{"id":88831,"date":"2025-07-18T13:14:00","date_gmt":"2025-07-18T18:14:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/?p=88831"},"modified":"2025-07-18T13:18:25","modified_gmt":"2025-07-18T18:18:25","slug":"students-at-netanyahus-pennsylvania-high-school-want-him-ejected-from-the-alumni-hall-of-fame","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/students-at-netanyahus-pennsylvania-high-school-want-him-ejected-from-the-alumni-hall-of-fame\/","title":{"rendered":"Students at Netanyahu\u2019s Pennsylvania high school want him ejected from the alumni hall of fame"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By PHILISSA CRAMER<\/p>\n<p>(JTA) \u2014 More than 200 students at Cheltenham High School in suburban Philadelphia have petitioned for the school\u2019s alumni hall of fame to eject Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who graduated from the school in 1967.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_88832\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Netanyahu_HS.png\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-88832\" class=\"wp-image-88832 size-medium lazyload\" data-src=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Netanyahu_HS-300x293.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"293\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Netanyahu_HS-300x293.png 300w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Netanyahu_HS-1024x1000.png 1024w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Netanyahu_HS-768x750.png 768w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Netanyahu_HS.png 1521w\" data-sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 300px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 300\/293;\" \/><noscript><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-88832\" class=\"wp-image-88832 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Netanyahu_HS-300x293.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"293\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Netanyahu_HS-300x293.png 300w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Netanyahu_HS-1024x1000.png 1024w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Netanyahu_HS-768x750.png 768w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Netanyahu_HS.png 1521w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/noscript><\/a><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-88832\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Benjamin Netanyahu as pictured in his high school yearbook at Cheltenham High School in Cheltenham, Pennsylvania. (File photo)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Officers of the school\u2019s alumni association are meeting with school district officials on Friday to consider the petition, according to a report in The New York Times, which said the association\u2019s secretary privately said the group was inclined \u201cto keep Netanyahu up, but maybe with an update in his biography.\u201d Netanyahu was added to the hall of fame in 1999, during his first stint as prime minister.<\/p>\n<p>The petition, submitted last month&nbsp;by roughly 15% of students, cited Netanyahu\u2019s criminal indictment and arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court accusing him of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza, the newspaper reported. Netanyahu denies the criminal charges against him and Israel rejects the allegation that it has committed war crimes in Gaza, where it has been battling Hamas since Hamas\u2019 Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen students see these alumni on the wall of fame as we walk past every day, we understand that these are people we should look up to, and we strive to be like them one day,\u201d two of the students wrote when they submitted the petition last month, according to The New York Times. They added, \u201cAs such, we feel it is not right for him to continue to be recognized in our school.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Netanyahu lived in Cheltenham twice, from 1956 to 1958 when he was in elementary school, and from 1963 to 1967 when he was in high school, while his father taught at a local Jewish studies institute. At Cheltenham High, he participated in soccer, debate and chess clubs and reportedly skipped his graduation ceremony to return to Israel to enlist in the Israel Defense Forces. He recently joked on Fox News with another graduate, the conservative pundit Mark Levin, about the alumni hall of fame, which does not include Levin.<\/p>\n<div style=\"padding-bottom:20px; padding-top:10px;\" class=\"hupso-share-buttons\"><!-- Hupso Share Buttons - https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/ --><a class=\"hupso_toolbar\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" data-src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top: 5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" class=\"lazyload\" \/><noscript><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top: 5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\"\/><\/noscript><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var hupso_services_t=new Array(\"Twitter\",\"Facebook\",\"Google Plus\",\"Pinterest\",\"Linkedin\",\"Tumblr\",\"Email\");var hupso_background_t=\"#EAF4FF\";var hupso_border_t=\"#66CCFF\";var hupso_toolbar_size_t=\"medium\";var hupso_image_folder_url = \"\";var hupso_url_t=\"\";var hupso_title_t=\"Students%20at%20Netanyahu%E2%80%99s%20Pennsylvania%20high%20school%20want%20him%20ejected%20from%20the%20alumni%20hall%20of%20fame\";<\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/js\/share_toolbar.js\"><\/script><!-- Hupso Share Buttons --><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":88832,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,25],"tags":[208,14732,8790,8795,8788],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88831"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88831"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88831\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":88833,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88831\/revisions\/88833"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/88832"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}