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Arab Rights Group Sues to Overturn K-12 Antisemitism Law in California
Illustrative: Anti-Israel protesters in Los Angeles, California, US, Oct. 2, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Daniel Cole
A new California law which aims to combat antisemitism in K-12 schools is being targeted in a federal lawsuit filed by a group which calls itself the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC).
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, the legislation, signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom last month on the anniversary of Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, requires the state to establish a new Office for Civil Rights for monitoring antisemitism in public schools, establish an Antisemitism Prevention Coordinator, set parameters within which the Israeli-Palestinian conflict may be equitably discussed, and potentially bar antisemitic materials from reaching the classroom.
State lawmakers introduced the measure, also known as Assembly Bill (AB) 715, in the California legislature followed year-on-year increases in incidents of K-12 antisemitism, including vandalism and assault, which has surged 135 percent since 2023. Among the spike in incidents, a Jewish girl was beaten with a stick and teased with jokes about Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, students chanted “Kill the Jews” during anti-Israel protests, and partisan groups smuggled far-left, anti-Zionist content into classrooms without clearing the content with parents and other stakeholders.
In a statement announcing its lawsuit, the ADC argued that Arabs are victims of discrimination and that fighting antisemitic harassment in accordance with the new law undermines First Amendment protections of speech unfettered by governmental interference. Furthermore, the ADC argued that the law amounts to a hijacking of American policy by Israel, an argument advanced by neo-Nazis, including Nicholas Fuentes, and commentators who promote their views such as Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens.
“Our children’s rights are not negotiable. Compromised politicians in California do not have the right or authority to muzzle our children and strip away their First Amendment rights,” ADC national director Abed Ayoub said in a statement. “AB 715 does exactly that: It rips up the First Amendment and hands classrooms to a foreign agenda. By signing this bill into law, Gov. Newsom has made it clear — he has sided with foreign interests instead of students and parents.”
The group’s legal director, Jenin Younes, added, “AB 715’s intent and effect is classroom censorship. It — probably intentionally — does not feign the conduct it targets, then points schools to federal guidance that blurs legitimate criticism of a foreign state with bigotry. That combination guarantees arbitrary punishment of educators, chills valuable classroom instruction and discussion, and deprives students of the vigorous debate the Constitution protects.”
On Monday, Roz Rothstein of StandWithUs, a California-based advocacy group, told The Algemeiner that ADC’s lawsuit is meritless and being falsely represented as defending civil liberties and rights.
“The ADC lawsuit has nothing to do with civil rights. Its purpose is to prevent California from taking urgent action to address the urgent crisis of Jewish students and teachers facing rampant hatred, bullying, and discrimination in classrooms across the state,” Rothstein said. “By smearing Jewish Californians as ‘foreign interests,’ the ADC showed why a bill to fight antisemitism in schools is so necessary. This assertion echoes classic antisemitic tropes used by the Nazi party and others to justify violence against the Jewish people and plainly serves to only spread antisemitic hatred, not fight it.”
ADC is not the only anti-Israel group that has filed a lawsuit in recent weeks seeking to block efforts to combat antisemitism, purportedly in the name of civil rights.
Last month, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) — an organization that has been scrutinized by US authorities over alleged ties to the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas — sued Northwestern University, arguing that an antisemitism prevention course violates Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and that it serves as a “pretense” for censoring “expressions of Palestinian identity, culture, and advocacy for self-determination.”
The group castigated a training video featured in the course while appearing to suggest that the behavior perpetrated by anti-Israel activists that Jewish civil rights groups have aimed to stop — such as beating up Jewish students, calling for their deaths, and advocating the destruction of their ancient homeland by terrorists — is inherent to both Palestinian and Arab culture.
CAIR’s activity in the US has prompted a storm of controversy. In September, US Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) exposed materials which CAIR distributes in its local activism — notably its “American Jews and Political Power” course — to spread its beliefs. Some of it attempts to revise the history of Sharia law, which severely restricts the rights of women and is opposed to other core features of liberal societies.
In another anti-Israel move made in October, the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), the largest and oldest US organization for defending faculty rights, argued that a range of antisemitic and discriminatory faculty speech and conduct are key components of academic freedom.
In a letter to the University of Pennsylvania administration regarding antidiscrimination investigations opened by the school’s Office of Religious and Ethnic Interests (OREI), the group charged that efforts to investigate alleged antisemitism on campus and punish those found to have perpetrated can constitute discrimination. Additionally, the AAUP described Penn’s efforts to protect Jewish students from antisemitism as resulting from “government interference in university procedures” while arguing that merely reporting antisemitism subjects the accused to harassment, seemingly suggesting that many Jewish students who have been assaulted, academically penalized, and exposed to hate speech on college campuses across the US are perpetrators rather than victims.
Meanwhile, antisemitism in the US continues to rise to historic and harrowing statistical levels.
According to data issued by the FBI in August, hate crimes perpetrated against Jews increased by 5.8 percent in 2024 to 1,938, the largest total the agency has recorded in over 30 years of the counting them. Jewish American groups noted that this surge, which included 178 assaults, is being experienced by a demographic group which constitutes just 2 percent of the US population.
Additionally, a striking 69 percent of all religion-based hate crimes that were reported to the FBI in 2024 targeted Jews, with 2,041 out of 2,942 total such incidents being antisemitic in nature. Muslims were targeted the next highest amount as the victims of 256 offenses, or about 9 percent of the total.
“Leaders of every kind — teachers, law enforcement officers, government officials, business owners, university presidents — must confront antisemitism head-on,” Ted Deutch, chief executive officer of the American Jewish Committee (AJC), said in a statement when the figures were published. “Jews are being targeted not just out of hate, but because some wrongly believe that violence or intimidation is justified by global events.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Israel to Reopen Jordan Border Crossing for Passage of Aid, Goods After Terror Attack
Israeli police officers stand next to their cars at the scene of a fatal shooting at the Allenby Crossing between the West Bank and Jordan, Sept. 18, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Oren Ben Hakoon
Israel is set to reopen the Allenby Crossing with Jordan to the passage of goods and aid on Wednesday, an Israeli security official said on Tuesday.
The border crossing has been closed to aid and goods since September, when a driver bringing humanitarian aid to Gaza opened fire and killed two Israeli military personnel before being killed by security forces.
The security official said the crossing would have tightened screening for Jordanian drivers and truck cargo, and that a dedicated security force had been assigned to the crossing.
The Allenby Bridge is a key route for trade between Jordan and Israel and the only gateway for more than 3 million Palestinians in the West Bank to reach Jordan.
The crossing reopened to passenger traffic shortly after the attack, but had remained closed to aid trucks. The UN says the crossing is a major route for bringing food, tents, and other goods into Gaza.
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US Imposes Sanctions on Network It Accuses of Fueling War in Sudan
A bronze seal for the Department of the Treasury is shown at the US Treasury building in Washington, US, Jan. 20, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
The US on Tuesday imposed sanctions on actors it accused of fueling the war in Sudan, taking aim at what it said was a transnational network that recruits former Colombian military personnel and trains soldiers, including children, to fight for the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.
The US Treasury Department in a statement seen by Reuters said that it imposed sanctions on four individuals and four entities that were part of the network, which it said was largely comprised of Colombian nationals and companies.
The Treasury said that since at least 2024, hundreds of former Colombian military personnel have traveled to Sudan to fight alongside the RSF, which the US has accused of committing genocide.
The Colombians have provided the RSF with tactical and training expertise and served as infantry and artillerymen, drone pilots and instructors, among other roles, with some training children to fight for the paramilitary group, according to Treasury, which added that Colombian fighters have participated in battles across Sudan, including in the capital Khartoum and al-Fashir.
“The RSF has shown again and again that it is willing to target civilians — including infants and young children. Its brutality has deepened the conflict and destabilized the region, creating the conditions for terrorist groups to grow,” Treasury Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, John Hurley, said in the statement.
Among those targeted was Alvaro Andres Quijano Becerra, who the Treasury said was a dual Colombian-Italian national and a retired Colombian military officer based in the United Arab Emirates. It accused him of playing a central role in recruiting and deploying former Colombian military personnel to Sudan.
The UAE has been widely accused of arming the RSF, an accusation it has denied.
“The United States again calls on external actors to cease providing financial and military support to the belligerents,” Treasury said in the statement.
The conflict between the Sudanese army and the RSF erupted in April 2023 out of a power struggle and has triggered famine, ethnic killings, and mass displacement. In November, US President Donald Trump said he would intervene to stop the conflict.
The United States, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia – known as the Quad – earlier in November proposed a plan for a three-month truce followed by peace talks. The RSF responded by saying it had accepted the plan, but soon after attacked army territory with a barrage of drone strikes.
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When Is a Wedding Too Extravagant?
A wedding ceremony, illustrative. Photo: Jason Hutchens via Wikimedia Commons.
It has been part of my life as a rabbi to attend weddings — more often than not, to “perform.” I reckon that I have attended approximately 100 weddings of various sizes, styles, numbers, and traditions. Some I have enjoyed, but I am finding it increasingly hard to feel comfortable about many of the religious weddings I have attended.
They are getting more and more protracted. People are forced to wait for hours. A wedding I once attended was so overcrowded by jostling relatives under the Chupah, that the father of the bride couldn’t get close enough to give his son in law a sip of the cup of wine.
One band plays for the reception, another for the Chupah, a third for Hasidic or Israeli dances, a fourth for ballroom dancing, and a fifth for a disco. One singer is for Ashkenazi cantorial style, one for Hasidic pop, one for Sephardi tunes, and another for Carlebach. As for food, a loaded reception is offered as people arrive, and sushi is a must. There are multiple servings and meals, and if there’s a Hasidic Mitzvah dance at the end, you’ll get a complete breakfast too.
It is fashionable in the Diaspora to fly in rabbis from Israel. An oligarch recently hired an airliner to ferry over musicians, artistes, and security alone. Consider the millions being spent each year on religious weddings. And then consider how much charitable and educational work could be accomplished instead of a one-night bash that disappears into photo albums a few hours after it is over, to be glanced at perhaps once a year thereafter. The cost and the waste is mind blowing.
Successful businessmen have to invite business contacts, flaunt their success to attract new capital, and invite gaggles of rabbis to prove their religious status and legitimacy. It is not just spoiled daughters who clamor for excess; it’s magnates, too.
Over the past 50 years of rising Jewish affluence, as well as continuing Jewish poverty, many religious leaders of all denominations have tried hard to limit excessive expenditures on weddings, to absolutely no avail. Desperate parents have offered apartments and cars instead of huge weddings. Occasionally, you hear of a couple who elope to Israel or just take a rabbi and two witnesses into Central Park, but the pressures are great — and in most Jewish circles, it is simply not an option.
Recently, I entertained a relatively humble Rosh Yeshiva from Israel with 10 children who has personal debts of $500,000 because of marrying off his five daughters. It was not just the cost of the wedding itself or all the celebrations. It was the need to buy an apartment for each that left him staggering under such a heavy load of debt. And at the same time, he must help and support his five sons who are also married but are studying full time. This is not atypical. A rented apartment is unacceptable nowadays. And the chances of someone with no serious secular education getting a good job are massively reduced in Israeli society, indeed in any society nowadays.
Judaism is expanding because of its families blessed with many children. And it is true that social welfare (incidentally a product of the secular culture they despise) enables this mindset. But eventually, at some point, social welfare will have to be cut back as fewer enter the workplace to fund all this with their taxes.
For our own good as a people, we must call a halt to throwing so much money away on pure self-indulgence. If we care for our future, we must give as much attention to supporting Jewish education as we do to celebrating occasions. And the place to start is weddings. Make your calculations. Then set budgets, be realistic, and divide the sum evenly between your needs and those of others.
It is a huge mitzvah to rejoice at weddings and to help couples get married. Every day in our prayers, we are reminded how important Hachnasat Kala is. But that doesn’t mean we should go overboard. There should be limits.
The author is a rabbi and writer based in New York.