We Jews can’t catch a break, but that’s old news. Still, those of us in the tribe, even without belief in Yahweh, are distressed and enraged by the daily reports of antisemitism in the West. There’s no doubt that the bigotry and hatred are growing, that the Israel and Gaza war is just an excuse, and that the antisemitism is really based on Jew hatred, not the euphemistic “anti-Zionism.” This kind of stuff may lead to the kind of slaughter we saw on Bondi Beach (antisemitism seems quite common in Australia).
The Free Press reports on what they say is the first lawsuit brought against a state for antisemitism in a public school. It’s been filed against the state of California, not against the schools themselves (there are similar lawsuits against colleges like Harvard, UCLA, and Columbia) Click to read the article.
Click below to see the 46-page lawsuit:
Some excerpts from the FP article are given below (indented), but you’ll have to read the whole piece with a subscription to see the many horrific examples. The Free Press doesn’t permit archiving of its pieces, the pikers.
A coalition of Jewish parents and civil rights organizations have filed the first antisemitism lawsuit against a U.S. state, accusing the California government of failing to protect Jewish students from a surge of antisemitic harassment, violence, and propaganda in the state’s public schools. The filing accuses the state of offering only “toothless remedies” to the scourge of antisemitism through a “glacial and opaque administrative process.”
The suit was filed in Los Angeles Superior Court by the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law and the Israel-advocacy group StandWithUs on behalf of several Jewish families. Defendants include a number of state agencies, among them the California Department of Education.
The lawsuit comes more than two years after the October 7, 2023 attacks on Israel, which the Brandeis Center alleges triggered an unprecedented wave of antisemitic incidents in California’s schools that has never been adequately addressed. In 2024, the most recent year for which data is available, antisemitic incidents reached their highest-ever recorded levels in the United States, with violent assaults on Jewish people increasing 21 percent compared to the previous year.
I presume the first paragraph below gives the reason why the suit can be filed against the state. I wonder if there can be similar suits in states lacking a constitutional provision, suits based on the American Constitution:
California is one of the few states with a constitutional provision explicitly guaranteeing an equitable and free education, according to Marci Lerner Miller, the director of legal investigations with the Brandeis Center. The lawsuit explicitly cites this provision in arguing that pervasive antisemitism in California’s public schools has “deprived [Jewish students] of equal access to educational benefits and opportunities.”
Some examples from several places:
In the last year there have been many lawsuits filed against universities, accusing them of failing to combat antisemitism and prompting the federal government to freeze billions of dollars in college funding. But now, concern is being raised that antisemitism originates earlier, before students even set foot on a college campus. Elementary school students in Brooklyn, for example, have been taught about the Middle East using a map that entirely excluded the state of Israel, as part of a classroom program funded by the Qatari government. In Queens, a high school teacher had to flee from a mob after her students discovered she attended a protest in support of Israel. In California, under the guise of “ethnic studies,” high school teachers are telling students that “Zionists,” or anyone associated with the state of Israel, are “oppressors” and settler colonialists. In one particularly shocking instance, students at a high school in Silicon Valley were asked to consider the “Effect of Israel’s Bombing of Gaza” on climate change as part of a physics assignment.
Apparently this lawsuit, in the link above (or here) has legs because the parents went through all the requisite channels before exhausting their nonlegal remedies. They complained to teachers, to principals, to the school districts, and so on—often for years—but got bupkes. And the examples are horrible, especially because the bigotry is directed at kids. I’ll give four examples from the lawsuit, quoted by the FP:
Example 1
One of the plaintiffs in the case, Melissa Alexander, said her 12-year-old son now “refuses to speak about his Jewish heritage and wear his Jewish star anymore at school” due to the way he was treated by one of his teachers.
The suit claims the teacher, whose public social media accounts were allegedly “filled with virulently antisemitic and anti-Israel content,” allegedly targeted the student with fabricated misconduct allegations because he wore Israel-related T-shirts and a Star of David necklace to school. The complaint also alleges that the teacher accused him of being too loud in class, telling the 12-year-old that he had done something “egregious and dangerous.” When Alexander asked what her son had done, the teacher allegedly told her “it did not matter.” Alexander’s son received “Unsatisfactory” grades in the class, and was told that he might not be able “to matriculate to eighth grade.”
“None of [the child’s] other teachers raised concerns about his behavior, and aside from the class with this teacher, [he] was a straight-A student,” the claim alleges.
The school never took action against the teacher, according to the complaint. “Watching my son navigate these challenges has broken my heart,” Alexander said.
Example 2
. . . a third-grade girl at Kester Elementary School in Los Angeles—identified in the complaint as Student B—planned to perform in the school talent show in 2024, singing a song by an Israeli Eurovision contestant and carrying a poster that included the Israeli flag. Before she could take to the stage, a teaching assistant allegedly stopped the 9-year-old and told her that “Israel is a racist apartheid state, and by supporting Israel, you are being racist.” The lawsuit claims she was barred from performing with her poster. The family has since moved her to a different school.
Example 3
Two more plaintiffs in the case, Dawn and Michael Rosenthal, allege that in 2024, their son, B.R., transferred to Daniel Pearl Magnet High School—named for the Jewish journalist murdered by terrorists in Pakistan in 2002—specifically to escape antisemitism at his previous school, Sherman Oaks Center for Enriched Studies. At Sherman Oaks, his peers allegedly called him “shitcan Jew,” and taunted him with “Heil Hitler” salutes. As a solution, administrators allegedly suggested he eat lunch alone in a segregated space rather than with his classmates. In November 2022, during a physical education class, a group of students chased him around the track yelling “Let’s get the Jew,” tripped him, and beat him until he lost consciousness. The school did not suspend a single attacker. Some were placed back in B.R.’s classes, according to the complaint.
Daniel Pearl Magnet was supposed to be a fresh start. Instead, the complaint alleges, it became another incubator of antisemitism. B.R.’s honors chemistry teacher repeatedly displayed a “Free Palestine” poster and refused a principal’s request to remove it. On October 7, 2025—the two-year anniversary of the Hamas massacre—the teacher allegedly wrote on the whiteboard: “Oy vey, it’s free,” with an arrow pointing to “FREE PALESTINE.” When the Rosenthals complained, the school offered to pull B.R. from the class entirely and enroll him in a solo online course through a credit-recovery platform, costing him both in-person instruction and his honors designation. The teacher was ultimately removed, but not for any of this—he was arrested on felony charges after stapling a student’s arm.
Example 4: A case of what the lawsuit calls “antisemitic propaganda”.
The complaint focuses particularly on an unauthorized curriculum created by members of the Oakland Education Association, which was used in a December 2023 teach-in that reached students across grade levels, including kindergartners.
The curriculum’s materials included a read-aloud of the children’s alphabet book P Is for Palestine, in which “I is for Intifada,” and is defined in the book as “rising up for what is right, if you are a kid or a grown-up.” The complaint notes that the word intifada refers to two periods of sustained violence in which more than a thousand Israeli civilians—including children—were killed in suicide bombings of buses and cafés carried out by Palestinian terrorist organizations.
A worksheet included in the same curriculum asked elementary school children to draw “the Zionist leaders of Israel receiv[ing] money and support.” Another worksheet referred to “Zionist bullies” who are “”always scaring” and “arresting” Palestinian children.
Despite widespread public reporting about the teach-in at the time, and the Oakland Unified School District’s own statement that it was unauthorized, the complaint states that no teachers who participated were ever disciplined.
Some of the figures from that curriculum are reproduced below.
Note the lack of punishment of any of the Jew-hating teachers and the traumatic effect of bigotry on the students.
One quote from One Who Understands:
“The California education system is teaching the state’s children that Jewish Americans and Israelis are racists, white supremacists, oppressors, and baby-killers who should be shunned,” said Kenneth Marcus, founder and chairman of the Brandeis Center and a former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Education for Civil Rights. “The result is not surprising: Jewish children and children perceived as Jewish are bullied and excluded by their peers and harassed by their teachers, who silence, mock, and even segregate them if they speak out.”
What does the suit want? There are a number of demands on pp. 44-45 of the suit, including documenting and listing all the complaints the schools have received, the formation of a committee to review the “ethnic studies” curriculum, and appointing a compliance officer to monitor any orders. The suit also calls for mandatory anti-semitism training for teachers, staff, and administrators, and quarterly compliance reports, as well as asking the state to cover all the costs of the plaintiff’s suit.
When do they want it? NOW!
One non-trivial effect of the actions documented above, besides demonizing and bullying Jewish students (and chilling their speech) is that the failure to punish the bigots simply encourages teachers and students to continue the behavior or even ratchet it up. And of course the non-Jewish kids, propagandized by schools at an early age, could grow up to be antisemites themselves, so that the hatred propagates across generations.
Governor Gavin Newsom, who’s hungry for the Presidency in four years, better tell his people to agree to the suit’s terms, or he’ll face some hard questions come 2028. Since teachers unions in all “progressive” states are even more progressive and bigoted than the citizens themselves, this behavior may be hard to wipe out. Only a lawsuit, and perhaps fines, can efface the behavior, though not so much the Jew-hatred, which is now ingrained and ubiquitous.
Finally, here are some examples of how the kids were propagandized by the Oakland curriculum. First, a tweet (h/t Luana):
This isn’t a meme.
This is material shown to California public school students ages 5–8.
“I is for Intifada.”
“Intifada is Arabic for rising up for what is right, if you are a kid or a grownup!”
Now the entire California education system is being sued.
California did this to… https://t.co/phB8qVOdml pic.twitter.com/DuCtGiQvon
— Jews Fight Back 🇺🇸🇮🇱 (@JewsFightBack) February 27, 2026
Two more figures you can see in the lawsuit. Lovely, aren’t they?
“The Free Press doesn’t permit archiving of its pieces, the pikers”.
The Washington Free Beacon also has a report on the law suit: https://freebeacon.com/california/jewish-students-are-segregated-parents-sue-california-state-education-system-in-first-of-its-kind-complaint-over-anti-semitic-propaganda-and-harassment/
It is antisemitism. Just as Nazis leveraged it to foster the umbrella of fascist totalitarianism, The Left in USA progressive (Marxist Spectrum) states leverages it to foster communism.
“Before she could take to the stage, a teaching assistant allegedly stopped the 9-year-old and told her that “Israel is a racist apartheid state, and by supporting Israel, you are being racist.”
Uh, aren’t most of the people in both Israel and Gaza/West Bank of the same Semitic “race”? Did this TA really think that all Israelis are “white people” and the Palestinians are “brown people”? Is that how easy it is to manipulate the simple-minded by using words such as “apartheid’?
Only a cursory bit of research would show that non-Jews living in Israel enjoy far greater rights (including the right to hold office) and quality of life than blacks who lived under Apartheid in South Africa…these two things are not even comparable. I cannot understand how we have such lazy and unintelligent people teaching our children.
Yes, they really do think of Israelis as being “white” and Palestinians as being “of colour”.
It’s not about ancestry or biology (or even skin colour). To them “race” is socially constructed. So “white” means being capable and successful. Being “of colour” means being unsuccessful, a perpetually “oppressed” victim, all the while blaming everything on “whites”.
Israelis qualify as “white” since they refuse to adopt the victim posture but stick up for themselves and (unforgiveably) win wars, all the while having a successful economy based on high-tech industry. How much whiter can you get?
Holy crap, that is all terrible. What saddens me further is that these legal actions, although likely successful, will not change hearts and minds.
Is UNRWA involved?
As a NYer whose new mayor, on October 8th, marched proudly in support of the October 7th attack on Israel, I would be interested to see how much more Qatari money starts (or has already started) flowing into NYC’s Dept. of Education.
Muslim prayer and teachings (including creationism) in NYC public schools is my metric…if this appears, I’ll know the worst accusations about Mamdani are justified.
Oakland teachers: https://dn710208.ca.archive.org/0/items/newsom-fast-food-bill-posted-10-1-2023/Oakland%20Unified%20opposes%20anti-Israel%20lesson%20planned%20by%20teachers%20-%20video%20promoting%20lesson%2012-1-23.mp4 (curriculum starts at minute 2:45)
Anti-Zionism is the position that the State of Israel should not exist, a position that denies the Jewish people their right to self-determination. It is antisemitism. That’s what you’re seeing here: antisemitic propaganda being taught in the public schools. This lawsuit has it right on the substance.
Glad to see the State Board of Ed (the policy-making body fer chrissake) listed explicitly. Would like to see the Governor explicitly listed also since he appoints the state board members to reflect his philosophy.
Thanks to these parents, the Brandeis Center, and others for filing this lawsuit. The rank antisemitism shown by the schools and teachers is disgraceful, and also indicates a failure, i think, of the media and progressive leaders to question their sources of information, which has fostered the propagation of lies and misinformation about Israel and the Israel/Hamas war. And the lies and bias have become overwhelmingly accepted in the Democratic Party, and increasingly even among independents https://apnews.com/article/poll-gallup-americans-israel-palestinians-democrats-republicans-2614e22b0ddabe514424680b71e1802f .
Unfortunately, I find it optimistic in the extreme to think that better information will dispel bigotry. I also expect that the targets of the hatred will continue to politically align with its propagators. The political right also has its Jew haters, but they aren’t pouring money into the party coffers. On the other hand, I am told they are all crazy on that side—unlike those who can’t tell a daughter from a son but know a “genocide” when they see it.
It’s a shame our voting choices seldom reside on a spectrum.
Sadly, I don’t know why I keep making posts like this.
Because we each need to fight in the way that is available to us, Jerry. Stay strong. You’re making a difference.
Equally sadly, I am glad you do.
I attended a Zoom seminar last night presented by Scott Richman of the New York/New Jersey Anti-Defamation League (ADL) to the Jewish Federation of Greater Binghamton—the city of my birth in upstate New York. Richman started the seminar by talking about the ADL’s major programs, one of which is education. But, as he discussed—and as you say, Doug—education isn’t going to dispel bigotry on its own. Additionally, Richman placed great emphasis on using data to hold people and institutions to public account—which, he argued, does produce measurable results. So do lawsuits, and the ADL is a party to numerous suits.
Bigotry won’t go away, even with education. But other means are available—e.g., lawsuits—to ensure that disinformation and antisemitic propaganda are not promulgated by the public schools. Being slammed with a lawsuit serves as an effective form of education as well.
Richman also emphasized the need to employ social media vigorously. That is what Jerry is doing here, in his own writing and in allowing us to air our multiple viewpoints as well. It’s helping.
I for one appreciate it. Not being Jewish, I want to stay informed. There are few sources I have access to that will report this.
Everyone who has been pushing or tacitly accepting this virulent anti-semitism should be held accountable in any, every, way possible. I am horrified at quickly this hatred is accepted as just normal everyday behavior.
Perhaps the focus ought to be on the concept that subsumes antisemitism: political collectivism.
It is one thing to fight bigotry in the private sphere, but in this case it is enabled to power by being embedded in the “public” sphere, namely public (state powered) education. In NY and CA especially, that institution is controlled with an iron grip by Marxists. They are exploiting antisemitism as a strategy.
“antisemitism seems quite common in Australia”?! -Jerry, I’ve lived nearly 80 years in Australia, mixed with a vast number people and NEVER met anyone who is antisemitic.
I asked Grok if there was antisemitism in Australia, and it said this:
And I’ve seen videos of quite large rallies against Jews, including the ones that said, “Fuck the Jews”. Again from Grok:
Yes this is true but the only part of Australian society that is antisemitic is the Muslims and the leftard useful idiots. Normal Australians are sick of it and are definitely not antisemitic.
Just recently the ABC released a report about ISIS supporting Muslim boys beating up gays. They had sat on this for two years before releasing it. Two whole years!! Our institutions are quite captured and it is not looking good.
https://x.com/DrewPavlou/status/2027338832392462724?s=20
https://x.com/LukeLRPS/status/2026441155970515407?s=20
The fact that the government along with Save the Children are actively trying to bring back the ISIS brides with their children back to Australia is quite unforgivable for most people.
The public are now rejecting the traditional parties and support is growing for the One Nation party that is against mass immigration. This would have been unthinkable years ago
We are far from what Grok says. These people do not represent Australian values but are a symptom of the global problem of a lack of assimilation into the host society from certain cultures.
I did not say that most Aussies are antisemitic, I said that antisemitism was quite common in Australia. Perhaps I should have said SURPRISINGLY COMMON. Still, I have not seen any rallies in America where people cry “Fuck the Jews! “ It is sure more common in Australia than I thought!
The mobs shouting such things have been Muslim immigrants in every case I’ve seen footage of here. I’ve lived in Australia for more than 30 years now and have witnessed successive Labor government import more and more Muslims who bring in large families with them and constitute an imported voting bloc that Labor is now dependent on, hence their efforts to repatriate “ISIS brides” and their radicalized children – which the vast majority of Aussies vehemently oppose, but which Labor is trying to do surreptitiously at the behest of their Islamic districts and voters. This imported Islamic “community” is the primary source of the antisemitism (as well as other problems such as rape gangs and terrorism), which was almost unheard of when I first moved here (Monash for example is an Aussie hero who was Jewish). The actual antisemitic attacks are almost always committed by Muslim immigrants but recently a few useful idiots of the far Left – mostly young white females, interestingly – have joined in with violent rhetoric.
Hold on. I know what he’s saying.
There was indeed hardly any antisemitism until RECENTLY.
Growing up there in the 70s/80s it was almost unknown.
Even after I left (1990), it wasn’t a big deal apparently… until the Tik Tok generation and global left got a hold of it.
I even wrote about it in my column.
https://democracychronicles.org/is-australia-or-the-usa-more-antisemitic-a-data-challenge/
D.A.
NYC
Obviously the lived experience of one person, like yourself, does not give any insight into the prevalence of antisemitism in a particular country.
There have certainly been plenty of high-profile cases of antisemitism in Australia. In addition to the cases Jerry cites, I recall an incident where two nurses working in an Australian hospital proudly boasted they would kill Jews if they were under their care.
Rick (and Jerry and Groc)… any cases before Oct 7th?
SOME Muslim stuff, increasing, but it is from that community entirely.
D.A.
NYC
Not that I know of. I can look it up, but clearly the October 7 butchery (of the Jews who are supposed to be “fucked“) ratcheted up the level of antisemitism.
Synagogues and Jewish schools have had to have high security and armed guards since well before the Oct. 7 atrocities. This became necessary due to the Labor-imported Islamic contingent. Antisemitism in Australia is largely imported and not homegrown except in mosques and Islamic schools where it is openly taught and festers. The Australian public is finally waking up to this and calling for a halt to Islamic immigration, as someone noted earlier.
At the risk of breaking the roolz. There has now been reported Islamic schools having rag rooms for girls menstruating. This is sexual discrimination, ostracisation and humiliation of girls whose periods are being tracked. It would not surprise anyone if these schools also endorsed antisemitism. Of course they are subsidised by the Australian taxpayer.
https://x.com/RachaelWongAus/status/2026958965524037843?s=20
There have been numerous reports of the hate filled speeches in the mosques as well in Australia.
https://x.com/HamasAtrocities/status/2000920204105413053?s=20
It remains to be seen if there is the political will to stop this nonsense. I guess all will be revealed one day.
https://x.com/firstfusilier/status/2022605096497111072?s=20
Indeed the nurses were Muslim. This was my point. At this stage they are a vocal minority and the politicians are continuously trying to appease these Islamic political demands at the expense of Australian society in the hope they will secure seats from the Muslim vote. It is a short term strategy with long term devastating consequences.
Australians have seen the elephant in the room and it is unpopular. This is why polls are swinging massively for anti mass immigration. So I am not speaking as a one person lived experience but as a reflection of millions.
Bigotry needs to be dismantled where ever it raises it’s ugly head. These freak ‘teachers’ are not teachers of human flourishing, nurturering, they border on being child abusers.
I really don’t care about your emblems, your flag, just your state of mind in how you deal with them. Tribalism when it reaches into fanaticism, ideological blindness, is bigotry creep, and inflicting it upon children?
despicable.
This is happening in every state – not just California – and has been going on for years. A coordinated campaign possibly involving up to a trillion dollars worth of Qatari and Saudi money has long captured the ideology of higher academia and, more recently, has been working at perverting the education of our young children.
National and local teacher unions have been infiltrated with woke social activists who have been provided anti-Israel teaching materials from ideologically-captured universities (Brown is a big culprit). If you have kids or grandkids, you might want to check if their schools are already teaching this stuff.
Luckily, someone has been watching, documenting, and offering help. Please check out:
https://navivalues.org/
(FWIW, I support them financially.)
My granddaughter (8 y.o. next month) has noticed the crossed-flag (Israel and Canada) friendship pin I wear on my lapel everywhere I go. She knows it’s the flag of Israel. She asks about why I am friends with Israel and I tell her that our civilization began there and it has many enemies. “What is ‘civilization’?” Her paternal grandfather is Jewish so I suppose I should leave the rest up to him, and her parents of course. But I want to vaccinate her against the sort of thing you are describing. There is certainly an organized antisemite movement in the Toronto District School Board and at City Hall but there is a lot of autonomy in schools themselves and vigorous pushback from Jewish organizations. I think most of the parents at her school would flip out if their kids came home with Pal doctrine.
But I’m watching.