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Lawsuit alleges that California school district illegally approved ‘antisemitic’ ethnic studies curriculum

(JTA) – Several Jewish groups are suing a large school district in Orange County over an ethnic studies curriculum they allege is antisemitic and was approved covertly in violation of California law requiring public participation in decision making.

The lawsuit, filed Monday by the Anti-Defamation League, the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, the American Jewish Committee and Potomac Law Group, with support from StandWithUs, seeks to bar the Santa Ana Unified School District from implementing the recently approved curriculum.

The lawsuit is an early entrant into what could become a crowded field now that California has delegated decision making over mandated high school ethnic studies to hundreds of school districts. That decision followed a bruising fight over the handling of Jewish issues in a statewide curriculum.

At issue is material that the groups say promotes a biased narrative of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians and portrays Israel as illegitimate by applying labels such as “settler colonial” and “racist” to it. The lawsuit alleges that the school board robbed the public of opportunities to object when it held discussions about the curriculum in private, in apparent violation of a legal requirement for open meetings, and failed to give enough notice before public deliberation. When it did allow public comment, the lawsuit says, the board allegedly failed to protect Jews who spoke against the curriculum from harassment and intimidation.

“It’s clear that the Santa Ana Unified School District violated the law in their rush to approve antisemitic content within their ethnic studies curriculum,” said James Pasch, a senior director of national litigation for the ADL. “Closed-door discussions prevented input from marginalized communities — in direct contrast to the goal of the ethnic studies program, which is to support marginalized communities.”

The district, which educates about 45,000 students, doesn’t comment on pending litigation but a spokesperson provided a previously released statement about the curriculum controversy. The district says it has developed its curriculum with input from the Jewish, Palestinian and Muslim communities and that the approved material falls within academic norms and adheres to state guidelines.

“The goal is to provide balanced, multiple perspectives from all groups involved in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” the district’s statement says.

Not all Jews in Santa Ana agree with the position of the lawsuit that the curriculum is antisemitic.

Shira Klein, a local Jewish parent who chairs the history department at nearby Chapman University and researches antisemitism, said she read the curriculum approved by the school district from cover to cover and found little that was objectionable.

Klein, who recently helped organize an open letter calling on protesters against Israel’s government to focus more on Palestinians, said she thought the criticism of Israel appearing in the material is appropriate and should not be conflated with antisemitism.

“I see nothing in this unit that is antisemitic and nothing that strays from mainstream academic findings,” Klein said. “I can well imagine a Jewish student in Santa Ana feeling uncomfortable in class, and it pains me, but to change that, we need to change the reality in Israel, not the curriculum.”

Meanwhile, Robin Gurien, another local Jewish parent, who teaches communications at Cal State Fullerton in Orange County, said she supports the lawsuit calling content in the curriculum “antisemitic” and “inaccurate.”

“Until now, the district has been unwilling to address these concerns, and this lawsuit is an important and necessary step to make sure that this dangerously biased content is removed from Santa Ana classrooms,” said Gurien, who spoke against the curriculum in public meetings before its adoption.

The dispute in Santa Ana represents the next phase in a fight over mandated ethnic studies in high schools that started at the state level and went on for years before lawmakers gave hundreds of local school boards power to decide how to handle curriculum decisions regarding the mandate.

Jewish groups successfully lobbied state lawmakers to get content they said was aligned with the Israel boycott movement out of a proposed state curriculum and lessons about antisemitism added in.

But rather than make the curriculum mandatory for all school districts as originally planned, state lawmakers were persuaded to further change their legislation and recommend the curriculum developed by the state while allowing local boards freedom to create their own ethnic studies materials instead.

That outcome ended the state-level fight but opened up battles in Santa Ana and other places where school boards went on to pick curriculums that Jewish groups thought they had successfully mobilized to strike down.


The post Lawsuit alleges that California school district illegally approved ‘antisemitic’ ethnic studies curriculum appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

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Israeli Strike on Tehran Kills Bodyguard of Slain Hezbollah Chief

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi lays a wreath as he visits the burial site of former Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, on the outskirts of Beirut, Lebanon, June 3, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir

A member of Lebanese armed group Hezbollah was killed in an Israeli air strike on Tehran alongside a member of an Iran-aligned Iraqi armed group, a senior Lebanese security source told Reuters and the Iraqi group said on Saturday.

The source identified the Hezbollah member as Abu Ali Khalil, who had served as a bodyguard for Hezbollah’s slain chief Hassan Nasrallah. The source said Khalil had been on a religious pilgrimage to Iraq when he met up with a member of the Kataeb Sayyed Al-Shuhada group.

They traveled together to Tehran and were both killed in an Israeli strike there, along with Khalil’s son, the senior security source said. Hezbollah has not joined in Iran’s air strikes against Israel from Lebanon.

Kataeb Sayyed Al-Shuhada published a statement confirming that both the head of its security unit and Khalil had been killed in an Israeli strike.

Nasrallah was killed in an Israeli aerial attack on Beirut’s southern suburbs in September.

Israel and Iran have been trading strikes for nine consecutive days since Israel launched attacks on Iran, saying Tehran was on the verge of developing nuclear weapons. Iran has said it does not seek nuclear weapons.

The post Israeli Strike on Tehran Kills Bodyguard of Slain Hezbollah Chief first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Hamas Financial Officer and Commander Eliminated by IDF in the Gaza Strip

Israeli soldiers operate during a ground operation in the southern Gaza Strip, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, July 3, 2024. Photo: Ohad Zwigenberg/Pool via REUTERS

i24 News – The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), in cooperation with the General Security Service (Shin Bet), announced on Friday the killing of Ibrahim Abu Shamala, a senior financial official in Hamas’ military wing.

The operation took place on June 17th in the central Gaza Strip.

Abu Shamala held several key positions, including financial officer for Hamas’ military wing and assistant to Marwan Issa, the deputy commander of Hamas’ military wing until his elimination in March 2024.

He was responsible for managing all the financial resources of Hamas’ military wing in Gaza, overseeing the planning and execution of the group’s war budget. This involved handling and smuggling millions of dollars into the Gaza Strip to fund Hamas’ military operations.

The post Hamas Financial Officer and Commander Eliminated by IDF in the Gaza Strip first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Report: Wary of Assassination by Israel, Khamenei Names 3 Potential Successors

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei waves during a meeting in Tehran, Iran, May 20, 2025. Photo: Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS

i24 News – Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei named three senior clerics as candidates to succeed him should he be killed, the New York Times reported on Saturday citing unnamed Iranian officials. It is understood the Ayatollah fears he could be assassinated in the coming days.

Khamenei reportedly mostly speaks with his commanders through a trusted aide now, suspending electronic communications.

Khamenei has designated three senior religious figures as candidates to replace him as well as choosing successors in the military chain of command in the likely event that additional senior officials be eliminated.

Earlier on Saturday Israel confirmed the elimination of Saeed Izadi and Bhanam Shahriari.

Shahriari, head of Iran’s Quds Force Weapons Transfer Unit, responsible for arming Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis, was killed in an Israeli airstrike over 1,000 km from Israel in western Iran.

The post Report: Wary of Assassination by Israel, Khamenei Names 3 Potential Successors first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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