An internal investigation conducted by the Santa Clara Unified School District has found that a high school teacher violated its policy by showing an inflammatory anti-Israel video, produced by state-run Turkish media, as part of a lesson about the Holocaust.
This marks the second time that Kauser Adenwala, a world history teacher at Wilcox High School, has been investigated by the district over her use of supplementary class materials related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The results of the latest investigation were released in late July.
The two-minute video, which Adenwala showed in class in March 2024, features Jewish activist Marione Ingram outside the White House protesting Israel’s war against Hamas. The video falsely draws an equivalence between Israel’s treatment of Palestinians and the Nazis’ treatment of Jews.
“What the children in Gaza are going through is what I went through in terms of hunger and bombs falling on us,” Ingram, who introduces herself as a Holocaust survivor, states in the video. “As a Jew, I find it horrific. I’m actually ashamed sometimes to acknowledge that I belong to the tribe that is killing innocent people.”
The video includes clips depicting Jewish prisoners in concentration camps during the Holocaust intercut with footage of Palestinian men captured in Gaza by the Israeli Defense Forces in December 2023. IDF officials at the time said that men were strip-searched on suspicion that they were Hamas fighters carrying weapons, Reuters reported.
TRT World, the English-language channel of the Turkish Radio and Television Corporation, published the video on YouTube in March 2024. TRT is owned and operated by the Turkish government.
TRT World has published many videos featuring Jewish critics of Israel, including a Columbia University professor alleging that calls for “intifada” are not antisemitic, and a six-minute video titled “Is Zionism a white supremacist project?”
Parents of Jewish students in SCUSD took their concerns to school district leaders in May 2024, according to the grassroots volunteer group Bay Area Jewish Coalition (BAJC), which formed shortly after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas massacre and amid a rise in anti-Israel content in Bay Area public schools. Of particular concern, the BAJC said, is the video’s use as part of Holocaust education.
Parents “did not want this lesson to be repeated,” said Maya Bronicki, who heads BAJC’s education and advocacy section. “There are so many of us whose families were victims of the Holocaust. The goal was to try and work with the district.”
Bronicki said that BAJC first filed a complaint under California’s Williams Act, which covers grievances related to instructional materials or teacher competency. The school district then recommended that BAJC instead file what is known as a uniform complaint — which alleges a violation of state laws or regulations — or that BAJC take up the issue with the SCUSD school board.
In December 2024, BAJC and other concerned parents described the problem to the school board in a seven-page letter reviewed by J.
“This video dangerously conflates the war in Gaza with the atrocities of the Holocaust,” the BAJC letter read. “It puts all Jews in the position of the guilty and makes Jewish students feel uncomfortable among their peers.”
The district conducted an investigation and released its findings on July 25 — roughly seven months later — in a five-page report signed by director of human resources Stacy Joslin. The district found Adenwala violated its policies for teaching about “controversial issues” and violated its professional standards by failing to “exercise good judgment” in choosing to show the video. The district has a controversial issues policy that requires teachers to impartially present all sides of the issue with adequate factual information.
“The content of the video likely promoted a biased perspective toward Jewish students based on their nationality,” according to a district report seen by J.
The district based its conclusion on the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism, which considers comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis and holding Jews collectively responsible for Israel’s actions to be antisemitic.
The incident was not the first time Adenwala had been investigated because of anti-Israel politics in the classroom. In December 2023, during a lesson on human rights violations, Adenwala gave a presentation overwhelmingly critical of Israel called “Human rights abuses in Palestine,” according to a report prepared by the school district and seen by J.
J. also saw a copy of Adenwala’s presentation. It portrayed Israel as an authoritarian power, routinely oppressing non-Jews across the region, including in the West Bank, Gaza and within Israel proper. One slide claimed incorrectly that Israel is the “sole governing power” throughout most of the West Bank and Gaza. The same slide also alleged that Israel’s long-term goal is “Jewish Israeli control over demographics, political power, and land.”
The district found in July 2024 that the presentation violated its policies for teaching controversial issues, but did not find sufficient evidence of discrimination against Jewish students. The California Department of Education later investigated the same incident after an appeal and determined that additional corrective action was necessary, including anti-discrimination training for teachers. Spokespersons from the CDE and district confirmed to J. that the training took place.
Adenwala did not respond to J.’s requests for comment.
SCUSD confirmed in a statement to J. that the district will present the findings of its investigation into Adenwala to the SCUSD board during its next meeting on Aug. 14 — a day after the school year begins. At that meeting, the school board will determine what, if any, corrective actions to take.