Teaching Palestine Is NOT Antisemitism 5-13-2026_8 min

Added: 2026-05-30

[00:00:13]A group of Jewish teachers, parents, and students rallying ahead of a meeting of the Oakland Unified School Board Wednesday. The educators say they're being investigated by the district for speaking out against Israeli military attacks on Gaza in the classroom and contend that doesn't equate to anti-semitism.

[00:00:32]>> Several Oak teachers facing legal action tonight for showing support for Palestine in the classroom. Now, Jewish community members are supporting them tonight.

[00:00:43]We're here today because the Brandeise Center and the California Department of Education are suing OSD over allegations that conflate teaching and speaking about Palestine with anti-semitism. And we're here to say that's wrong.

[00:00:59]>> It is not anti-semitic to oppose Israel's bloody war against the people of Palestine, especially the brutality and murder of Palestinian women and children. As a Jew, I will not be quiet during another Holocaust. We must not allow the Zionists and the Trump administration to attack and dismantle long fought for ethnic studies programs.

[00:01:24]>> I'm here because my students deserve a critical education that helps them contextualize their experience and examine the underlying forms of power that shape their world. And in our modern moment, that must include being able to analyze the struggle of the Palestinian people.

[00:01:40]being able to analyze it as an apartheid, being able to analyze it as a genocide.

[00:01:45]And unfortunately for our community, the organizations that OD has chosen to partner on anti-semitism trainings in the last year have documented history of biasing their message towards Zionist political ideologies.

[00:01:57]>> It is ridiculous to accuse teachers of anti-semitism when they are critiquing a government actively committing a genocide. They are using anti-semitism as a cudgel, block separatist administration's relentless repression tactics across universities and now K12 education to silence Palestinian history in voices and as their last ditch effort to control a false narrative that they know is already unraveled. To all our teachers, school board members, and district leaders, I say to you with urgency, do not capitulate. We stand by you and we'll fight for the inclusive, joyful learning communities that all our children deserve.

[00:02:37]And to my fellow parents, I say to you, we need you all in this fight. Our children are watching. We are seeing educators across California being investigated, disciplined, intimidated, and attacked for teaching history.

[00:02:51]attacked for teaching about global justice, in particular for teaching about Palestine, the ongoing genocide of Gaza, recognized as a genocide by all the major international human rights organizations, genocide scholars, UN experts, and more. We cannot cast our classrooms into darkness and expect our students to see. We must teach history honestly, authentically, and transparently. Otherwise, you're responsible for perpetuating fascism.

[00:03:16]The same fascism that led to the Holocaust. The same fascism that is perpetuating the genocide of Lindsa. The same fascism silencing educators name in Oakland.

[00:03:24]>> As an Oakland student, I have been taught to recognize apartheid and genocide. And what Israel is doing is both. When OSD interrogates its teachers on false and bad faith claims of anti-semitism, all it accomplishes is intimidating teachers that have proven their determination in educating and defending their students and showing students what the censorship that we see in our books looks like in real time.

[00:03:49]Stop attacking our teachers and stop undereducating our students.

[00:03:53]>> I challenge the board and the district to stand up for what is right. I and other teachers are currently under investigation for anti-semitism based on teaching and speaking out against the USbacked Israeli war against Palestine.

[00:04:08]As a Jew, I am both angered and offended by all of these investigations and I demand that you drop them now.

[00:04:15]>> Teachers have a huge responsibility to give formation to the new generations.

[00:04:20]How can they be intimidated to stay quiet about this atrocity? Thank you teachers for making your classrooms a place where fascism does not go unchallenged.

[00:04:30]>> Right now we are in a really difficult situation in this country where uh the country is supporting a massacre in a genocide in Gaza and there's a a tremendous amount of political pressure being given to to silence people who are opposed to that genocide. And I just want to encourage each of you to take your historic responsibility at this moment to stand strongly to stand firmly on the side of justice and what's right and not to give into the pressure.

[00:05:02]>> Is there ever going to be a time when you support us as teachers to teach about, you know, these important topics to our students? Designers are, you know, like being loud to investigate our teachers. What's next? You gonna allow MAGA attorneys in here to prevent us from teaching about Jim Crow and all the heinous atrocities committed against black people in this country?

[00:05:22]>> I'm actually going to read a comment on behalf of a parent who wasn't able to be here tonight. There are very few Jewish families at our school, but we've always been warmly received. Kids come up to me on the playground and ask when I'm making them lockas again. I want all children to feel as welcomed as we have.

[00:05:40]I want Palestinian and Middle Eastern kids to see their cultures celebrated and their histories and perspectives taught. Teaching about Palestine is not a threat to me or my child. It is a way to build a more inclusive community that benefits us all.

[00:05:56]>> By conflating anti-ionism with anti-semitism, you are necessarily shrinking the rich fabric of all Jews into the smaller box that is Zionism.

[00:06:05]Not to mention the message that this sends to your Muslim students. Is this the kind of thinking that we should be encouraging in our students? I should hope not and call upon the board to resist the framing presented by the Brandeise Center and stand with your teachers instead. It ought to be impossible for us to ignore the tens of thousands of dead in Palestine, in Lebanon, and in Iran as a result of US backed Israeli attacks. But this is what the California Department of Education, the Brandeise Center, recent communication from Superintendent Sadler and school site leadership are demanding that we do. ought to be impossible to ignore how OSD is undermining academic freed freedom enthral to political actors making excuses for genocide. But this is what is being demanded of us. It need not be this way. And we would ask you to strongly consider the type of district we will have at the end of this process if it continues the way that it has. Before I was a Jewish teacher, um I was a Jewish student in the 1950s and mostly 60s. I had no clue because I was never told about the Nagba, violent expulsion of 700,000 Palestinians from their land, homes, and communities. And now we're witnessing an ongoing genocide, uh, a new ethnic cleansing of Palestine by the United States and Israel. And I cannot believe that a school district in Oakland with its proud radical tradition of fighting for social justice and against oppression and racism is going to knuckle under to pressure from Zionists, Republicans, and Democrats and dem who demand that we educators uh remain silent and keep our students ignorant as we were in my school decades ago. So, I'm calling on OSD leaders to find the courage to stand up with the support of so many people in our community, including the many Jewish educators and students and family members who've signed a letter that you've received now a few weeks ago asking you to meet with us. We're just calling on you to stand for our students right to critical honest education that they need and deserve.