a peace tour back in 2013. The Happy Merchant caricature itself has a documented history: the Anti-Defamation League added it to its Hate Symbols Database in September 2019, classifying it as an alt-right digital image used to promote antisemitic tropes about greed and manipulation, according to VOA.
United Jewish Teachers president Moshe Spern said Jarara crossed a major line by trafficking in classic antisemitic tropes depicting Jews as greedy and scheming, per the Post's reporting. The outlet also reports that Jarara regularly reposts messages denigrating Israel, including one showing an Israeli flag covered in blood, and that on October 7 she shared an Instagram illustration of a keffiyeh-clad man dancing with a woman in a hijab in front of a burning pile, captioned, “and we love life and we can live it in a way” — posted on the third anniversary of the Hamas attack that killed more than 1,200 Israelis in 2023.
Watchdog Groups and Parent Leaders Weigh In
New York City Public Schools Alliance president Karen Feldman said a teacher publicly shared inflammatory, biased and historically misleading posts about Israel and the Jewish people, according to the same Post report. Online watchdog group StopAntisemitism separately flagged posts attributed to Jarara in October, alleging she regularly circulated anti-Zionist conspiracy claims, from-the-river-to-the-sea slogans, and posts promoting 9/11 conspiracy theories blaming Jewish people, as detailed by Elder Of Ziyon.
Jarara reportedly earned about $140,000 in 2025. Park Slope Collegiate, located at 237 7th Avenue, serves roughly 500 students across grades 6 through 12 under a specialized diversity initiative that emphasizes social justice education, according to InsideSchools.
Part of a Broader Pattern in NYC Schools
The Post's report ties Jarara's case to other recent incidents involving city educators. Damian Neva, who teaches history at P.S. 77 in Park Slope, allegedly texted “long live Yahya al-Sinwar” in a group chat whose participants sought to implement a boycott of Israeli goods at the Park Slope Food Co-op, according to a lawsuit cited in the Post's reporting. The outlet also notes that George Trim, a social studies teacher at IS 181 in Brooklyn, was reprimanded by the Department of Education after being caught hosting an antisemitic conspiracy podcast while wearing a tinfoil hat — a case Hoodline reported on in July, when payroll records listed his 2025 earnings at $110,848 prior to the inquiry.
DOE guidance addresses employee conduct. Teachers' personal speech rights outside the classroom can be weighed against workplace interests.
Jewish Families Continue Leaving Public Schools
The Post's report notes that thousands of New York City Jewish families have pulled their children out of public schools to shield them from anti-Israel content in classrooms, with Jewish schools in New York City and New York State seeing an enrollment increase of roughly 3,100 students, according to a Teach Coalition study cited in the article. That tracks with separate findings reported by Ynet News, which found statewide enrollment in private Jewish K-12 schools rose nearly 2%, or about 3,100 students, during the 2025-2026 academic year, building on 4.2% growth recorded since 2022. Ynet also reported that 60% of parents who enrolled their children in private Jewish schools did so because of the war.
Park Slope Collegiate has seen its own institutional friction with city officials before: former principal Jill Bloomberg brought a retaliation lawsuit against the Department of Education over an internal misconduct investigation into her political advocacy, a case Hoodline covered last year.
No disciplinary outcome for Jarara has been announced. Her case now joins a growing list of DOE referrals testing how far the department will go in disciplining teachers over off-duty social media activity, even as parent advocates demand swift termination and the agency works through its own investigative process.
