RPS confirms Hanukkah, Kwanza songs removed from holiday concert lineup: cites difficulty of music, “ongoing international conflict”

(ABC 6 News) – Rochester Public Schools confirmed Tuesday evening that a Kellogg Middle School teacher had removed two holiday songs from the planned holiday concert lineup, citing the Israel-Palestine war as the reason for one of the omissions.

Director of Communications Mamisoa Knutson released the following statement:

“A teacher removed two songs from the planned repertoire of holiday songs: a Kwanzaa song and a Hanukkah song. Both proved too difficult to learn to the quality expected within the time available.

In addition, several students expressed concern that singing a traditionally Jewish song could be perceived as taking a side in the ongoing international conflict. The teacher engaged in dialogue with the students, which led to the teacher’s decision to remove these two songs from the concert program in early November.

The District does not consider a song from any faith tradition to be inherently controversial.”

ABC 6 News has inquired whether more a single faith tradition is now represented in the holiday concert repertoire, and will update this article with RPS’ answer.