Parents of Jewish students are asking the Berkeley Unified School District to protect their children from antisemitic harassment, which has increased in the schools since Israel declared war on Hamas following the Oct. 7 massacre and taking of hostages.
A group of parents and “concerned allies” presented a petition with more than 1,100 signatures at a school board meeting Wednesday night.
“This petition, this meeting is not about the war,” Aaron Katler, a parent who has one child in BUSD and another who graduated from Berkeley High School, told J. before the meeting. “It’s about Berkeley public schools living up to its stated values … and to its legal responsibilities.”
Katler joined an ad hoc group that formed last week with about 35 Berkeley parents who want to see the school district take antisemitism seriously. The group has grown to nearly 200 parents since then, he said.
The group began circulating the petition on Monday, Katler said, noting that it had been signed primarily by Berkeley residents and particularly by parents who have seen a “rise in the tacit permission of administrators to allow for antisemitic intimidation.” By Thursday afternoon, the number of signatures crossed 1,250.
Jews want the school district to treat their concerns “as seriously as they would any other ethnic group,” said Katler, who is CEO of Oakland-based UpStart, a Bay Area-based incubator for Jewish innovation.
The petition, addressed to the school board and Superintendent Enikia Ford Morthel, states: “We are dismayed, disappointed and frightened by the district’s lack of care for our students’ physical and psychological safety in school.”
There are 9,400 students spread across the district’s 15 schools.
The petition offers multiple examples of recent harassment, including students in the hallways saying “kill the Jews” and “eliminate Israel,” or asking Jewish students what “their number is” in reference to Holocaust tattoos.
Jewish students are also reporting antisemitic statements from teachers and propaganda in classrooms, according to the petition. Some have stopped wearing Stars of David to school or T-shirts from Jewish summer camps, the petition says, and they fear getting “jumped” in school.
The petition offers multiple examples of recent harassment, including students in the hallways saying ‘kill the Jews’ and ‘eliminate Israel.’
“Most of us who reported these incidents to the administration have not had our calls or emails returned. The few of us who did get responses, were greeted with antagonism, disbelief and an utter lack of professionalism,” the petition states.
The problem is most acute at Berkeley High School, Katler said. With about 3,000 students, it is the only standard public high school in a city known for anti-Israel activism. The atmosphere has become more intense than usual in the past three-plus weeks.
At Wednesday’s board meeting, the superintendent and board president reiterated that the safety of all students is a priority.
“We together stand against all forms of hate, including antisemitism and Islamophobia,” Ford Morthel said at the start of the meeting.
Board President Laura Babitt said the district stands “united against hate,” adding: “What would Berkeley look like if we really focused more on what love looks like?”
The board members and public commenters remained civil. One Algerian Muslim student requested that the curriculum include Palestinian history, and a mother who is a member of the anti-Zionist group Jewish Voice for Peace denounced “Israel’s brutal genocide.” More than a dozen anti-Israel speakers repeatedly used words like “genocide,” “apartheid,” “slaughter” and “ethnic cleansing.”
By contrast, several speakers worried about antisemitism raised concerns that Berkeley’s focus on diversity and inclusion doesn’t include Jewish students.
“The district assumes wrongly that Jewish students are white and do not need protection,” said Mara Kolesas, a BUSD parent who called the level of antisemitism in the district “quite rampant.”
The petition is asking the school district to let Jewish students know that it doesn’t tolerate hate speech or antisemitism and to offer a “safe, simple and anonymous” method of reporting antisemitic incidents. It asks the district to meet with Jewish students, parents and clergy to hear their concerns.
“BUSD also needs to take focused, intentional action to ensure our Jewish students feel physically and psychologically safe at school — together with Muslim students, Arab students and all student communities impacted by the situation in the Middle East,” the petition states.
The district is bound by the Civil Rights Act to “protect all students from harassment and bigotry,” Katler told J. “We shouldn’t have to be banging down doors. Unless we voice this, it is going to continue. Rhetoric often turns to violence.”
On Thursday, Katler said he is hopeful about the board members’ response to the petition and to concerns raised at the meeting.
“I think their hearts are in the right place,” he said. “They can do more. We want to help them figure out how to do more.”