In the US, teachers are organising walkouts where students chant ‘kill the Jews’

For Berkeley, this is also round two: superintendent Enikia Ford Morthel testified before Congress about BUSD’s Jew-hatred problem, which she downplayed, in May 2024. That followed the Brandeis Centre and ADL’s February 2024 civil rights complaint, alleging BUSD failed “to end non-stop bullying and harassment of Jewish students by peers and teachers since October 7”.

Among the cited problems, teachers “promote[d], support[ed], and organise[d] walkouts and activities,” where students chanted “Kill the Jews” and a teacher directed second graders to write “Stop Bombing Babies” on papers they posted by the lone Jewish teacher’s classroom.

Marci Miller, director of legal investigations for the Brandeis Center, explained BUSD merits continued attention: “Complaints from 2024 have still not been addressed, parents have experienced retaliation as a result of their complaints, and reports of incidents of antisemitism in the district are ongoing.”

In Fairfax, problems date back years. The Zionist Organization of America “filed a complaint against the district with the US Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights” back “in January 2022”, Susan Tuchman, director of ZOA’s Center for Law and Justice, told me. ZOA’s “14-page complaint described in heartbreaking detail what Jewish students were facing, including “Heil Hitler” salutes, Jewish “jokes”, and coins being thrown at them, along with swastikas drawn on “desks and [in] school bathrooms”. Nearly four years on, this complaint “remains unresolved” and Fairfax “district officials are still failing to respond to [antisemitism] effectively”.

Philadelphia’s problems also aren’t new. ADL filed a federal civil rights complaint in July 2024 alleging “SDP knowingly allowed its schools to become viciously hostile environments for Jewish students, while failing to address numerous incidents of antisemitic harassment, bullying, and discrimination”. Their December 2024 settlement required SDP to take various steps to comply with civil rights law. However, the committee’s letter to SDP’s superintendent noted “antisemitic incidents have continued to proliferate since the plan. Jewish parents have likewise claimed that their complaints about antisemitism to the school district continue to go unanswered.” That Committee letter also observed SDP’s problems include “numerous educators who allegedly promote antisemitic content in their classrooms,” the use of “antisemitic materials in the classroom” and partnering with the Council on American-Islamic Relations for a workshop on “Jewish political power in the U.S”.

Problems are pervasive, so where should Congress focus? Izabella Tabarovsky, Senior Fellow with the Z3 Institute and author of Be a Refusenik: A Jewish Student’s Survival Guide, observed, “Whether they use the IHRA definition [of antisemitism] or the 3D Framework by Natan Sharansky” or tropes “in those anti-Zionist actions and violations”, members should “have it clear in their mind why those are, in fact, harming Jewish students, why they attack Jewish identity, why they attack Jewish peoplehood, why and how they attack the existence of the Jewish state”.

Zooming in on BUSD, Miller suggested concentrating on its “pattern and practice of ignoring complaints of antisemitism, failing to respond to complaints within a reasonable time or at all in some cases, and the overall hostile environment faced by Jewish families in the district”.

Ilana Pearlman, BUSD parent and a member of the Jewish Coalition of Berkeley, further recommended looking into “the entire Ethnic Studies department” and “speak[ing] with Israeli kids” whose experience with the district must “be really next- level awful”.

Pearlman hopes that this investigation brings “repair” for Berkeley’s Jews and ends the expectation that Jews “just take” antisemitic abuse.

Shamefully, parents can’t simply assume their Jewish or Israeli children will be treated equally in American public schools in 2025. This is a continuing battle, and it must still be won.