With her pink headband, denim overall and permanent smile, Mrs. Rachel has become a pillar in the households of preschool children who are attracted to her good cheers and singalongs. Parents worship her pedagogical practice of skills such as waving, clapping and expressing consonants.
The YouTube videos of the former music teacher became such a sensation – 14 million subscribers, a billion views – that Netflix started in January permit Episodes.
Mrs. Rachel, whose real name is Rachel Griffin Accurso, sometimes presents another side of himself on social media platforms such as Tiktok and Instagram, where the content is less focused on toddlers and more on their parents. There, her millions of followers will also find passionate videos that affect the current events. These focus on the urge for universal childcare and geopolitical crises that have led to suffering children – especially the continuous war in Gaza.
For example, in March, Batterso has a video From two children who watch a video of Mrs. Rachel in the midst of rubble. The caption was: “My friends Celine and Silia in what used to be their house in Gaza. They deserve to live in a warm, safe home again.”
On Monday, Battersho posted on her Instagram account photos of a meeting that she said she had Rahaf last week, a 3-year-old girl from Gaza who lost her legs in an air raid and the child’s mother. The meeting was arranged via the Palestinian children’s lighting fund.
Rahaf’s mother “and I both love our children with all our hearts,” wrote Accurso and added: “My son will dine tonight, a story and hug with me, school in the morning and not her,” referring to the Rahaf in Gaza brothers. The post was followed by one interview On the ZeTeo news site, to combine to make the most pronounced few days so far on this subject.
“It is so clear how to treat children to help them thrive and grow into happy, healthy adults,” said Accurso and responded to questions via e -mail. “We have to stop failing them,” she said, adding that no children in particular must have interrupted their crucial brain development from 0 to 3 by trauma.
But the advocacy of Battersoo on behalf of Gazan children has led to some of Israel supporters accusing its treating of Palestinian children with more sympathy than Israeli, including those abducted in Hamas’s attack of 7 October 2023.
Last month, the interest group Stopantisemitism labeled the “Antisemite of the Week” and, the New York Post, the label reportedsent a letter in which it is urged to be attorney -general PAM Bondi to investigate whether Battersho receives financing to the Hamas agenda.
Battery “posted almost 50 times about the children of Gaza, most of which are filled with incorrect information from Hamas, and only 5 times about Israeli children,” said the group, who monitors statements about Israel on social media accounts of prominent figures, said on his website. “In the case of the Israeli children, she only placed because of widespread public recoil, which never condemned Hamas and the Palestinians.”
Accurso, 42, in an emailed response refused having received money from Hamas. “This accusation is not only absurd, it is clearly incorrect,” she said.
“I dedicated my life to the learning and well -being of children,” she added. “I have always believed that safety and security are a fundamental human right for every child – so you see, the care for children in Gaza is a direct continuation of the work that I have done most of my life for most of my life. We don’t care about where those students were born, we all care.”
She did not dispute that she has posted more often about Gazan children. “The painful reality,” she said, “is that Palestinian children in Gaza were killed by the thousands and are still killed, mutilated and starved now. The idea that giving a group of children prevents us from giving another group of children is false.”
The UN recently estimated that more than 90 percent of the Gaza population experienced food insecurity in the months after Israel ordered A stop on humanitarian aid, and some Israeli military officials to believe There will be widespread hunger if that blockage is not quickly lifted.
Stopantisemitism follows the statements of public figures for anti -Semitism under a polarization definition That can undermine the right to exist of Israel or the comparison of Israeli policy with the Nazi policy. A Family Foundation that says so on its website funds Countless pro-Israeli groups in the center, including the Jewish Republican Alliance and Christians united for Israel, says that it is financing stopantisemitism. The group and the foundation did not respond to requests for comments.
The activism of Accurso has desperately distributed Jewish parents by the relative lack of reports about Israeli children, with whom many Jews feel a powerful connection worldwide.
“Mrs. Rachel seems to be someone who is real, really good-hearted, but in the context of everything that is going on,” I care for all the children, “but she is really talking about the children of Gaza,” said Stacy Hackner, a teacher at a London Cheder, a school with Jewish instruction, said in an interview. “That has made many Jewish parents feel pretty isolated.”
Batterso also has many defenders. “Do you see a continuous line there?” Said the Crooked Media Podcast -Guestheer Tommy Vietor, referring to Battery’s children in various war zones, in an online after. “She cares a lot about the well -being of children,” he said.
On Monday, Batterso interviews on the ZeTeo news site, Mehdi Hasan said Of her messages, “It is strange that it has become controversial,” and added, “if you say about children in Gaza, Palestinian children, some people – I should say, a minority – go crazy. They think it is somehow controversial, it is divided.”
The commitment to what Batterso says may seem higher than for a typical celebrity, because families who play her videos invite her to their most intimate space: the attention of their own toddlers. Accurso is a parent of two young children. Her videos were created shortly after her son encountered a speech delay after running 1.
The unique position of battery “opens her to a felt sense of connection or even parasociality with other parents,” says Brooke Erin Duffy, a professor of communication at Cornell University who studies the intersection of labor and new technologies.
“If you look at the images,” added Professor Duffy, referring to Accurso’s messages about children in Gaza, “it presents the young children who experience these vulnerabilities. It is not unabashed political. But within such a polarized climate everyone is aware and criticism.
Rebecca Bailin, a community organizer behind a New York Child Advocacy Group, said that Mrs. Rachel was receptive after a member reached her hand to engage her in the group’s lobby to protect public kindergarten programs. “She is a respected voice in the early youth room,” said Bailin. “Parents trust her, children trust her. So her opinion really matters.”
An overview of the Instagram reports from Batterso in the past 18 months shows that her activism has focused primarily on Gazan children. Her work with World Food Program USA – to which she and her husband and business partner, Aron Accurso, recently promised $ 1 million, she said – has also seen her mention and suffer from children in Mali, Sudan and Haiti.
Accurso has also posted various messages about Ariel and Kfir Bibas, Jewish children who hosted Hamas with their mother, Shiri. A after In February after the death of the library was announced: “My heart is at the Bibas family, the Jewish community and people around the world who are mourning. We always have to protect children.”
- Advertisement -
