Rachel Accurso, the children’s entertainer known to millions of young viewers as Ms. Rachel, is facing criticism from some parents and commentators over her public statements about the Israel-Hamas war and her choice of guests on her show.
Accurso, whose videos are popular on YouTube and Netflix, has drawn scrutiny after commenting on the conflict in Gaza. Critics point to a social media post in which she described Palestinian photojournalist Motaz Azaiza as her “friend.” Days later, Azaiza acknowledged he had withheld footage showing Israeli hostages being beaten by a crowd in Gaza on October 7, 2023.
Earlier this year, Accurso also faced criticism after appearing to “like” a social media comment that read “free America from the Jews.”
Bethany Mandel, a contributor to the Washington Examiner, author, and homeschooling mother of six, told Fox News that Accurso’s commentary amounts to amplifying unverified claims.
“She amplifies numbers that are not real, the numbers of deceased children, the numbers of people who have died in general, she’s accepting a Hamas narrative on every single thing and amplifying it,” Mandel said.
Mandel argued that Accurso and other liberal-leaning creators often don’t recognize their commentary as political because they operate within an ideological “bubble” with limited exposure to opposing views.
“This is the case for a lot of liberals. They don’t see it as a political perspective at all. They just see the world in black and white and what they are doing is so clearly correct,” Mandel said.
Mandel also criticized Accurso for hosting a non-binary musician as a guest on her children’s programming, arguing that such content could interfere with how young children learn to categorize the world.
“This is something that’s really very damaging to children who are in the early stages of development, because one of the first ways that children learn to organize the world around them is by categorization, and the easiest way for a toddler to categorize the world around them is by female and male,” Mandel said.
She said the long-term effects of introducing such concepts to toddlers remain largely unstudied, comparing it to former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s concept of “unknown unknowns.”
“When we take that ability to categorize away from children, we’ve never done that in human history before,” Mandel said.
Mandel said Accurso, in her view, prioritizes activism over education, and cautioned parents to be selective about which children’s entertainers they expose their kids to.
“Parents need to choose these entertainers wisely. Perhaps parents don’t care about the gender stuff, perhaps parents don’t care about what she’s saying about Gaza — but if they are not ultra-ultra-liberal, Ms. Rachel will eventually land on something that they do feel discomfort with,” Mandel said.
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