A lawsuit filed by Jewish members of the Park Slope Food Coop says PS 77 teacher Damien Neva praised the Hamas leader behind the Oct. 7 massacre in a Signal group. The Department of Education has referred the allegation for investigation.
A first-year public school teacher in Park Slope is under investigation by city education officials after a lawsuit accused him of praising the Hamas leader who planned the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel.
According to the legal filing, Damien Neva, 48, wrote “Long live Yahya Al-Sinwar” in November 2024 in a Signal group made up of members of the Park Slope Food Coop who were campaigning for a boycott of Israeli products.
The suit was brought last week by Jewish members of the cooperative grocery after its board voted to stop carrying Israeli goods, the culmination of a bitter dispute that has split the membership for years. It describes Neva as a leader of the boycott effort and quotes him telling the group that opponents of the campaign did not “have the votes to block” it.
From fashion photography to PS 77
Neva began teaching at PS 77 this year. In a since-deleted social media post he attributed the move to an “enforced career change.” He previously worked as a photographer, videographer and social media director at Next Management, and also did work for Ford Models and Calvin Klein, according to the New York Post.
The paper reported that his social media accounts included an image of a sticker of Israel being shredded, a Star of David painted over the Statue of Liberty, and a post comparing Warsaw in 1944 with Palestine in 2024. When a Post reporter went to his Brooklyn home on Sunday seeking comment, Neva called the police.
Calls for his firing
The advocacy group StopAntisemitism publicized the allegations, noting that roughly 157,000 Jewish children live in Brooklyn. Former Brooklyn Assemblyman Dov Hikind, who founded Americans Against Antisemitism, called on Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s Department of Education to fire him. “This teacher needs to lose his job,” Hikind said.
Sinwar led Hamas when its fighters killed 1,139 people in Israel and took 251 hostages on Oct. 7, 2023. He was killed by Israeli forces in Gaza in October 2024.
A spokesperson for Schools Chancellor Kamar Samuels said antisemitism and support for terrorist groups have “absolutely no place in our school system” and that the allegation had been referred for investigation. The mayor’s office deferred to the chancellor.
Reporting in this story is based on the lawsuit and on coverage by the New York Post, which first reported the allegations. The photographs are stock file images, not photographs of the people or places described.
