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How Jewish leaders tried — and failed — to keep a Farrakhan follower off a Florida city council
(JTA) – When Brother John Muhammad emerged this fall as the leading candidate for a vacant city council seat in St. Petersburg, Florida, local Jews were distressed.
Muhammad is well known in the city as the president of a local neighborhood association and as a frequent advocate for minority groups. But Jewish leaders learned that he was also a follower of Louis Farrakhan, the Nation of Islam leader who has a long history of antisemitism, and that he had made comments dismissing concerns about Farrakhan’s record.
Jewish leaders tried to stave off Muhammad’s appointment, pushing for more extensive vetting of the seven candidates and, in the case of the local Holocaust museum, actively lobbying against him. But the council confirmed him in a 4-3 vote, leaving local Jews frustrated — before they considered ways to make the situation a learning experience for their city.
“When I see a situation like this, it screams ‘opportunity’ to me,” Michael Igel, chair of the Florida Holocaust Museum, located in St. Petersburg, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
The saga playing out in St. Petersburg, Florida’s fifth-largest city, unfolded during the same period that a handful of Black celebrities, including Kanye West and Kyrie Irving, first became enmeshed in controversy over their own antisemitic comments and social media posts. The coincidence meant a dicey environment for broaching a conversation about the antisemitism of the Nation of Islam, whose rhetoric disparaging Jews overlaps with that of Hebrew Israelites, the ideology that Irving promoted by sharing a link to an antisemitic film.
It also turned St. Petersburg into a window for understanding how ties forged between Jewish groups and others can be tested.
Local Jewish leaders initially sought to stop Muhammad from gaining the city council seat, which was vacated after its previous holder resigned following redistricting and accusations she no longer lived in her district. They learned about Muhammad’s city council application only a week before the council’s vote, leaving them with little time to mobilize. The information came from a political rival of Muhammad, former mayoral candidate Vince Nowicki, who shared information about Muhammad’s Nation of Islam affiliation with local Jewish groups.
Nowicki also shared a comment Muhammad had made about Jews in a 2016 video in which Muhammad interviewed local Black LGBTQ activists. In the video titled “A Conversation About Growing Up Black And LGBT,” which JTA viewed, Muhammad said, “Minister Farrakhan got accused of being antisemitic for a long time because he pointed out and made some corrections about the activity of Jews. And anybody who says anything critical of the Jewish community is labeled as being antisemitic. Good, bad, right or wrong, it doesn’t matter what you say. If you criticize them that’s what you are.”
He continued, saying, “And I’m finding that it happens when you are critical of the gay community, when you say anything critical or anything that doesn’t align with that ideology, now all of a sudden you’re homophobic.” Muhammad’s comments about gay people received some light but friendly pushback from his interview guests.
Muhammad did not reply to multiple requests for comment by JTA, including to questions emailed to him at his request. He said during a public meeting ahead of the council vote that he thought scrutiny of him by Jewish groups had been unfair.
To Jewish leaders, the comments in the video coupled with Muhammad’s Nation of Islam affiliation were clear signs that he should not be appointed to the city council.
“I would sure hope that being antisemitic would be a red line, that you could not be a candidate,” said Rabbi Philip Weintraub of Congregation B’nai Israel, a Conservative synagogue in the city.
Jewish leaders began to take action, issuing statements and launching a letter-writing campaign to the council. They felt so much urgency that some even conducted business on Simchat Torah, a Jewish holiday when Jewish organizations typically pause their activities in accordance with Jewish law.
As a nonprofit, the local federation was constrained in how it could weigh in. Since it could not endorse or oppose specific candidates, it instead pushed for every candidate to be “properly vetted” and informed council members about Muhammad’s affiliations and past comments, according to Maxine Kaufman, executive director of the Jewish Federation of Florida’s Gulf Coast. She said the efforts did not have their intended effect.
“I don’t think anybody said, ‘Well, who is this Farrakhan, what does he stand for?’” Kaufman said. “I don’t think enough was done, personally.”
The entrance to the Florida Holocaust Museum in St. Petersburg, Nov. 27, 2016. (Jeffrey Greenberg/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
The Florida Holocaust Museum took another approach, circulating information about Muhammad to the wider community, along with a statement opposing the candidacy of anyone who would support Farrakhan’s antisemitism. Their goal, Igel said, was to educate the community about the severity of these views.
“There’s nothing else to talk about when somebody is supporting Louis Farrakhan,” Igel told JTA. “Particularly when you are seeking a position representative of a city, particularly one like St. Petersburg that is so known for its inclusivity and its openness.”
Igel praised some members of the city council who asked Muhammad pointed questions about his views at the vote, giving him the opportunity to refute Farrakhan’s comments about Jews. One council member who voted against Muhammad, Lisset Hanewicz, said her stepfather is Jewish and read Farrakhan’s past antisemitic statements into the record, saying, “I think people need to understand why a certain part of this community is upset.”
Igel acknowledged that getting involved in a city council appointment was an unusual move for a Holocaust museum. He said museum leaders had held a meeting beforehand to determine how to proceed but made a decision fairly quickly to weigh in.
“In this case, we don’t consider this to be a matter of politics,” Igel said. “This is a matter of morality. And this is what we teach.” If the candidate had been a white supremacist, Igel said, “that person would have been disqualified out of the gate.”
The Anti-Defamation League and Southern Poverty Law Center, two hate watchdogs, define the Nation of Islam as a group that propagates antisemitism and other forms of bigotry, not a religion. Founded in 1930 by Wallace Fard Muhammad, the Black nationalist group is not the same as traditional Islam and is rejected by most Muslim clerics; it entered mainstream prominence in the 1960s after civil rights leader Malcolm X and boxer Muhammad Ali publicly joined the movement. (Both later left the group, with Malcolm X publicly denouncing its leadership; he was assassinated shortly after, and two Nation of Islam members who were wrongfully convicted of his murder recently received a large settlement from New York City.)
The Nation of Islam entered its current era after Farrakhan took over the group in 1977. Now 89, he has used his platform to issue a steady stream of antisemitism, including calling Jews “wicked” and the “synagogue of Satan,” saying they have “wrapped your tentacles around the U.S. government,” and calling Hitler “a very great man.” Only a few years ago, the Women’s March progressive activist collective was nearly derailed over some of its founders’ associations with Farrakhan.
It is rare, but not unheard of, for public officials to have current or former associations with the Nation of Islam. Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, a practicing Muslim, was dogged by accusations that he had formerly been a member of the group when he first ran for Congress in 2006; he apologized for his past associations with the group. Trayon White, a Washington, D.C. council member and onetime mayoral candidate who has spread antisemitic conspiracy theories, has donated to the group in the past. Former President George W. Bush once praised the group, and a photograph showing Barack Obama in the same room as Farrakhan was fodder for Obama’s critics during his presidential run.
Muhammad, who is referred to on the city council website as John Muhammad and whose legal name is John C. Malone, declined to condemn Farrakhan at the city council meeting.
“I am not willing to denounce the leader of my faith no more than a Catholic would be willing to denounce their pope,” he said.
Muhammad’s reaction to questions about Farrakhan particularly concerned the federation and other local Jewish groups. Kaufman told JTA she didn’t know whether Muhammad himself is antisemitic, but she said his refusal to disavow Farrakhan was alarming.
“I do have issue with his reverence of someone who is blatantly antisemitic, and he won’t disavow him, he won’t reject him,” she said, echoing the the federation’s official statement on the vote.
At the meeting, Muhammad did say that he had reached out to the Florida Holocaust Museum but had not heard back — and that he thought the museum’s criticism of him was unfair.
“What I found when we reached out to have dialogue with the Holocaust Museum director, they did not want to talk to me,” he said. “They wanted to evaluate and disqualify me based on the association that I have as an individual. I don’t think that that’s just.”
Muhammad also defended his record with Jews by claiming that they were among the “diversity of those who support me.” He added, “And if you look at those who oppose me, they’re coming from one particular group.”
Since the vote, a local Black newspaper condemned the scrutiny on Muhammad, calling it a “perusal into his faith practice.”
Igel said the museum had no record that Muhammad had reached out but encouraged him to come and learn more about the Holocaust and the nature of antisemitism. Stuart Berger, head of the local Jewish Community Relations Council, acknowledged at the city council meeting that Muhammad “has made himself available to us” at the federation, but that none of the federation staff “had been in direct contact with him.”
The federation’s involvement in Muhammad’s case became its own issue at the council vote, when the candidate referenced an email Berger had written to the county commissioner. In the email, Berger wrote that Muhammad’s vetting process had been “good enough for me!”
While Muhammad took the email as proof that the federation believed him to be fit for office, Berger and Kaufman maintain that it meant nothing of the sort. Berger had not been speaking on behalf of the federation, they say, and had not intended for his email to be shared publicly.
Now that Muhammad is on the council, attention has turned to building relationships with him. Kaufman has been meeting with individual city council members, and hopes to eventually meet with Muhammad himself. She also aims to have the federation make a presentation to the council about the dangers of antisemitism and push them to make a statement about it.
She doesn’t think it’s complicated. “I think hate’s hate,” she said. “Many different colors.”
Weintraub’s congregation is celebrating its 100th anniversary in March, and one of its congregants, Eric Lynn, is also involved in politics: he was the Democratic nominee for Florida’s 13th Congressional district in the midterms but lost his race to Republican Anna Paulina Luna, who said she was raised as a Messianic Jew and campaigned with far-right Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.
Weintraub himself is a member of an interfaith ministerial dialogue group with Black churches and says he’s “a professional optimist” when it comes to managing conflict between different communities. He sent JTA an episode of the public radio podcast “Hidden Brain” about how to keep conflict from spiraling, saying it “describes what I’ve tried to do.”
Since Muhammad was appointed, Weintraub has met with him; the pair had what Weintraub described as “a pleasant conversation.” The two talked about parenting and “shared traumas,” he said. They did not discuss Muhammad’s comments supporting Farrakhan, but the rabbi couldn’t help but think about him.
“I thought I was a termite, according to Farrakhan,” Weintraub said. In contrast, Muhammad “said I was a person, so that was nice.”
—
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Reshaping the Diaspora: Israeli Migration Is Changing Jewish Life Across Europe
Pro-Israel demonstrators gathered at Bebelplatz in central Berlin on Nov. 30, 2025, before marching toward the Brandenburg Gate. Participants held Israeli flags and signs condemning rising antisemitism in Germany. Photo: Michael Kuenne/PRESSCOV/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect
Even as antisemitic incidents across Europe reach levels unseen in decades following Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, Jews and Israelis continue to move to the very cities where Jewish identity feels most fraught — creating an unlikely, though often uneven, pattern of demographic renewal at the heart of today’s Jewish diaspora. It is a quiet shift that persists against all odds: growth where fear might suggest retreat.
Despite an increasingly hostile social and political climate, Jewish life in much of Europe is not shrinking. In some places, it is holding steady — and in others, growing. Indeed, according to recent demographic reports, Israeli immigrant communities in Europe are among the fastest-growing Jewish communities in the world.
In Berlin, Hebrew can be heard on park benches and in co-working spaces. In Amsterdam, Jewish schools report steady enrollment and new Hebrew-speaking parents arriving each semester. In London cafés, Israeli students trade WhatsApp groups for housing and internships, while British Jewish institutions describe newcomers who arrive anxious but eager to build communities. Meanwhile, new Chabad houses continue to open across the continent.
Today, Europe is home to nearly 30 percent of all Israelis living outside the country — roughly 190,000 to 200,000 people — with their population steadily increasing across the continent, according to a report from the Institute for Jewish Policy Research (JPR).
JPR data shows that Israel-born Jews now make up nearly 50 percent of the Jewish population in Norway, 41 percent in Finland, and over 20 percent in Bulgaria, Ireland, Spain, and Denmark.
Over the past decade, the number of Israeli-born Jews has grown significantly in Baltic countries (135 percent), in Ireland (95 percent), in Bulgaria (78 percent), in the Czech Republic (74 percent), in Spain (39 percent), in the Netherlands (36 percent), in Germany (34 percent), and in the UK (27 percent).
Europe today is witnessing both rising antisemitism and a growing presence of Israelis — a dynamic that upends long-held assumptions about Jewish life on the continent and challenges popular narratives about Jewish “safety” and migration in the post-Oct. 7 era. Demographers, Jewish leaders, and recent residents describe a moment defined not by disappearance, but by movement, recalibration, and — in some places — cautious renewal.
“You can really see the growth in recent years,” said Shai Dotish, who lives in Berlin and serves as the director of community development at Israeli Community Europe (ICE) — a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting Israeli immigrants in 16 cities across the continent. “Our Shabbat dinners keep getting bigger, services are fuller, events are livelier. You can feel a vibrant, thriving Jewish life across the cities we serve.”
A Post–Oct. 7 Europe Transformed
The paradox is clear: antisemitism has reached levels not seen in decades, yet European Jewish communities are being stabilized — and in some cases subtly grown — by Israeli arrivals. Europe today hosts more Israel-born Jews than ever before, and many are arriving even as hostility rises.
“There’s no denying the risk and rising antisemitism, but Jewish life isn’t shrinking — it’s growing,” Doitsh told The Algemeiner, adding that ICE is even opening new centers in other European countries to meet higher demand for community services.
This quiet influx is unfolding against one of the most challenging climates European Jews have faced in the 21st century.
Governments and Jewish security organizations across the continent have documented a dramatic rise in anti-Jewish hate crimes since the Oct. 7 atrocities. Germany recorded more than 2,000 antisemitic incidents in 2024 — nearly double pre-Oct. 7 levels. While Germany’s Jewish population has grown in some urban centers, the rise in antisemitic crimes has prompted heightened security in schools, synagogues, and community hubs.
In the UK, the Community Security Trust (CST) — a nonprofit charity that advises Britain’s Jewish community on security matters — recorded 1,521 antisemitic incidents from January to June this year. This was the second-highest number of antisemitic crimes ever recorded by CST in the first six months of any year, following 2,019 incidents in the first half of 2024.
Last month, hundreds of anti-Israel demonstrators gathered outside St. John’s Woods Synagogue in London to protest the war in Gaza. In widely circulated social media videos, protesters are seen chanting, “We don’t want no two states, Palestine 48,” and “From the river to the sea, Zionism is f– treif.”
France presents a similar pattern. According to the French Interior Ministry, the first six months of 2025 saw more than 640 antisemitic incidents, a 27.5 percent decline from the same period in 2024, but a 112.5 percent increase compared to the first half of 2023, before the Hamas-led invasion of southern Israel.
Across the country, Jewish families have reported removing mezuzot, changing children’s school routes, and avoiding synagogues unless armed security is present.
In France, rising antisemitism and economic factors have led to slight declines in the number of Jewish households, particularly in Paris and Marseille. While French Jews continue to live, work, and participate in communal life, emigration to Israel and other European countries slightly outpaces arrivals.
Smaller European nations — including Spain, Belgium, and Central/Eastern European states — have seen modest Israeli migration, sometimes doubling small local communities.
Amid this increasingly fraught climate, Doitsh said a real sense of vulnerability persists, affecting people’s daily lives as community members and families take new precautions about where they go and what they wear.
For the first time in years, ICE-sponsored events across multiple countries have even had to introduce security. He also noted that organizers are changing event locations and keeping addresses private.
“The community is now dealing not only with antisemitism but with violence, hostility, and open hatred. Many people feel unsafe in their daily lives,” Dotish said.
Yet fear has had a counterintuitive effect: strengthening community life.
“Antisemitism has reinforced community ties,” said Professor Sergio DellaPergola, chairman of JPR’s European Demography Unit and a leading scholar of Jewish population studies. “People seek solidarity and connection. When they feel vulnerable, they look for their own community.”
The Truth Behind the Numbers: An Uneven Trend
Though Israeli-born Jewish communities in Europe have grown substantially in recent years, the trend remains complex and uneven throughout the region.
“This is not a moment of large waves of Jewish migration,” Dr. Daniel Staetsky, senior research fellow at JPR, told The Algemeiner. “What we are observing are moderate but meaningful movements, and they vary significantly by country.”
While the total Jewish population in Europe may not be growing substantially in absolute number, its composition is changing dramatically. This shift reflects two interconnected trends: the demographic decline of native European Jews and the rising number of Israeli Jews relocating to the continent. Even modest arrivals can have a significant impact against the backdrop of an aging Jewish population.
“In Western Europe, immigration from Israel has helped stabilize Jewish populations and, in some cases, create slight increases,” DellaPergola told The Algemeiner. “But these increases occur against a background of demographic decline, especially in countries like Germany and Italy, where fertility is very low.”
In other words, Israeli immigration helps keep European Jewish populations stable, masking the underlying decline of “native” communities where low fertility would otherwise shrink the absolute number of Jews.
Western European nations such as Germany and the Netherlands have seen their Jewish numbers bolstered in recent years by Israelis seeking economic opportunities, academic programs, and, paradoxically, a sense of stability.
In Germany, Israeli arrivals are concentrated in Berlin, Frankfurt, and Munich. Hebrew-language classes and Jewish cultural programming have expanded, stabilizing what would otherwise be a declining population due to low fertility. Security concerns remain elevated, but the communities themselves report renewed energy.
In the Netherlands, slow but steady Israeli immigration helps counterbalance demographic decline. Amsterdam schools, synagogues, and youth programs increasingly rely on this influx.
“Immigration from Israel has played a stabilizing role for countries like the Netherlands,” Staetsky said. “It is not large enough to reverse aging or lower fertility, but it slows decline and creates demographic balance.”
Meanwhile, Britain’s Jewish community has remained largely steady at around 313,000, compared with approximately 300,000–320,000 a decade ago.
According to a 2018 JPR study, high birthrates among Haredi Orthodox Jews are responsible for the recent growth in the number of British Jews after decades of decline. Births in the British Jewish community have reportedly exceeded deaths every year since 2006, implying “Jewish demographic growth in the United Kingdom.”
France’s Jewish population, at roughly 438,500 today, was estimated to be over 500,000 in the mid-2010s — a gradual decline tied in part to emigration and rising antisemitism.
Eastern European Jewish communities, particularly in the Baltics, are also shrinking due to low fertility and ongoing migration, as increasing numbers make aliyah to Israel.
DellaPergola told The Algemeiner that this trend reflects long-term structural factors rather than a sudden ideological shift.
“There is a dynamic flow,” he said. “Many Israelis move to Europe, but simultaneously many European [Jews] move to Israel. You have arrivals and departures, and the result in most countries is relative stability.”
However, DellaPergola also acknowledged that the war in Israel has dramatically altered migration patterns.
In 2024, approximately 80,000 Israelis left the country while only 24,000 returned, creating an unprecedented negative migration balance of almost 58,000 people, according to the Israeli Bureau of Statistics.
“I expect this trend to continue into 2025, marking a second consecutive year of negative migration, something unprecedented,” DellaPergola said.
Some of these emigrants may be responsible for the recent growth of Israeli communities in Europe, according to Staetsky.
Earlier this year, a study by the Israel Democracy Institute found that over one in four Israelis are contemplating leaving the country, pointing to the high cost of living, security and political concerns, and “the lack of a good future for my children” as key factors. Of those considering emigration, the European Union is the top destination (43 percent), surpassing North America and Canada (27 percent).
A Demographic Paradox
Staetsky emphasized that most Jewish migration today is not driven by ideology or fear alone.
“Migration trends reflect a balance of economic and social considerations,” he told The Algemeiner. “People move where they believe opportunity is strongest.”
Europe’s future as a Jewish center is far from assured. Fertility rates across the continent remain low. Political volatility is rising. Trust in public institutions varies sharply by country. For many Israeli families abroad, Europe is not necessarily a permanent destination but part of a global career trajectory.
This uncertainty is not abstract. For some Israelis living in Europe, it has become deeply personal. Take the case of Benjamin Birley — an Israeli Jew living in Rome and a social media influencer — whose experience lays bare the strain many Jews say they now feel in their everyday lives.
Birley came to Italy to pursue a doctoral degree and has spent the past several years there. But he says the climate has shifted sharply, with the Israeli–Palestinian conflict seeping into daily interactions in ways he describes as “unbearable.” Even though he must return to finish his program, he has decided to leave Europe temporarily and go back to Israel “to get some fresh air and breathe.”
“Italy in general has a lot of anti-Israel sentiment,” Birley told The Algemeiner. “There is just a relentless Palestinianism that is always in the media, in the culture, in your local café.”
“If you’re Jewish or Israeli and you’re openly Jewish or Israeli in Italy, you have to be prepared for endless conversations and debate and hostility with random people who literally have no idea what they’re speaking about. And for me that was just not a sustainable way to live,” he said.
DellaPergola cautioned against long-term predictions. “I believe it is not worth making projections given the difficult and uncertain times European Jewish communities are experiencing,” he said.
If there is a takeaway, it is not a grand demographic narrative but a more complex and human one: Israelis and Jews are weighing fear against opportunity, identity against mobility, history against present-day realities. They are choosing Europe not because it is uniquely safe, but because it still offers possibility — even amid threat.
The story of Jews in Europe after Oct. 7 is not retreat. It is one of presence and a quiet reshaping of diaspora patterns in a world where the old certainties no longer hold.
While Europe’s Jewish future remains uncertain, it is being rewritten, not erased.
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Students Form ‘Human Swastika’ at California High School, Post Image With Hitler Quote
Students forming “human swastika.” Photo: Screenshot.
Eight students at Branham High School in the city of San Jose came together last week to form what police described as a “human swastika” on the campus’ football field in another disturbing antisemitic incident at a California K-12 school.
The students captured the moment in a photograph and later posted it to social media, captioning it with a quote by Adolf Hitler.
Authorities in San Jose have launched a hate crime investigation into the incident, according to local media outlets.
School officials denounced the students’ actions.
“Our message to the community is clear: this was a disturbing and unacceptable act of antisemitism,” Branham High School principal Beth Silbergeld said in a statement. “Many in our community were rightly appalled by the image. Personally, I am horrified by this act. Professionally, I am confident that our school community can learn from this moment and emerge stronger and more united.”
According to the Bay Area Jewish Coalition (BAJC), which supports the local Jewish community,
“This incident did not occur in isolation,” BAJC spokesperson Tali Klima told The Algemeiner on Tuesday. “Over the past two years, we have seen a troubling pattern in which Jews are increasingly demonized and targeted. While the circumstances differ from those of Nazi Germany, the common thread is the deliberate spread of harmful narratives.”
Klima continued, “The fact that eight students felt emboldened to engage in this hateful behavior on campus (and then post publicly) reflects an educational environment that has allowed extremist political agendas which are blatantly antisemitic into our schools. The district and state must take decisive action to restore a climate of tolerance, respect, and inclusion for Jewish students and the broader community.”
California’s state government recently approved legislation for combating K-12 antisemitism which called for establishing a new Office for Civil Rights for monitoring antisemitism in public schools, appointing an Antisemitism Prevention Coordinator, setting parameters within which the Israeli-Palestinian conflict may be equitably discussed, and barring antisemitic materials from the classroom.
State lawmakers introduced the measure, also known as Assembly Bill (AB) 715, in the California legislature following a rise in antisemitic incidents, including vandalism and assault. 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, as previously reported by The Algemeiner.
In 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 allegedly ignored complaints about discrimination and tacitly approved hateful conduct even as it spread throughout the student body.
At Berkeley High School (BUSD), 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 last year by the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law 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 September 2023, some of America’s most prominent Jewish and civil rights groups sued the Santa Clara Unified School District (SCUSD) in California for concealing from the public its adoption of ethnic studies curricula containing antisemitic and anti-Zionist themes. Then in February, the school district paused implementation of the program to settle the lawsuit.
One month later, the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, StandWithUs, and the ADL filed a civil rights complaint accusing the Etiwanda School District in San Bernardino County, California, of doing nothing after a 12-year-old Jewish girl was assaulted, having been beaten with stick, on school grounds and teased with jokes about Hitler.
Antisemitism in K-12 schools has increased every year of this decade, according to data compiled by the ADL. In 2023, antisemitic incidents in US public schools increased 135 percent, a figure which included a rise in vandalism and assault.
California is not alone in dealing with the issue. Pennsylvania has a significant K-12 antisemitism problem as well, a fact acknowledged recently by a surrogate of the administration of Gov. Josh Shapiro following Congress announcing an investigation into antisemitism in the School District of Philadelphia (SDP) and a disturbing anti-Israel statement at a high school in the Wissahickon School District.
“Governor Shapiro takes a back seat to no one on these issues, and as he has repeatedly spoken out about antisemitism, and this kind of hateful rhetoric is unacceptable and has no place in Pennsylvania — especially not in our classrooms,” Rosie Lapowsky, a spokesperson for Shapiro, said in a statement first shared with Fox News Digital. “This is a matter the governor has made clear the district needs to take very seriously.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Jewish Groups Slam Basque Government for Honoring Anti-Israel UN Rapporteur Francesca Albanese
Francesca Albanese, UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, attends a side event during the Human Rights Council at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, March 26, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Denis Balibouse
Jewish communities in Spain and France have condemned the Basque government’s decision to award UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese a human rights honor, citing her long record of making antisemitic remarks, promoting anti-Jewish hatred, and seemingly legitimizing Hamas’s terrorist attacks on the Jewish state.
Last week, the government of the Basque Region in northern Spain announced that Albanese will receive the 2025 René Cassin Human Rights Award, named after French Jewish human rights and Zionist activist René Cassin – author of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
“Through her work at the United Nations, Francesca Albanese has played a key role in exposing human rights violations, challenging impunity, and advocating for the effective enforcement of international norms that protect people in conflict and occupied territories,” the announcement read.
Albanese’s work “is marked by legal rigor, independent judgment, and a strong ethical commitment that should guide all those working to uphold human rights on the international stage,” it continued.
In a joint statement on Monday, the Federation of Jewish Communities in Spain (FCJE) and the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France (CRIF) denounced the decision, arguing it undermines the principles that Cassin stood for.
“René Cassin, author of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Nobel Peace Prize laureate, and fervent defender of justice, held an unwavering commitment to peace, human dignity, and the right of the Jewish people to live in security,” the statement read.
“Awarding this prize to Ms. Albanese constitutes a distortion of Cassin’s legacy and a serious misunderstanding of the values of human rights,” it continued.
Communiqué conjoint – La Fédération des Communautés Juives d’Espagne @fcjecom et le Conseil Représentatif des Institutions Juives de France (Crif) expriment leur profond désaccord avec l’attribution, par le Gouvernement basque, du Prix René Cassin 2025 des droits de l’Homme à…
— CRIF (@Le_CRIF) December 5, 2025
Albanese is set to receive the award at a ceremony on Wednesday in Bilbao, a city in northern Spain.
The World Jewish Congress (WJC) also condemned the Spanish government’s decision, voicing support for the Jewish communities in Spain and France and calling the move “deeply troubling.”
“Albanese has repeatedly advanced narratives that minimize or excuse violence against Jews and has a documented record of antisemitic rhetoric,” WJC posted on X.
The Basque Government’s decision to award the 2025 René Cassin Human Rights Prize to Francesca Albanese is deeply troubling. Albanese has repeatedly advanced narratives that minimize or excuse violence against Jews and has a documented record of antisemitic rhetoric.
We support… https://t.co/ZT5QfOgzpa
— World Jewish Congress (@WorldJewishCong) December 5, 2025
Despite objections from several governments including France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Canada, and the Netherlands, as well as numerous NGOs, Albanese was reappointed earlier this year for a three-year term amid concerns about her controversial remarks and alleged pro-Hamas stance.
Since taking on the role of UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories in 2022, Albanese has been at the center of controversy due to what critics, including US and European lawmakers, have described as antisemitic and anti-Israel public remarks.
In the months following Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israeli communities, Albanese accused Israel of perpetrating a “genocide” against the Palestinian people in revenge for the attacks and circulated a widely derided and heavily disputed report alleging that 186,000 people have been killed in Gaza as a result of Israeli actions.
She has also previously made comments about a “Jewish lobby” controlling America and Europe, compared Israel to Nazi Germany, and stated that Hamas’s violence against Israelis — including rape, murder, and kidnapping — needs to be “put in context.”
Last year, the UN launched a probe into Albanese for allegedly accepting a trip to Australia funded by pro-Hamas organizations.
In the past, she has also celebrated the anti-Israel protesters rampaging across US college campuses, saying they represent a “revolution” and give her “hope.”