Media Statement from Berkeley Unified School District Jewish Parents regarding School Superintendent Dr. Enikia Ford Morthel’s Upcoming Congressional Testimony
Press contact: berkeleyjewishparents@gmail.com, (510) 517-9201
April 15, 2024
Jewish children are safe and thriving in Berkeley’s diverse schools. As Jewish Berkeley parents, we reject the notion that there is rampant antisemitism in our schools; it is simply not true. A handful of parents have painted a false picture of our city in the national media, fueling the national right-wing attack on education.
Our Jewish students are part of a loving multicultural community with access to a rich and rigorous public school curriculum where they learn about American history, race, gender, and the history of our diverse community members.
Learning about other minority communities, and building relationships of mutual support, is what keeps us safe as Jews.
These congressional hearings are not about Jewish students’ well-being. This is part of the MAGA Republican war on education that is restricting public school students’ right to learn. We reject these right-wing attacks on our families. We stand firmly together, as Jews, with other minority communities and all of our educators against all forms of hate.
For more background on the accusations against our schools, please see our statement from March, 2024:
Media Statement from BUSD Jewish Parents for Collective Liberation:
As Jewish parents and community members, we are deeply concerned about the defamatory complaint against Berkeley Unified School District by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the Brandeis Center, a national Israel advocacy organization with pro-Trump ties.
The complaint is replete with false information. It irresponsibly fabricates or exaggerates a majority of incidents described, and needs to be laid bare for what it is: another harassment tactic intended to censor teaching our children about Palestine. By mischaracterizing messages that support Palestinian human rights as somehow dangerous to Jewish students, the complaint is full of anti-Palestinian, and anti-Arab messages. It endangers our children, their right to free assembly and their right to learn.
For example, the complaint falsely describes a middle school walkout calling to stop the killing of Palestinian children as if it were a walkout that was organized to target Jews. In another instance, the complaint claims that it was antisemitic when second grade students generated notes stating “stop bombing babies.” Similarly, most of the incidents outlined in the complaint are either fabricated or are falsely framed as acts of antisemitic hate.
We, a grassroots collective of Jewish parents, care deeply about antisemitism, Islamophobia and anti-Arab racism. We acknowledge the existence of both antisemitic and islamophobic incidents in our district, and that this underscores the need for education, not censorship.
We reject the false conflation between antisemitism and criticism of the state of Israel and its military assault on Palestinians. Jewish safety and Palestinian freedom are intertwined. The danger of antisemitism comes from white nationalism, not from those who support Palestinian human rights and freedom.
The complaint makes Berkeley a stage for the far-right to whip up inflammatory fake news and create an atmosphere of fear. It follows months of well-documented harassment and intimidation from anti-Palestinian community members against our school district. These tactics echo a nationwide pattern of anti-Palestinian harassment to threaten our academic freedom to learn about Palestine. These false allegations against our staff and students put our community in immediate danger.
We call on our district to vigorously defend against this legal bullying tactic and protect our educators' ability to answer our students' cries for help in understanding the genocide in Gaza. As Jewish parents, we assert that these fear tactics and accusations are inflammatory and threaten the safety of our Jewish children. None of us are free until we are all free.