Updated at 8:15 p.m.
The Brandeis School of San Francisco, a Jewish K-8 day school, has increased its security after someone driving past the property shouted antisemitic slurs at a student and her mother last week.
Worshippers at Congregation Am Tikvah, a Conservative-Reform synagogue located next to the school on Brotherhood Way near Lake Merced, also recently reported that a driver yelled that Jews were responsible for “genocide” and shouted profanities and other antisemitic slurs, according to Rabbi Chayva Lehrman.
Both incidents involved a man driving a white sedan, witnesses said.
The most recent incident occurred Friday afternoon when a Brandeis parent and her sixth-grade daughter were walking toward the Muni bus stop in front of Am Tikvah.
While stopped at a red light around 4 p.m., “he rolled down his window and started using particular slurs for the Jewish ethnicity and also the b-word toward my daughter,” Veronica, the Brandeis parent, told J. She requested using only her first name to protect her family’s privacy. He also yelled about Zionists being responsible for “genocide,” she added.
“It was really shocking,” Veronica said.
J. viewed a video of the incident taken at a distance by a bystander, in which the words “f**k Israel” are heard as the man drives away.
A Brandeis security guard came over to check on her and her daughter and then contacted the city police department, according to Veronica.
Dan Glass, Brandeis head of school, confirmed that San Francisco police and the Secure Community Network (SCN), a national Jewish organization that monitors threats, were informed of the incidents.
“We’re working with law enforcement regarding followup; out of an abundance of caution, we’ve upped our security staffing through the end of the school year,” Glass said in an email to J. on Monday. “It’s certainly a sad commentary on the state of the world that people feel it’s OK to shout at people in the streets in this way.”
Rafi Brinner, senior director of community security for the S.F.-based Jewish Community Federation and Endowment Fund, which partners with SCN, said this kind of harassment is no longer rare but also offered reassurance.
“As upsetting as this behavior is, it has sadly been a common occurrence in the past year and a half, and not just in the Bay Area,” he said in an email to J. “It does not signify a threat of violence toward the Jewish organizations on Brotherhood Way.”
The other recent incident took place on a Saturday morning as Shabbat services were underway, Lehrman said. A group of four Am Tikvah congregants were harassed with similar language as they entered the synagogue. Lehrman said she alerted Brandeis administrators and the Federation.
“It’s very upsetting,” Lehrman said. “It’s a difficult time. There’s enough of a feeling in the greater world of the vulnerability of what it means to be Jewish in this moment, and we want our synagogues to be a space where we create safety and love and support.”
Based on the car’s description and the driver’s words, Lehrman said, security personnel believe that the same person was likely involved in the incidents.
Brinner concurred. “Nothing suggests there is more than one person involved,” he said.
To report an incident to both the SCN and the Federation’s community security team, go to jewishfed.org/incident-reporting-form.