How children’s YouTube entertainer Ms Rachel became the ‘cuddly face’ of the pro-Palestine movement

From Andy Pandy onwards, children’s TV has been an apolitical sanctuary where parents can relax, knowing their little ones are being entertained by hosts as politically neutral as Topsy and Tim. It is an unwritten rule that presenters – whether on Blue Peter or CBeebies Bedtime Stories – steer clear of controversial topics both inside and outside the studio. But Rachel Accurso doesn’t seem to have received the memo. A total unknown to anyone without young children or grandchildren, the American YouTube educator – known as Ms Rachel – is as big as Beyoncé in the world of under-fours.

Her popular channel, Ms Rachel – Toddler Learning Videos , has more than 21 million subscribers and has had more than 16 billion views. Last year, she signed with Netflix and her series has been streamed more than 69 million times. Parents love her too – her gentle, slow-paced songs encouraging speech development in children have been praised by mothers and fathers worldwide for their evidence-based techniques (informed by Accurso’s master’s degree in music education).

She has also amassed a huge following on social media (11 million on TikTok and 5.5 million on Instagram), where she talks about parenting struggles, “mum guilt” and mental health. It makes the 43-year-old married mother-of-two from New York, who won a Glamour magazine Woman of the Year award in 2025, one of the most influential figures in early childhood education. But Accurso is also one of the most controversial, because in the seven years since she uploaded her first video, she has rarely shied away from sharing her views on various political issues of the day.

Whether it is family immigration detention centres in the United States or “LGBTQ+” rights (she received criticism from some quarters for using they/them pronouns for one non-binary musician), she is fast becoming an unlikely champion of the American Left. It is her opinions on the Israel-Gaza conflict that are attracting the most scrutiny, however. She has repeatedly accused the Israeli government of committing genocide and intentionally targeting children, leading some to brand her anti-Semitic , something she vehemently denies.

“I care deeply for all children. Palestinian children, Israeli children, children in the US – Muslim, Jewish, Christian children – all children, in every country. Not one is excluded,” she wrote in the caption for one TikTok video. But earlier this month she prompted controversy again. The online star – whose annual earnings in 2025 were estimated at $26m (£19m) by Forbes magazine – announced she was matching the $1m donation to Palestinian aid organisations made by the rapper Macklemore, who was fired as the opening act on Ed Sheeran’s US tour after saying “Free Palestine” on stage in New Jersey.

“I invite every wealthy white celebrity to match it and speak out against the genocide in Gaza ,” she wrote on Instagram. “Over 20,000 precious Palestinian children have been killed, and children continue to be killed every day. We have a moral obligation to use our privilege and platforms to protect children and human rights.” Her supporters have praised her generosity. But her activism has generated more criticism, particularly considering her audience is mostly younger families.

“She’s the cuddly face of anti-Semitism,” says children’s author and mother of one Hilary Freeman. “Like Paloma Faith saying ‘Free Palestine’ to her young children every night, she epitomises the way that this particular cause has seeped into the culture as ‘proof’ of being ‘a good person’. “I’m sure she doesn’t believe she’s anti-Semitic, but she’s sharing Hamas propaganda to her adult followers on TikTok and Instagram. That figure of 20,000 children includes a large percentage of 16 to 18-year-old young male combatants – some even as young as 13.

“But that kind of misinformation is bound to seep down to what parents tell their children , because it’s the ‘caring, humanitarian woman from YouTube who does the nursery rhymes’ saying it, so it must be true.” Accurso grew up religious in the state of Maine. Raised alongside an older sister by a single mother, she announced at the age of nine that, even though her mother, Susannah, could no longer take her to church because Susannah had a new weekend job, she would attend by herself.

Later, she considered joining a seminary, but got the teaching bug while working at a school for children with disabilities and, in 2009, moved to New York to complete a master’s degree in music education. A long-standing fan of the performing arts, she met her husband, Aron, a composer and musician who has worked on Broadway productions such as Billy Elliot and Aladdin , shortly after moving to New York, and the couple had their first child, Thomas, in 2018.

Their second, Susannah, was born via surrogate last year, but it was Thomas’s severe speech delay, requiring expensive specialised therapy, that inspired the Accursos to make their first YouTube videos in 2019. When the pandemic spread across the globe in 2020, and parents were clamouring for ways to educate and entertain their children at home, the channel took off and soon hit one million subscribers. The bright, colourful videos – such as the recent Caterpillar Song , which has attracted 18 million views in one month – may look deceptively simple.

But Accurso’s degree, plus a second master’s in early childhood education, mean there is a gravitas behind the bubblegum aesthetic. There are also many ill-informed opinions about Israel on her social feeds, say her critics. After the atrocities of October 7 2023, Accurso posted several messages on Instagram and TikTok calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, and urged followers to donate to humanitarian organisations supporting Palestinian children.

Then, earlier this year, she was criticised for “liking” an Instagram post that read: “Free America from the Jews”. She said the “like” was an accident while she was trying to delete it and issued an apology, saying she was only human and “makes mistakes”. She has also featured Motaz Azaiza, a Palestinian photojournalist, whom she called her “friend”, in one of her videos. Azaiza has admitted deliberately withholding footage of Israeli hostages being beaten by a crowd in Gaza on October 7.

In 2025, watchdog group StopAntisemitism nominated Accurso for “anti-Semite of the year”, claiming that she had inflated death statistics coming out of Gaza and had shared “Hamas propaganda”. In a recent interview, Accurso defended her actions: “It’s good to criticise governments for violating children’s rights,” she said. “It’s something that everyone should be doing. Because we’re the grown-ups of this world and we’re meant to keep children safe.

And the fact that we are not is horrific.” She also refuses to work with “privileged” people who have not spoken out in defence of civilians in Gaza. “I’m not interested in working with them,” she says. “Because I feel like maybe, if we all said something, the genocide would stop.” A spokesman for Campaign Against Antisemitism says: “What Ms Rachel’s output shows is how, more generally, some people’s activism on Gaza can become a springboard for incitement against Jews and the West.

People need to understand why baseless comparisons between the democratically elected government of Israel and the blood-drenched Islamist dictators of Iran, plus obsessive calls to ‘Stop killing children’, can attract even more blatant anti-Semitic conspiracy theories like claims that Jews control America. “Too many activists advocating for ‘Palestine’ are either happy to stand by and watch this extremist hatred, or indeed revel in it.

That is a massive problem.” Despite the turbulence, Accurso’s popularity among her young audience prevails. This year, she was nominated for two Children’s & Family Emmy awards, and, true to form, arrived at the ceremony in a dress embroidered with handwritten messages from 11 children living in conflict zones in Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Her fans saluted her compassion. But many believe that, as an influential figure in young children’s education, she should perhaps put phonics before politics.