Californians protesting outside the Department of Education in Sacramento. Photo: ZUMA Press Wire via Reuters Connect

California is suing one of its own publicly funded school systems, the Oakland Unified School District (OUSD), accusing its officials of refusing for several years to address antisemitism and protect the civil rights of Jewish children being subjected to abuse by both their peers and teachers.

Filed by the state’s Department of Education on March 5, the complaint alleges that OUSD’s superintendent never followed through on “corrective actions” decreed by the department to correct a hostile environment which produced “multiple complaints of antisemitism.” One of the measures called for issuing a letter to parents that “condemns antisemitism” while outlining OUSD’s efforts to combat it. The state charges that the superintendent, Dr. Denise Saddler, ignored its directive, a legal obligation as a state entity and recipient of public funds.

“No law or regulation grants OUSD the discretion to disregard or delay prompt implementation of the corrective actions mandated,” the complaint says. “Unless this court grants the relief requested, respondent OUSD will continue to fail and refuse to perform its legal duties.”

The lawsuit continues a dispute between the department and OUSD which began last year when, amid a flood of Jewish students leaving the district, the agency found OUSD guilty of antisemitic discrimination which affected both students and staff. In one incident, the district allowed the presentation of a map, prepared in support of Arab American Heritage Month, which did not include Israel. Speaking to The Oaklandside, a local newspaper, in October, an OUSD spokesman admitted that was “an oversight,” but by that time it had already happened twice.

California itself is being sued by a coalition of leading Jewish advocacy organizations over its alleged failing to address “systemic” antisemitic discrimination in K-12 public schools.

Led by the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law and StandWithUs, the legal action stems from consecutive years of antisemitic abuse perpetrated against Jewish students, parents, and teachers by anti-Zionists at every level of the school system. Court documents shared with The Algemeiner earlier this week revealed new, harrowing accusations of Jews being called “k—kes,” Jewish students being threatened with gang assaults, and K-12 students chanting “F—k the Jews” during anti-Israel demonstrations promoted by faculty.

In one highly disturbing incident described in the legal complaint, fifth graders from the OUSD were filmed by the teacher saying “Another major thing that I’ve learned is that the Jews, the people who took over, basically just stole the Palestinians’ land” and “one thing that’s really surprising to me, and that appeals to me is that the US is helping the Jews.” In another incident, the Oakland Education Association confected a curriculum in which the intifada — which refers to two prolonged periods of terrorism in which Palestinians murdered Israeli civilians — was taught to third graders as a nursery rhyme.

Litigation related to antisemitic incidents in California K-12 schools surged following Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, which triggered a barrage of antisemitic hate crimes throughout the US and the world. The list of outrages includes a student group chanting “Kill the Jews” during an anti-Israel protest and partisan activists smuggling far-left, anti-Zionist content into classrooms without clearing the content with parents and other stakeholders.

Elsewhere in California, K-12 antisemitism has caused severe psychological trauma to Jewish students as young as eight years old and fostered a hostile learning environment, according to complaints.

In the Berkeley United School District (BUSD), teachers have allegedly used their classrooms to promote antisemitic stereotypes about Israel, weaponizing disciplines such as art and history to convince unsuspecting minors that Israel is a “settler-colonial” apartheid state committing a genocide of Palestinians. While this took place, high level BUSD officials were accused of ignoring complaints about discrimination and tacitly approving hateful conduct even as it spread throughout the student body.

At Berkeley High School, for example, a history teacher forced students to explain why Israel is an apartheid state and screened an anti-Zionist documentary, according to a lawsuit filed in 2024 by the Brandeis Center and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). The teacher allegedly squelched dissent, telling a Jewish student who raised concerns about the content of her lessons that only anti-Zionist narratives matter in her classroom and that any other which argues that Israel isn’t an apartheid state is “laughable.” Elsewhere in the school, an art teacher, whose name is redacted from the complaint for matters of privacy, displayed anti-Israel artworks in his classroom, one of which showed a fist punching through a Star of David.

In October, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a law which requires the state to establish a new Office for Civil Rights for monitoring antisemitism in public schools at a time of rising anti-Jewish hatred across the US. As previously reported by The Algemeiner, the bill confronted Newsom, a Democrat rumored to be interested in running for US president in 2028, with a politically fraught decision, as it aims to limit the extent to which the state’s ideologically charged ethnic studies curricula, supported by progressives and many Democrats, may plant anti-Zionist viewpoints into the minds of the 5.8 million students educated in its public schools.

Newsom, who has since endorsed the false charge that Israel is an “apartheid” state, approved the measure amid these cross currents, paving the way for state officials to proceed with establishing an Antisemitism Prevention Coordinator, setting parameters within which the Israeli-Palestinian conflict may be equitably discussed, and potentially barring antisemitic materials from reaching the classroom.

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.

US Representative Max Miller (R-OH) joins House Republican Study Committee members as they hold a press conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, US, July 14, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

A Jewish member of the US Congress released audio this week of an antisemitic death threat he says his office received, warning that rising hostility toward Jewish public officials is translating into real-world intimidation and violence.

Rep. Max Miller, a Republican who represents Ohio’s 7th Congressional District, posted an 11-second voicemail sent to his congressional office. In the recording, the caller uses antisemitic language and expresses hope that Miller will be violently attacked, invoking stereotypes about Jews and suggesting he deserves to be killed.

“Just for being a Jewish piece of s—t who thinks they own the world, I hope some f—king Arab motherf—ker jumps out of the bushes and cuts off your f—king head,” a man says in the message. 

Miller said the threat reflects a broader climate of antisemitism that Jewish leaders and pro-Israel advocates say has intensified since the war between Hamas and Israel began in October 2023. 

The congressman, one of the few Jewish Republicans in the House, has said that threats like the voicemail are increasingly common for Jewish lawmakers and contribute to heightened security concerns across Capitol Hill.

Miller has previously faced hostility because of his Jewish identity and support for Israel.

In June 2025, Miller reported that a man displaying a Palestinian flag aggressively confronted him while he was driving in Ohio, shouting “death to Israel,” threatening him and his family, and forcing his vehicle off the road. Authorities later arrested a suspect and charged him with offenses including aggravated menacing and ethnic intimidation.

Miller characterized the incident as an act of antisemitic intimidation and said it underscored the risks Jewish public officials face in an increasingly polarized environment surrounding Israel.

Miller’s decision to release the threatening voicemail this week came the same day that a gunman targeted a synagogue near Detroit, sending shockwaves through Jewish communities across the country.

On Thursday, local and federal authorities say a man rammed a vehicle into Temple Israel in West Bloomfield Township, Michigan before opening fire, prompting a shootout with armed security guards. Authorities said roughly 140 people, including more than 100 children attending a preschool program, were inside the building at the time, but no congregants were harmed due to the rapid response of security personnel. The assailant was killed by the synagogue’s armed security, according to police.

Officials and Jewish organizations described the attack as a stark reminder of the security threats facing Jewish institutions nationwide. Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer condemned the violence and warned that rising antisemitism poses a serious danger to Jewish communities.

Miller said he released the audio publicly to draw attention to what he describes as the increasingly hostile climate facing Jewish Americans and pro-Israel leaders.

March 29, 2025, Amsterdam, North Holland, Netherlands: A pro-Palestinian demonstrator burns a hand-fashioned Israeli flag. Photo: James Petermeier/ZUMA Press Wire via Reuters Connect

A synagogue in Rotterdam, a major port city in the western Netherlands, was briefly set ablaze in a suspected arson attack early Friday — the latest in a wave of violent incidents this month targeting Jewish religious sites across several Western countries.

Local law enforcement has launched an investigation into the attack, confirming that no injuries were reported. Dutch police later said they arrested four young men, aged 17 to 19, on suspicion of setting off an explosion outside the synagogue, which was damaged as a result of the fire, caused by an explosion around 3:40 am. 

The suspects were detained in a car near another synagogue.

“It is not yet clear whether the suspects planned to detonate an explosive or set fire to another synagogue as well,” police said in a statement.

Lawmakers and Jewish organizations swiftly condemned the incident, describing it as an antisemitic attack that reflects a growing climate of hostility, fear, and targeted violence against Jews and Israelis.

Chanan Hertzberger, chairman of the Central Jewish Council — the umbrella organization representing Jewish communities across the Netherlands — said this latest incident signals a troubling escalation in antisemitic acts.

“This is the physical manifestation of antisemitism: after words and threats, actions now follow,” Hertzberger said. “Antisemitism is no longer a fringe phenomenon in the Netherlands — it is manifesting itself increasingly brazenly. Now even right up to the doors of our houses of worship.”

Dutch Justice and Security Minister David van Weel expressed solidarity with the country’s Jewish community, pledging continued protection for Jewish institutions and emphasizing that Jews “must feel safe in the Netherlands.”

“We must not tolerate antisemitism, intimidation, and violence,” van Weel wrote in a post on X.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar also sharply criticized the Dutch government in the wake of the attack, accusing it of failing to prioritize the safety of Jewish communities.

“In Rotterdam, a synagogue was attacked yesterday. But the Netherlands found it more important to intervene in South Africa’s fabricated case against the State of Israel. Shameful!” the Israeli top diplomat posted on social media. He referred to the decision by the Netherlands, along with Iceland, on Thursday to join a case brought by South Africa to the International Court of Justice, the UN’s top court, accusing Israel of committing “state-led genocide” in its defensive war against Hamas in Gaza.

Israeli leaders have condemned the case as an “obscene exploitation” of the Genocide Convention, noting that the Jewish state was targeting terrorists who use civilians as human shields in its military campaign.

Rotterdam Mayor Carola Schouten said authorities will maintain heightened security around synagogues and other Jewish institutions in the city, stressing that police presence will remain in place to reassure the community and deter further attacks.

“We will not tolerate antisemitism, intimidation, violence, or hostility toward religious groups,” Schouten said in a statement.

Eddo Verdoner, the Netherlands’ national coordinator for combating antisemitism, said footage circulating online showing flames at the synagogue’s entrance — though not yet confirmed to depict the actual incident — evokes memories of “dark times in history.”

“It is in the interest of society as a whole that we do everything possible to ensure the Jewish community in the Netherlands can live freely and safely,” Verdoner said. “If this small minority is not safe, it undermines the core values of our democracy.”

According to multiple media reports, an extremist group calling itself “The Islamic Movement of the Companions of the Right” has claimed responsibility for the suspected arson attack on the Rotterdam synagogue, which — if confirmed — would mark the third assault on a Jewish institution in Europe this week attributed to the group.

Although no government has formally acknowledged or verified the existence of the group or its claimed operations, the repeated claims have raised concerns about a potentially coordinated network targeting Jewish communities across Europe amid heightened tensions and fears of Iranian retaliation and possible sleeper-cell activity linked to the war in the Middle East.

Friday’s incident comes amid heightened security concerns at Jewish institutions worldwide following the outbreak of war involving the United States, Israel, and Iran on Feb. 28, with at least eight synagogues across North America and Europe attacked so far this month, a period of less than two weeks.

One day before the Rotterdam arson attack, a gunman drove a vehicle into a synagogue near Detroit, Michigan, in what authorities described as a targeted act against the Jewish community.

According to local and federal officials, a Lebanese-born suspect armed with a rifle drove into Temple Israel in West Bloomfield Township before being shot and killed by security, while staff, teachers, and roughly 140 children inside the synagogue’s early childhood center emerged unharmed.

The same day, Norwegian police arrested one person following an armed operation after a high-speed car chase near the Trondheim synagogue, in an incident that sparked fear and emergency responses across the area.

Last Friday in Canada, a gunman fired through the glass entrance of Beth Avraham Yoseph of Toronto, a Modern Orthodox synagogue in the Thornhill neighborhood, while two maintenance workers were still inside cleaning up after a Shabbat dinner.

About 30 minutes later, another shooter targeted the Orthodox Shaarei Shomayim congregation in North York, a district just south of Thornhill, opening fire at the synagogue’s entrance.

The incidents came just four days after another attack in Toronto, in which a Jewish-owned restaurant and a local synagogue were also hit by gunfire.

On Monday, a synagogue in Liège, eastern Belgium, was damaged in an explosion that police are investigating as a deliberate attack, with the city’s mayor condemning it as an “extremely violent act of antisemitism.”

Azerbaijan said last Friday it had foiled a series of Iranian terrorist attacks on its territory, including against a synagogue and the Israeli embassy in Baku.

In the last few weeks, synagogues have also been targeted with vandalism or arson in the United States, including New York, Los Angeles, and Miami; and in Canada, including Montreal and Vancouver; as well as in France, Germany, Chile, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Italy, and the Australian cities of Melbourne, Brisbane, and Sydney.

In January, the suspect believed to have intentionally ignited a fire which severely damaged the Beth Israel Congregation synagogue in Jackson, Mississippi told US federal investigators he targeted the institution over its “Jewish ties,” according to an affidavit the FBI submitted to federal court.