LAUSD Students Share Experiences of Antisemitism in ICAN Webinar

Various students in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) shared their experiences of dealing with antisemitism in the district during an Israeli-American Civic Action Network (ICAN) webinar on Monday that featured two school board members.

The Student Hearing on Antisemitism in Los Angeles Schools webinar was part of ICAN’s Combating Antisemitism Summit and was done in collaboration with Club Z––which facilitated the students’ testimonies––as well as Educators for Israel and other organizations. The first student to provide testimony was Misha Keyvanfar, a sophomore at Palisades Charter High School, where she serves as the president of external affairs of the school’s Students Supporting Israel (SSI) chapter and president of the school’s Jewish Student Coalition. Keyvanfar recounted how, as a sixth grader, she saw a swastika drawn in the school bathroom and the following year, one of her classmates “insulted and belittled Jews as a whole” and called her “a yucky Jew.” “His voice was not alone,” Keyvanfar said. “In fact, it was amplified and multiplied throughout my LAUSD middle school and later high school years.”

So far in her high school career, Keyvanfar says that her best friend “was told to go back to the gas chambers” and a student asked Keyvanfar “if [she] liked showers.” Additionally, when “I Heart Israel” pins were being handed out on a campus club day, a student took a video of himself “aggressively stomping” on the pin; the video was posted with Arabic music that translated to “Kill the Jews,” Keyvanfar claimed. Other students shouted “F— the Jews” while doing Nazi salutes to a Jewish club, she alleged.

Keyvanfar also claims to have had dealt with antisemitism from school staff members, as one staff member from her high school allegedly said during a math class that “Kanye was right,” referencing rapper Kanye West’s antisemitic rants last year. In a sociology class, she had a teacher who taught about the world’s largest religions but “didn’t know anything” about Jews and didn’t care enough to do the research, so the teacher suggested that Keyvanfar should teach the class about Judaism, Keyvanfar claims.

But Keyvanfar says her school has taken positive action, as they required all staff to visit the Holocaust Remembrance Museum. “I wish for the New Year that we can come together to stop hatred against Jews as well as all other people in our school and beyond,” she added.

Joseph Karlan, a recent graduate from the same high school and a current student at UC Berkeley, claimed that a teacher prevented the school’s Jewish Student Union from participating in a program he was running because “Jews don’t experience discrimination in America.” Karlan also said he had teachers who ranted “about why they think Jews are always rich and successful doctors and lawyers” and even had one teacher who lauded Kanye West after the rapper praised Hitler. Karlan recounted one teacher who asked the class what the Jewish homeland is, and then said: “God help you if you f—ing say Israel, that’s only 80 years old.” When Karlan said the Jewish homeland is Judea, the teacher snapped at him, “Where the f— is Judea, Joey?” Karlan explained that Judea is where Israel is today, but the teacher rebuffed him. “That’s right, there hasn’t f—ing been one,” Karlan claimed she said.

Additionally, Karlan, who was co-president of the school’s SSI chapter, said that his club had “its material stolen or publicly defaced on campus.” Karlan also recalled an incident in which one student told another that he was “dripping Israel,” and the offending student said he meant that he was calling the other student a “dirty Jew.” Karlan claimed that the incident was reported to the school, but the offending student graduated without suffering any apparent consequences.

“Today, teachers and students think that they can target Israel all they want without repercussions since Israel is just some small country halfway across the globe,” Karlan said. “Well let me ask them: if Israel is really some small insignificant country, why is that teachers feel the need to bring it up when it is entirely irrelevant to class material? If some teachers insist that their gripes with Israel really have no connection to the Jews, then why do they ask their Jewish students in the room to respond when they delegitimize Israel? That’s because the rhetoric has changed but the antisemitism has not. It’s now teachers and students hating Israel instead of Jews.”

Karlan argued that the remedy for Jew-hatred is education, pointing out that he and other students met with the teacher who barred the Jewish Student Union from his program and together they educated the teacher, prompting the teacher to reverse course and later apologized for initially barring the club. Karlan said that the teacher also “thanked [him] for caring so much for my people.” Additionally, the Jewish student leaders at Karlan’s former high school hosted weekly educational sessions about the Jewish people and Israel, featuring various speakers including rabbis and Holocaust survivors. “In my high school, my Jewish peers know how to identify antisemitism and why it is wrong,” Karlan said. “But still, many of them grow tired of defending themselves since their teachers and administrators won’t listen to them. They feel hopeless.”

Karlen told LAUSD board members and school administrators that “we need your help fighting antisemitism in all its forms” and urged LAUSD to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism. “Adoption of IHRA would show Jewish students that LAUSD stands with them and condemns antisemitism no matter how it manifests,” he argued.

The final student testimony was from Miya Zborovsky, a junior at the Los Angeles Center for Enriched Studies (LACES). Zborovsky, who serves as the vice president of her school’s Jewish Student Union, is the daughter of immigrants who fled antisemitism from the Soviet Union. Zborovsky explained that when she was in 8th grade during quarantine in the COVID-19 pandemic, her friends made antisemitic comments toward her because they believed that “I, a Jew, do not deserve a homeland.” Zborovsky also said that until the May 2021 Israel-Hamas conflict occurred, she never felt a need to post absolutely anything on social media until the rockets started flying” and she needed to address “misinformation” on social media about the conflict. Zborovsky recalled a friend of hers asking her for information about the conflict, who then proceeded to call Zborovsky “a colonizer and a pig who is not empathizing with Palestinian children who are being murdered on a daily basis.” Zborovsky said she attempted to persuade her friend that Hamas is to blame, but claims her friend didn’t want to listen.

“Based on the experiences of my friends, I realized that my experiences were not unique,” Zborovsky said.

She called for LAUSD “to be a safe space for all students” and urged the district to adopt IHRA, arguing that the district needs to teach that Jews are from Judea and that anti-Zionism is antisemitism. “We need to be able to foster conversations that stem from nonbiased education and empathy,” Zborovsky said.

Two LAUSD school board members, Nick Melvoin and Scott Schmerelson, listened to the students’ testimonies on the webinar. Melvoin called the testimonies “incredibly powerful” and “really hard to hear.” “When I was in high school despite experiencing some of this, I didn’t have the courage or the voice that you did,” he said. Melvoin pointed out that hate has been amplified on social media and asked the students how schools can help on this issue. The students replied that teachers need to be educated to inoculate themselves and their students from hate on social media.

Schmerelson told the students that there’s a “saying in LAUSD: if it’s not written down it didn’t happen” and that there are Incident System Tracking Accountability Reports (iSTARs) that can be filed when these incidents happen. “You will be surprised how quickly these things will stop happening because no one wants to be reported,” Schmerelson said. Keyvanfar replied that she has met with counselors and administrators about the antisemitic incidents she’s experienced and “they claim they’re having a meeting and discussing a punishment, and no punishment ever really comes through.” Zborovsky chimed in that she didn’t know that iSTAR existed until Schmerelson mentioned it, but that she has had experiences similar to Keyvanfar’s. Keyvanfar added that the iSTAR system hasn’t been “broadcasted to everyone.” Melvoin said that the feedback from the students has been helpful and pointed out that a new anonymous incident reporting app is available. He argued that when the reporting system “breaks down” it’s all on the victims to report incidents of hate, so there needs to be better training for teachers and staff on the matter. Karlan acknowledged the importance of iSTARs, but argued that the goal is to stop antisemitic incidents from happening altogether so there isn’t need to file an iSTAR in the first place.

Schmerelson said he was “personally hurt” to hear the various antisemitic incidents experienced by students and that he plans to follow up with the schools in his district (Schmerelson represents District 3, which covers various parts of the San Fernando Valley) and make these incidents “stop and it’s going to be reported.” “Principals who don’t report are going to be in big trouble too,” Schmerelson added.

Other speakers on the webinar included Educators Caucus for Israel Chair Amy Leserman, Kenter Canyon Elementary Charter School Principal Dr. Irina Sugar, Consul for Public Diplomacy at the Consulate General of Los Angeles Carmel Halevy and United Teachers Los Angeles Valley East Area Chair Scott Mandel. LAUSD School Board Member Kelly Gonez also gave a brief video message. ICAN CEO Dillon Hosier moderated the discussion.