I learned a new word recently: lawfare. Apparently this word has been around for a while, but it’s new to me. While typically used to describe the use of the law to achieve national security ends, it feels apt to describe what’s happening now all over California, the United States and the globe in my name as a Jew.
We are being towed under by a relentless wave of antisemitism lawfare that aims to control the conversation about Israel and Palestine and silence any dissent.
At this point, you’d be hard pressed to throw a dart at a map of California and hit a school district that hasn’t been sued over allegations of antisemitism. Around the Bay Area, Oakland Unified, Berkeley Unified and Sequoia Union have been sued. And in the most recent spate, the school district I work for, San Leandro Unified, has come under attack. The Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law and StandWithUs have even sued the state of California as a whole.
These lawsuits, while being undertaken in the name of Jewish safety, do precisely the opposite by positioning Jews in opposition to other students and teachers. The unrelenting lawfare saps resources from deeply under-resourced public school districts and feeds the stereotype of Jews controlling institutions. It also frays the bonds of solidarity between Jews and other marginalized groups because these lawsuits tend to treat antisemitism as unlike, and even more important than, any other form of discrimination.
School districts around the Bay Area are facing budget cuts as enrollment declines — plus, the final emergency Covid funding dried up last year. Some districts are forced to make massive layoffs, like Oakland Unified School District, which had to pink slip over 400 teaching positions this year.
Antisemitism lawsuits prove tremendously costly for districts that are forced to pay legal fees and settlements, divert hours of administrators’ time and attention, and mandate districts to contract with organizations to provide expensive antisemitism training for staff. Both education and tzedakah (acts of righteousness or justice) are core Jewish tenets — so why do we, as Jews, condone the siphoning of funds away from our public schools to respond to costly lawsuits?
As Jews, we need to soundly reject the antisemitic trope of a Jewish cabal influencing and controlling institutions. But the optics of these lawsuits are hard to ignore: massive global law firms stepping in pro bono to sue local school districts with high-powered legal teams launching a coordinated attack.
In the case of my workplace, San Leandro Unified School District, the law firm of Ropes & Gray picked up the case. What can our tiny district do against this level of legal firepower? I believe we need to recognize such lawsuits as part of the MAGA-aligned Project Esther, a coordinated nationwide attempt to silence any criticism of Israel. Project Esther, the Heritage Foundation’s authoritarian effort, labels anyone who expresses support for Palestinians as part of a “global Hamas Support Network” and states explicitly: “We must wage lawfare.”
The lawsuit against my own school district is a microcosm of the U.S. Department of Justice’s lawsuits against Harvard, UCLA and Columbia — all thinly veiled efforts to silence pro-Palestinian expression. I doubt that most Bay Area Jews would seek out any alliance with Trump and his lackeys, but with these antisemitism lawsuits, they are in lockstep.
Above all, we must recognize that our safety and our freedom from antisemitism and discrimination lie in our solidarity with other marginalized groups. Just like Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel marched with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in Selma and Jews stood at the front lines of the Longshoreman’s strike of 1934 here in the Bay Area, we are both safer and more effective in achieving protection when we stand shoulder to shoulder with others fighting for our shared humanity.
These antisemitism lawsuits do the exact opposite: They position Jews against others fighting for shared liberation. They position Jews against teachers and teachers unions. They position Jews against students who exercise their First Amendment rights to protest or to write or speak their minds. They position Jews against Muslims and Arabs. They exceptionalize antisemitism above all other pernicious forms of bigotry.
To my Jewish neighbors and friends: Please call off the lawyers. When our children are called “dirty Jews” or when swastikas are graffitied on school walls, recognize that these are moments to teach and to engage in restorative justice, not to sue.
Call off the lawyers and let overstrapped school districts focus on the sacred responsibility of educating our children. Call off the lawyers and seek our safety through dialogue, engagement and solidarity.