The drag queen is a Jewish Humanities Professor at the University of Arizona who has appeared on Saturday Night Live
A Jewish college professor portraying a drag queen led a group of young children in a chant to “free Palestine” at a queer storytime event held in a Massachusetts town that is nicknamed the lesbian capital of the world.
The drag queen, who goes by the name Little Miss Hot Mess, used his own version of a familiar children’s rhyme in leading the children.
He led them into the chant by shouting out to them from stage, “If you are a drag queen and you know it and you really want to show it,” with the children taught to follow with—“free Palestine.”
The kids were fed the prompt line several times by the drag queen, one of two involved in the presentation.
The verse is based on the more familiar rhyme line, “If you’re happy and you know it and you really want to show it, clap your hands.”
It is often used in children’s TV shows like Barney & Friends and Sesame Street.
The event, which was entitled Queer Storytime For Palestine, was held at the Northampton Center For The Arts (NCFA) on April 14. But a video of it posted on X has sparked recent outrage.
Etian Fischberger, a former staff member with the Israeli Air Force who now serves as a U.S. international relations and Middle East analyst, called it “an indoctrination double whammy,” adding that “Free Palestine” has met “drag queen story hour” in a post on X.
One user who re-posted the video on his X account wrote, “How long before American children are going to be taught to chant ‘bomb Tel Aviv’ and ‘globalize the intifada?’”
An indoctrination double whammy: "Free Palestine" meets "drag queen story hour" in Connecticut River Valley pic.twitter.com/uQ6bf67Owg
— Eitan Fischberger (@EFischberger) April 24, 2024
Other groups questioned the rationale behind the LGBT community’s support of a country known routinely to exact violence against their own LGBT people.
“The harsh reality? Members of the LGBTQ+ community are often murdered in Gaza and other Palestinian areas such as Ramallah,” posted the national watchdog group StopAntiSemitism.
