A Jewish Georgia teacher has been arrested for threatening to kill a Muslim middle school student who took offense at the Israel flag displayed in his classroom. He’s been charged with cruelty to children and making terroristic threats.
According to accounts collected from more than 20 witnesses — including other teachers — 7th-grade social studies teacher Benjamin Reese went into a rage on the afternoon of Dec. 7th at Warner Robins Middle School. Three students say they were walking down the hall after school when one noticed a flag of the State of Israel in Reese’s classroom and asked him why it was on display.
According to the student’s account recorded in a police report reviewed by 13WMAZ, Reese said “he was Jewish and has family members still there.”
The female Muslim student told Reese the country’s flag was “offensive due to Israelis killing Palestinians” in the Israeli-Hamas war, which caused him to become angry and call her antisemitic.
They left and Reese followed the three down the hallway, yelling at them along the way.
The mildest quote: “You don’t make an antisemitic comment like that to a Jew!”
However, several teachers say the 51-year-old Reese also unleashed vivid threats of violence:
- “You motherfucking piece of shit! I’ll kick your ass! I should cut your motherfucking head off!”
- “She is a stupid motherfucker, and I will drag her by the back of my car and cut her fucking head off for disrespecting my Jewish flag!”
- “I’ll slit her fucking throat!”
One of the teachers told police that, as Reese went ballistic, she feared for her own safety. Security video captured Reese following the students. When the principal and a school security officer tried to question Reese about the incident, he became agitated and aggressively kicked a door-stopper before “invok[ing] his civil rights” and walking away.
In the biography that’s still posted on the school’s website, Reese says he’s a Navy veteran and that “over the course of the last 8 years [teaching], I have been challenged far beyond anything 17 years of military service had prepared me for, and I love it.”
Reese is out of jail, having met the bond requirements set by the judge: $5,000 for the cruelty to children charge and $2,500 for the alleged terroristic threat. In a statement to 13WMAZ, the Houston County School District carefully distanced itself from Reese:
While we are not able to discuss specific personnel matters, we can share that Mr. Reese has not been on the campus of Warner Robins Middle School since Dec. 7, 2023. Safety and the well-being of our students and staff is our number one priority.”
The Georgia middle school incident comes alongside allegations that antisemitism is running rampant on college campuses, with Jewish students claiming they feel unsafe and some filing lawsuits charging school administrations with breach of contract for failing to bar speech about the Israel-Palestine conflict that they interpret as threatening.