Alarming levels of K-12 antisemitism demand responses

A classmate told a Jewish ninth-grader at a California high school that he hopes the boy’s “entire family burns in hell” and that Hamas kills them all. Administrators dismissed the student’s complaint. At another high school in the same district, a teaching assistant advised a Jewish girl to conceal her Star of David necklace or she would “get what she deserved.”

Six families of students in the Sequoia Union High School District reported more than a dozen incidents through California’s formal complaint process. The district found nothing to correct. The families sued and won what attorneys call the most comprehensive set of reforms a public school district ever accepted. These include incorporating an antisemitism lesson in every world history class and annual staff training. An outside attorney must approve any lesson plan on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Both teachers named in the suit signed the settlement—and yet still work for the district.

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While campus protests following the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023 have largely abated, antisemitic incidents at K-12 schools continue to fester at an alarming rate—up 400% compared to 2020, according to a recent ADL report. A university student can file a complaint, hire a lawyer or call a reporter, while a child is far more likely to be bullied into silence. They are often too young to fight back.

‘When the teacher sets the tone’

The vast majority of teachers and administrators strive to make their students feel safe while also providing them with a quality education. At the same time, for an increasing number of Jewish students in K-12 schools, the adult in the room is often the source of the harassment or permits it to continue.

Every school grade was included in multiple claims of a February lawsuit filed against the state of California, brought by the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law and StandWithUs:

A parent who joined the lawsuit, Mike Rosenthal, described a teacher permitted to display anti-Jewish, anti-Israel and anti-American materials in class. “When the teacher sets that tone, it signaled to students that hostility toward Jewish identity was acceptable—and that is exactly what happened as other students joined in. No child should ever be put in a position where they feel they must hide who they are in order to feel safe.”

A Jewish student from Scarsdale High School in New York told the school board: “I came here to learn. Adults, not students, need to recognize the warning signs before an incident becomes public.”

A Jewish eighth-grader in Boulder, Colo., was harassed mercilessly over two years. He was called antisemitic slurs, chased in a game by his classmates named “Jew touch tag” and even spat on. The district investigated and confirmed that he was being bullied because he is Jewish. Eight months after that finding, a classmate tied a computer charging cable into a lasso, threw it around the boy’s neck and pulled him backward out of his chair while calling him an antisemitic slur. The teacher heard the slur but did not report the incident.

Police issued a juvenile summons for assault, and the district suspended the attacker for the rest of the week. During those two years of harassment, the Jewish boy’s parents included the superintendent on multiple urgent emails but never received a reply. When they asked the principal to separate their child from two students with documented records of bullying, she replied: “We will do our best.”

The Anti-Defamation League filed a federal civil-rights complaint on the boy’s behalf in June.

In August, the Boulder superintendent apologized publicly for failing to protect their Jewish students and proposed writing antisemitism explicitly into district policy and disciplining employees who fail to report incidents. He also proposed that the district remove the offender from the school, not the victim. The board has yet to vote on the proposals.

Jewish families elsewhere are no longer fighting alone. The ADL, Brandeis Center and StandWithUs run a legal helpline that connects parents to lawyers at no cost. A Massachusetts family called the helpline after their district offered to move their son into independent study while the students harassing him stayed in class. The three organizations filed a federal civil-rights complaint on his behalf, and the district agreed to act.

‘My union has made me feel isolated’

For Jewish teachers, the hostility does not stop at the classroom door.

A Jewish teacher who attended multiple union events said his “union leadership actively works against Jews and Zionists, promoting extremely biased and nasty anti-Israel curriculum.”

Organizers handed out fliers praising the Iranian-backed Hamas massacre on Oct. 7 and honoring the terrorists who carried them out. His wife was physically intimidated at an event, and “she was also attacked publicly by union leadership online.” Their account is one of many shared by the ADL in a new report.

What a union tells its members often shows up in the classroom. The Massachusetts Teachers Association included posters promoting terrorism against Israel among classroom visuals it offered teachers soon after Oct. 7, removing the material only after political and public criticism.

Some Jewish teachers have suffered backlash for raising objections. A teacher of 26 years said that for the first time in her career, she has been “acutely aware of my Jewish identity at work because my union has made me feel isolated, bothered and perpetuated a hostile environment where antisemitism has flourished.” About 74% of Jewish union members reported they self-censor in union spaces. Members reported hiding Star of David necklaces, skipping meetings and resigning union posts. Jonathan Greenblatt, national director and CEO of the ADL, called the findings a structural and cultural failure.

At the National Education Association’s July meeting, its Jewish Affairs Caucus and the Jewish Council for Public Affairs negotiated new conduct rules with union leadership, including secret balloting on contentious resolutions and immediate removal for harassment or doxxing. Delegates also voted to protect members on the basis of religion and ethnicity

Alyson Brauning, who chairs the Jewish caucus, called the rules a step toward a safer and more inclusive meeting for all educators, but said far more work remains. Jewish members are not walking away: 85% of those surveyed said that they will remain in their union.

1. Fewer headlines do not mean fewer Jewish children are being harassed

Congressional hearings and campus encampments drew the country’s attention for two years, and reported incidents have fallen sharply. Harassment and even attacks on Jewish students in elementary, middle and high schools have remained under the radar. The problem dramatically increased in younger grades just with less public attention. These incidents continue to target children who are naturally more vulnerable and without resources to defend themselves.

2. No child should answer for a foreign government

Nine-year-olds do not conduct foreign policy in the Middle East. Whether a student is Jewish, Israeli or Zionist , no child should be blamed, judged and harassed for decisions made by adults in another country. When a student is targeted because of Israel, their classmates are being taught that it is acceptable to hate Jewish children. No grievance with any government justifies turning on a child who shares its faith, language or history. This principle is as true for Jewish students as it is for Muslims, Arabs and any other students.

3. Most educators have good intentions towards their students.

The majority of teachers and administrators have no interest in making Jewish children uncomfortable; many simply have never been trained to recognize antisemitism when it appears in a hallway or a lesson plan. A small number of activist educators have had an outsized impact and have not been held accountable.

4. Parents can help force school districts to act.

Districts take action when a family refuses to remain silent about antisemitism and a Jewish organization provides the legal counsel. Roz Rothstein, CEO of StandWithUs, described how enforcement is needed to prevent schools from being used “by those seeking to indoctrinate students into antisemitic hate.” School boards meet in public, and their curriculum votes are posted in advance. All parents and community members who support accurate educational lessons free from bias need to show up and make their voices heard.

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