A veteran Oak Park-River Forest High School history teacher resigned recently because of what he said in his resignation letter was “the continued toll of antisemitism at OPRF – and the district’s lack of response to the antisemitism and lack of support for Jewish students, parents and teachers.”
Michael Soffer submitted his resignation letter to OPRFHS officials on June 5, one day after he was hired to teach history at Lake Forest High School in northwest suburban Lake Forest.
In the letter, a copy of which Pioneer Press obtained through a public records request, Soffer, also a 2003 graduate of the school, said the last few years at OPRFHS have been “incredibly trying”. He said that antisemitism at the school – which enrolls students from the neighboring towns of Oak Park and River Forest – and the district’s lack of response to it, created “an untenable climate” for him.
He had taught there for 17 years.
The high school is the lone one in Oak Park and River Forest High School District 200 and enrolls more than 3,200 students. District officials expressed being sorry to see Soffer exit.
“We are sorry to see Mike Soffer leave OPRF, and we know he will serve the students in his new district just as well as he served his students here. As we prepare for the coming school year, we will continue to work hard in both visible and invisible ways to support our Jewish students and faculty members,” SD200 Superintendent Gregory Johnson said in a statement emailed to Pioneer Press.
His departure came just before a 21-page complaint signed by 121 school alums, current and former parents, community members and other stakeholders was sent June 30 to the Illinois State Board of Education and the state attorney general’s office. It alleged that three teachers, namely, had created a hostile antisemitic environment for Jewish students at the school. The turmoil had especially come in the wake of Israel’s war with Hamas after the terror group launched a deadly attack in October and took Israelis hostage.
The complaint states that school district officials did nothing about the teachers’ alleged actions. The district strongly denies the allegations.
“Last year was incredibly challenging for many of our Jewish students and faculty members, and it pains us to know that what transpired has caused such a valued educator to leave the school,” Johnson stated in the email.
Soffer’s two paragraph resignation letter did not identify any specific incidents of antisemitism but the history teacher wrote that he had many discussions with OPRF leaders about the issues that concerned him.
When contacted by Pioneer Press Soffer, who is Jewish, declined to comment further about his reasons for leaving the Oak Park high school, or to elaborate on his resignation letter.
While at OPRFHS, Soffer created and taught a Holocaust studies class. He also wrote a book about a former OPRFHS custodian, Reinhold Kulle, who was an immigrant from Germany and a Soviet guard. The book, “Our Nazi: An American Suburb’s Encounter with Evil” is scheduled to be released Sept. 24.
“I am deeply proud of my 17 years as a faculty member of OPRF,” Soffer wrote in his resignation letter. “I am particularly proud of the Holocaust Studies course I created in response to a spate of antisemitic hate crimes in 2018. It is one of the few such courses in a public school in the entire country and I am proud to leave that important legacy.”
Bob Skolnik is a freelancer.
