(JTA) – Amid a spike in antisemitic activity across New England, Jewish and Israeli residents met with the mayor of Newton, Massachusetts, to express their concern about incidents in the Boston suburb’s school system. More than 150 people attended the standing-room-only community forum with Mayor Setti Warren on June 14. The meeting followed the revelation in late February of several acts of antisemitic vandalism at a middle school that had gone unreported. Those reports jarred the city, as did stories about Catholic high school students who chanted antisemitic slogans during a game against Newton North High School. Since the start of 2016, there have been 56 antisemitic incidents in various states in New England, according to the New England Anti-Defamation League. In all of last year, there were 61.

“The scourge of antisemitism is one of the most important issues facing the city,” Warren said in his opening remarks at the public forum.

The forum was hosted by the Israel American Council at its regional office in Newton, home to a large Jewish population. Some 30,000 Israeli Americans reportedly live in the Boston area. The event was cosponsored with the New England ADL, the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston and the Combined Jewish Philanthropies of Greater Boston.

Warren, who has traveled to Israel three times in the past four years — including on a trade mission with former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick — noted the strong economic ties between the city and Israel and said he wants to strengthen them. Newton is becoming a magnet for Israeli-founded companies. Some 200 companies brought in $9.3 billion to the state’s economy, according to a report issued last week.

In addition to the Israeli and Israeli-American attendees, many in the audience were Jews from Newton, heavily Jewish Brookline and other nearby towns. The overwhelming number of questions from the audience concerned what several people referred to as an anti-Israel bias in the schools’ curricula. Many called on the mayor to make the curricula transparent by having them posted online. Among other city responses to the incidents, Warren said he has initiated discussions to reintroduce curriculum from Facing History and Ourselves, a Boston-based international educational organization that focuses on the Holocaust and genocide.