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Jewish group revives religious charter school fight in Oklahoma, months after test case stalled at Supreme Court
(JTA) — Months after a Supreme Court deadlock blocked an attempt by a Catholic church to create the nation’s first openly religious, publicly funded charter school, a Jewish group is now advancing a similar plan — one designed to sidestep the legal obstacles that doomed the first case.
The National Ben Gamla Jewish Charter School Foundation has notified an Oklahoma state board that it intends to apply for a statewide virtual high school integrating Oklahoma academic standards with daily Jewish religious studies.
Local Jewish leaders say they were blindsided by the proposal and argue that such a school isn’t needed. But getting approval is not what the applicants are expecting.
Instead, the group’s legal team — led by Becket, a prominent nonprofit religious-liberty law firm — is preparing for the state board to reject the application, setting the stage for a federal lawsuit and, potentially, a precedent-setting ruling at the Supreme Court.
Anticipating that the application will likely be denied, “we would represent Ben Gamla challenging that decision in the federal courts in Oklahoma,” Eric Baxter, a vice president and general counsel at Becket, said in an interview.
Baxter said Ben Gamla expects to submit the application by the end of the year.
The resulting case could become the next major test of whether the Constitution permits government funding to establish religious charter schools. It would resolve a question the Supreme Court failed to decide when it deadlocked 4-4 last spring in the Catholic case, St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School v. Drummond.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett recused herself from the case, reportedly because of her longstanding personal and professional ties to a Notre Dame law professor who had advised the petitioner in its early stages.
St. Isidore, backed by the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City and the Diocese of Tulsa, focused on school funding but it came amid a broader effort led by conservatives to weaken the legal doctrine of church-state separation. While many of the largest Jewish groups — including the American Jewish Committee, the Anti-Defamation League, and the Union for Reform Judaism — have long championed a strictly secular public sphere as a safeguard for minorities, an increasingly vocal contingent has advocated for greater public funding for private Jewish day schools.
One of the most prominent opponents of public funding for religious education is Rachel Laser, a former leader in Reform Judaism who now heads Americans United for Separation of Church and State. She argues that efforts to erode church-state deportation ultimately serve to advance the domination of Christianity in government.
“As a Jew and the leader of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, I feel obligated to point out that such a case would be using Jews to advance a Christian Nationalist agenda that is not ultimately in Jews’ best interest,” Laser said.
The Oklahoma Statewide Virtual Charter School Board approved the St. Isidore school in 2023, prompting immediate litigation led by the state attorney general, who argued that a religious charter school was unconstitutional.
The Oklahoma Supreme Court agreed, ruling that charter schools are “state actors” required to remain secular. The case went to the U.S. Supreme Court, which seemed poised, based on the conservative composition of the court and the oral arguments preceding the ruling, to consider overturning longstanding limits on taxpayer-funded religious schooling.
But in May, the justices deadlocked, and the tie allowed the Oklahoma ruling to stand.
Now Ben Gamla, backed by a former Democrat congressman, aims to resurrect the issue, using a new legal pathway. The group will not sue in state court, bypassing the state Supreme Court ruling against St. Isidore, but in federal court, where they believe they will prevail.
By framing Oklahoma’s refusal as a violation of the U.S. Constitution’s Free Exercise Clause, Ben Gamla hopes to build on recent Supreme Court rulings holding that states may not exclude religious organizations from generally available public benefits solely because they are religious.
“The school should be allowed there under existing Supreme Court precedent,” Baxter said. “The court has already previously ruled that in ways that make it clear it cannot exclude a charter school just because it’s religious.”
Ben Gamla is a newly formed Oklahoma nonprofit led by former Democratic congressman Peter Deutsch, who surprised many by endorsing Trump in 2024, citing his stances on Israel and education policy.
Deutsch previously founded a network of Hebrew-English charter schools in Florida with the aim of combating Jewish assimilation, though those schools, unlike the Oklahoma proposal, were required to operate as strictly secular institutions.
His aspirations led Deutsch to look beyond Florida — including to Oklahoma. After St. Isidore was initially approved in 2023, he traveled to the state and explored applying for a Jewish charter school of his own, telling JTA last February that the Catholic effort could be “a paradigm shift for American Jews.”
But he said that after speaking with local rabbis and parents, he decided the state’s Jewish community was too small to sustain such a brick-and-mortar school. The proposal for a virtual Ben Gamla school marks a shift: Whatever the local demand, the project is now positioned as a legal vehicle to test the constitutional question nationwide.
Deutsch declined to be interviewed for this story, directing all questions to Becket.
According to its letter of intent, filed Nov. 3 with Oklahoma’s charter board, the proposed Ben Gamla Jewish Charter School would operate as a statewide virtual high school for grades 9-12 and open with roughly 40 students in the 2026-27 school year. The school plans to offer daily courses in Jewish texts, practices, ethics and other forms of religious study.
The school would deliver “Oklahoma’s state-approved academic standards alongside Jewish religious studies, enabling students to achieve college readiness while developing deep Jewish knowledge, faith, and values within a supportive learning community,” the letter says.
The founding team includes Brett Farley, the executive director of the Catholic Conference of Oklahoma and a former St. Isidore board member.
The new proposal immediately triggered a response from Americans United for Separation of Church and State, which had led litigation against St. Isidore.
Last week, the organization announced that it had filed Oklahoma Open Records Act requests seeking all communications between the state charter board and Ben Gamla. Americans United argues the proposed school is unconstitutional.
“Despite their loss earlier this year in the U.S. Supreme Court, religious extremists once again are trying to undermine our country’s promise of church-state separation by forcing Oklahoma taxpayers to fund a religious public school. Not on our watch,” Laser, the president of Americans United, said in a statement.
Within the Jewish community, the Ben Gamla plan lands in the middle of longstanding divisions over public funding for Jewish religious education.
Orthodox-affiliated organizations, including the Orthodox Union and its affiliated Teach Coalition, have supported efforts to loosen restrictions, arguing that Jews should not be penalized for choosing religious schooling. Several conservative Jewish groups backed St. Isidore’s Supreme Court petition.
Deutsch supports lowering the wall between church and state, at least when it comes to education funding, citing low levels of Jewish knowledge and rising assimilation among American Jews.
“If you think Jewish peoplehood and faith have value in terms of continuity, looking at American Jews today and saying that’s a success story today is absurd,” he told JTA in February. “Clearly, Jewish individuals have done extraordinarily well, but the Jewish community is in a death spiral. The only way to prevent what’s happening is through education.”
In Oklahoma, where the Jewish population is estimated at fewer than 9,000 people, the proposal has drawn skepticism from local Jewish leaders — including those who say they first learned about it not from organizers, but from reporters.
Rabbi Daniel Kaiman, who leads Congregation B’nai Emunah in Tulsa, said he was surprised to discover that an application was being pursued “in the name of the Jewish community” even though, he said, no one he is aware of in the community had been consulted.
“I was surprised to be learning about it through a reporter,” he said. “When I called around to other Jewish leaders in Tulsa and Oklahoma City, none of us knew anything about it.”
Kaiman said he opposes the proposal and worries about the implications of a national legal campaign being waged through a tiny Jewish community that has to manage delicate relationships with state officials and interfaith partners.
“As a Jewish community in Oklahoma, we are an extreme minority,” he said. “I don’t know if this is the type of political attention our Jewish community would have asked for — and I wasn’t asked. Anything that could threaten the key relationships we have with our neighbors and with state leadership is something we need to think about very carefully.”
He added that he is uneasy about being thrust into a public debate that pits one Jewish group against another.
“I don’t love the fact that this forces me to be speaking, even potentially, in opposition to another Jewish group,” he said. “That doesn’t feel very good.”
Kaiman also questioned the underlying practicality of a Jewish charter school in a state with such a small Jewish population, and noted that existing Jewish educational institutions — including a day school, preschools and synagogue-based programs — already meet the community’s needs.
The local Jewish community is tight-knit and exceptionally charitable, a dynamic shaped in part by local oil and gas wealth that has given it an outsized impact on the wider Jewish world through philanthropies.
“We have robust educational offerings for Jewish kids in Oklahoma,” Kaiman said. “I don’t know who this new proposal is for.”
Still, he was careful to leave space for ongoing conversation within the community.
“We really value Jewish education, and maybe this is a good idea,” he said. “But it’s hard to learn about it through public discourse alone. Partnership and conversation would be a better way forward.”
The post Jewish group revives religious charter school fight in Oklahoma, months after test case stalled at Supreme Court appeared first on The Forward.
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A course on the Yiddish proverbs collected through the An-Ski expeditions
אינעם קומעדיקן ווינטער־זמן פֿון די ייִדיש־קלאַסן בײַם „אַרבעטער רינג“ וועט מען הײַיאָר פֿירן דורך „זום“ אַן אייגנאַרטיקן מיני־קורס אויף ייִדיש: וועגן די אידיאָמען און שפּריכווערטער, וואָס דער סאָוועטישער פֿאָלקלאָריסט אַבא לעוו האָט געזאַמלט בעת זײַנע עקספּעדיציעס מיט ש. אַנ־סקין איבער מערבֿ־אוקראַיִנע פֿון 1912 ביז 1914.
דעם קורס וועט לערנען דער ייִדישער שרײַבער און רעדאַקטאָר פֿונעם אָנלײַן־זשורנאַל „ייִדיש בראַנזשע“ — באָריס סאַנדלער, און וועט זײַן געבויט אויפֿן יסוד פֿון יענע וועלטסווערטלעך און סאַנדלערס קאָמענטאַרן וועגן זיי.
דער קלאַס וועט זיך טרעפֿן יעדן דינסטיק פֿון 2:30 ביז 4:00, ניו־יאָרקער צײַט, אָנהייבנדיק פֿונעם 24סטן פֿעברואַר.
דאָס וועט זײַן צום ערשטן מאָל וואָס דער ברייטער עולם וועט האָבן צוטריט צו אַבא לעווס מאַטעריאַלן. דורך בליצפּאָסט האָט סאַנדלער דערציילט ווי אַזוי ער האָט באַקומען די זאַמלונג: נאָך דעם ווי אבא לעוו איז געשטאָרבן אין 1959 האָבן די העפֿטן מיט די ייִדישע אידיאָמען און ווערטלעך זיך געפֿונען אין דער רעדאַקציע פֿון „סאָוועטיש היימלאַנד“, און שפּעטער — אינעם אַרכיוו פֿונעם ייִדישן פּאָעט און פֿאָרשער חיים ביידער. נאָך ביידערס טויט אין 2003 האָט זײַן אַלמנה, יעווע ביידער, איבערגעגעבן די העפֿטן סאַנדלערן אין אַ קאָנווערט, וווּ ס׳איז מיט ביידערס האַנט געווען אָנגעשריבן „פֿאַר באָריס סאַנדלערן“.
ווי אַ צאָל אַנדערע זאַמלער אין אייראָפּע און אַמעריקע, איז אַנ־סקיס און אַבא לעווס אינטערעס צום ייִדישן פֿאָלקלאָר געווען פֿאַרבונדן מיט זייער איבערגעגעבנקייט צום „פֿאָלקיזם‟: זיי האָבן באַטראַכט די ייִדיש־רעדנדיקע פֿאָלקסמענטשן אין די שטעטלעך און דערפֿער ווי אַ שליסל צו שאַפֿן אַ נײַע וועלטלעכע אידענטיטעט, צוגעמאָסטן צו די שטאָטישע רוסישע ייִדן, אַזוי ווי זיי זענען אַליין געווען.
כּדי זיך צו פֿאַרשרײַבן אויפֿן קורס גיט אַ קוועטש דאָ.
דער אַרבעטער רינג וועט אויך פֿירן לענגערע קורסן אויף ייִדיש אינעם ווינטער־זמן. אָט איז דער אויסקלײַב:
• די ייִדישע קולטור־אינפֿראַסטרוקטור פֿונעם אַמעריקאַנער קאָמוניזם
• אונגעריש־ייִדיש צווישן די וועלט־מלחמות
• דער לשון־קודש־קאָמפּאָנענט אין מרדכי שעכטערס לערנבוך „ייִדיש צוויי“
• די דערציילונגען פֿון יצחק באַשעוויס
• דער אָנהייב פֿון מאָדערנעם ייִדישן טעאַטער: אַבֿרהם גאָלדפֿאַדען און די ערשטע אַקטריסעס אויף דער בינע
• שלום אַשעס ראָמאַן „אויף קידוש השם“
• מאַני לייבס סאָנעטן
• ש. אַנ־סקי, דער „בעל־תּשובֿה“ וואָס האָט פּראָוואָצירט אַ רעוואָלוציע אין פֿאָלקלאָר
• דאָס קול פֿונעם ייִדישן שרײַבער — רעקאָרדירונגען פֿון דערציילונגען און לידער פֿאָרגעלייענט פֿון די שרײַבער אַליין
• די קולטור־ירושה פֿון די ייִדישע שרײַבער אין אוקראַיִנע (1950ער ביז די 1980ער)
נאָך מער פּרטים אָדער זיך צו פֿאַרשרײַבן אויף איינעם אָדער מער פֿון די קורסן, גיט אַ קוועטש דאָ.
The post A course on the Yiddish proverbs collected through the An-Ski expeditions appeared first on The Forward.
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White House Religious Liberty Panel Member Decries ‘Zionist Supremacy,’ Vows Not to Resign Despite Backlash
Carrie Prejean Boller speaks during a White House Religious Liberty Commission hearing on Feb. 9, 2026. Photo: Screenshot
Carrie Prejean Boller, a member of the White House Religious Liberty Commission, has vowed to combat so-called “Zionist supremacy” in the United States, sparking fresh outrage amid ongoing furor over her recent comments condemning the Jewish state and defending antisemitic podcaster Candace Owens.
“I will continue to stand against Zionist supremacy in America. I’m a proud Catholic. I, in no way will be forced to embrace Zionism as a fulfillment of biblical prophesy [sic]. I am a free American. Not a slave to a foreign nation,” Prejean Boller posted on the social media platform X on Tuesday.
Thank you all for the love and support I’ve received. I will continue to stand against Zionist supremacy in America. I’m a proud Catholic. I, in no way will be forced to embrace Zionism as a fulfillment of biblical prophesy. I am a free American. Not a slave to a foreign nation.
— Carrie Prejean Boller (@CarriePrejean1) February 10, 2026
The comments came on the heels of furor over Prejean Boller’s conduct during Monday’s hearing of the 13-member White House Religious Liberty Commission, which descended into a tense back-and-forth after she asked pointed questions about Israel’s policies and whether rejection of the Jewish state’s legitimacy should itself be labeled antisemitic.
The council was established by US President Donald Trump to examine religious freedom issues and was intended to focus on concrete challenges facing Jewish communities, including bias and harassment. Prejean Boller’s conduct, which included an impassioned defense of antisemitic personalities Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson, and her peddling of unsubstantiated claims that Israel has intentionally starved and murdered Palestinian civilians, raised alarm bells among pro-Israel advocates.
“I would really appreciate it if you would stop calling Candace Owens an antisemite,” Prejean Boller said to Seth Dillon, CEO of the political satire site Babylon Bee, during the hearing. “She’s not an antisemite. She just doesn’t support Zionism, and that really has to stop. I don’t know why you keep bringing her up, and Tucker.”
Owens, one of the country’s most popular podcasters, has spent the past two years spreading antisemitic conspiracy theories on her platform. She has called Jews “pedophilic,” argued that they oppress and murder Christians, and asserted that they are responsible for the trans-Atlantic slave trade.
Prejean Boller, a conservative activist and former Miss California, repeatedly pressed witnesses about Israel’s actions in Gaza and religious leaders on their views of Zionism, drawing audible boos from the audience and confusion from her colleagues. At one point she asked a Jewish activist if he would condemn Israel’s military response to Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, despite the hearing’s official focus on domestic antisemitism. Prejean Boller also donned a Palestinian flag pin on the lapel of her suit, telegraphing her support for the anti-Israel ideological cause.
“Since we’ve mentioned Israel a total of 17 times, are you willing to condemn what Israel has done in Gaza?” Boller asked Jewish activist Shabbos Kestenbaum.
During the hearing, she also accused Rabbi Ari Berman, president of Yeshiva University, of Islamophobia after he declared that anti-Zionism — the belief that Israel does not have a right to exist —is an antisemitic ideology. Berman argued that attempts to delegitimize the existence of the world’s sole Jewish state, while showing ambivalence toward the existence of dozens of Muslim states, indicates anti-Jewish sentiment.
Panel members repeatedly stressed that American universities and communities must do more to confront bias and ensure Jewish students can live without fear of harassment.
Members of the commission expressed visible surprise at Prejean Boller’s line of questioning and repeated downplaying of antisemitism. Kestenbaum took aim at Prejean Boller after she asserted that the young activist had conflated antisemitism with harboring anti-Israel sentiment.
“She decided that this should be a debate on Israel’s conduct in Gaza, which I’m not entirely sure how that affects American students being discriminated against,” Kestenbaum said, “given that there are hundreds of millions of Catholics, including some who are on this commission, speaking at this commission today, who would vehemently disagree with such a grandiose assertion.”
Spectators suggested that the hearing also spotlighted deeper fissures within the conservative movement. Prejean Boller’s impassioned defense of Owens and Carlson, who have spent the past few years peddling anti-Israel conspiracies, suggest that their narratives may be penetrating deeper into the Republican base. The hearing also raised questions about the White House’s vetting process for the commission.
A recent analysis by the Jewish People Policy Institute found that both Carlson and Owens dramatically increased the volume and intensity of negative content about Israel in 2025, with Owens also incorporating explicit antisemitic language and conspiracy narratives, including accusations of disproportionate violence and undue influence over US policy into her commentary.
Carlson, the former Fox News host whose podcast remains influential among conservative audiences, has in recent years amplified fringe voices, including figures such as white nationalist streamer Nick Fuentes. Carlson’s interviews have featured conspiratorial depictions of “Christian Zionists” as afflicted by a “brain virus,” and his platforming of extremists and Holocaust minimizers has drawn widespread condemnation from lawmakers and civil rights advocates across the ideological spectrum.
Some prominent conservative voices have demanded for Prejean Boller to resign or be removed from the commission, arguing that her views are counter to the mission of the initiative. Prejean Boller has repeatedly refused to relinquish her position, arguing that her Catholic faith does not allow for support of Israel and doing so would signal a surrender to “Zionist supremacy.”
However, conservative reporter and podcaster Laura Loomer stated that sources at the US State Department are pressing for the Trump administration to remove Prejean Boller from the panel.
“Carrie’s behavior is unacceptable and is not representative of the Trump administration’s values. We have asked the White House to take action,” Loomer posted on social media, attributing the quote to an unnamed State Department official.
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13-Year-Old Boy Brutally Assaulted in Paris in Second Antisemitic Attack in Less Than a Week
Tens of thousands of French people march in Paris to protest against antisemitism. Photo: Screenshot
In a shocking second antisemitic attack in less than a week, a 13-year-old boy in Paris was brutally beaten Monday by a knife-wielding assailant, prompting authorities to open a criminal investigation and step up security amid a rising tide of antisemitism.
On his way to a synagogue in Paris’s 18th arrondissement, the schoolboy was physically attacked by a group of five assailants who beat him, pressed a knife to his throat, called him a “dirty Jew,” and stole his belongings, the French news outlet Le Parisien reported.
According to the Paris prosecutor’s office, the victim was walking to a synagogue, clutching his kippah in his hand rather than wearing it for fear of being recognized, when five attackers confronted him; stole his AirPods, sneakers, and coat; and forced him to empty his pockets.
The boy also told authorities that he was shoved, punched in the face, and threatened with a knife to his throat before his attackers stole his belongings, shouting antisemitic remarks throughout the assault.
Local police have arrested and taken an 18-year-old suspect into custody after he was recognized during the assault by someone on a video call with the victim. The four other attackers remain at large as of this writing.
The prosecutor’s office has opened an investigation into armed robbery and armed violence, committed as a group and aggravated by discrimination, as authorities continue to work to identify and apprehend the remaining suspects.
This latest antisemitic attack marks the second such incident in less than a week, underscoring a growing climate of hostility as Jews and Israelis face a surge of targeted assaults.
Over the weekend, three Jewish men wearing kippahs were physically threatened with a knife and forced to flee after leaving their Shabbat services near the Trocadéro in southwest Paris’s 16th arrondissement, European Jewish Press reported.
As the victims were leaving a nearby synagogue and walking through the neighborhood, they noticed a man staring at them. The assailant then approached the group and repeatedly asked, “Are you Jews? Are you Israelis?”
When one of them replied “yes,” the man pulled a knife from his pocket and began threatening the group. The victims immediately ran and found police officers nearby. None of the victims were injured.
Like most countries across Europe and the broader Western world, France has seen a rise in antisemitic incidents over the last two years, in the wake of the Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
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 Oct. 7 atrocities.
Last week, a Jewish primary school in eastern Paris was vandalized, with windows smashed and security equipment damaged, prompting a criminal investigation and renewed outrage among local Jewish leaders as targeted antisemitic attacks continued to escalate.