Arabic school opens in New York amid controversy

By Edith Honan

NEW YORK (Reuters) - New York's first publicly-funded Arabic-language school opened on Tuesday, defying critics who warned it could foster anti-American Islamist extremism.

Dozens of supporters with "Welcome" banners greeted the 11- and 12-year-olds on the first day of school but there were calls for its closure from a group named "Stop the Madrasa."

The word madrasa means simply "school" in Arabic but it is associated by some with Islamic religious schools suspected of training militants.

The Khalil Gibran International Academy, a public school built around the theme of Arabic language and Middle Eastern studies, has raised passions for months in New York, the city hardest hit by the September 11 attacks.

"There's been too much criticism without knowledge," said Ellen Lippmann, a rabbi who organized the welcome rally. "This has never been tried before. Let's see if it works."

The school, named after a Christian Lebanese poet who lived in New York, is one of around 200 small schools specializing in areas from math and science to Russian. There are dual-language schools offering Chinese, French, Haitian-Creole and Spanish.

Parents of students at the school's original location, a building that already houses an elementary school in Brooklyn, successfully lobbied to have it moved, ostensibly on the grounds of overcrowding.

Then just weeks ago, its founder and principal, Debbie Almontaser, resigned after being linked to a group of Muslim artists who printed T-shirts using the word "intifada."