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New York Times Misleads on K-12 Antisemitism
The New York Times building in New York City. Photo: Wikimedia Commons
In its article, “How Politics Is Changing the Way History Is Taught,” The New York Times (NYT) used partisan politics to distort legitimate concerns about the hate and discrimination Jewish students face in far too many California classrooms.
California’s Assembly Bill 715 (AB 715) was aimed at addressing a very real and ongoing crisis. Despite the bad faith arguments made by its opponents, AB 715 had nothing to do with politics in Washington, D.C.
Across California, Jewish students have reported being subjected to hate, bullying, discrimination, death threats, and even physical violence. Far too often, school administrations have done little or nothing to address rampant antisemitism.
StandWithUs K-12 Fairness Center and legal teams know this all too well — we receive constant requests for help from students, parents, and teachers experiencing bias and hate in their schools.
Thankfully, California’s elected officials heard enough stories and saw enough data to understand that this is a problem that requires urgent action. We were proud to be part of this effort, together with the largest coalition of Jewish groups to ever support a bill in the California state legislature.
In this context, the NYT also politicized a basic fact about K-12 education — school teachers do not have the type of academic freedom that university professors do. This is not merely a viewpoint espoused by conservative activists. According to Supreme Court precedent, teachers simply cannot teach or say whatever they want in classrooms. They have to abide by state standards and policies, as well as decisions made by their school district.
California’s Education Code has numerous provisions prohibiting discrimination in schools on the basis of race, gender, sexuality, religion, ethnicity, nationality, and other characteristics. Most school districts in the state have policies to address how controversial issues should be taught, including that teachers must not promote personal viewpoints or political bias.
In California’s K-12 education system, “academic freedom” concerns are often driven by “liberated” ethnic studies groups that seek to promote the elimination of Israel and other extremist agendas in classrooms. It is entirely reasonable for state and local education agencies to prevent students from being subjected to such indoctrination. This in no way prevents open and honest discussion about these topics, nor does it limit teaching about the struggles and contributions of various ethnic and racial groups in the United States.
The Jewish community has been laser focused on working to remove ideologically biased and factually incorrect material about Jews and Israel from K-12 classrooms. The graphic in the New York Times article, taken from the Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum Coalition, is a perfect illustration of both of those problems. It erroneously portrays all land in the region that was not privately owned by Jews as “Palestinian land.” More broadly, it erases over 3,000 years of the Jewish people’s history by framing them as “colonizers” in Israel.
Removing this content has nothing to do with politics — it is simply about telling the truth in California’s classrooms.
David Smokler is the Executive Director of StandWithUs’ K-12 Fairness Center, an international nonpartisan education organization that supports Israel and fights antisemitism.
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Tucker’s Ideas About Jews Come from Darkest Corners of the Internet, Says Huckabee After Combative Interview
US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee looks on during the day he visits the Western Wall, Judaism’s holiest prayer site, in Jerusalem’s Old City, April 18, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
i24 News – In a combative interview with US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, right-wing firebrand Tucker Carlson made a host of contentious and often demonstrably false claims that quickly went viral online. Huckabee, who repeatedly challenged the former Fox News star during the interview, subsequently made a long post on X, identifying a pattern of bad-faith arguments, distortions and conspiracies in Carlson’s rhetorical style.
Huckabee pointed out his words were not accorded by Carlson the same degree of attention and curiosity the anchor evinced toward such unsavory characters as “the little Nazi sympathizer Nick Fuentes or the guy who thought Hitler was the good guy and Churchill the bad guy.”
“What I wasn’t anticipating was a lengthy series of questions where he seemed to be insinuating that the Jews of today aren’t really same people as the Jews of the Bible,” Huckabee wrote, adding that Tucker’s obsession with conspiracies regarding the provenance of Ashkenazi Jews obscured the fact that most Israeli Jews were refugees from the Arab and Muslim world.
The idea that Ashkenazi Jews are an Asiatic tribe who invented a false ancestry “gained traction in the 80’s and 90’s with David Duke and other Klansmen and neo-Nazis,” Huckabee wrote. “It has really caught fire in recent years on the Internet and social media, mostly from some of the most overt antisemites and Jew haters you can find.”
Carlson branded Israel “probably the most violent country on earth” and cited the false claim that Israel President Isaac Herzog had visited the infamous island of the late, disgraced sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
“The current president of Israel, whom I know you know, apparently was at ‘pedo island.’ That’s what it says,” Carlson said, citing a debunked claim made by The Times reporter Gabrielle Weiniger. “Still-living, high-level Israeli officials are directly implicated in Epstein’s life, if not his crimes, so I think you’d be following this.”
Another misleading claim made by Carlson was that there were more Christians in Qatar than in Israel.
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Pezeshkian Says Iran Will Not Bow to Pressure Amid US Nuclear Talks
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian attends the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit 2025, in Tianjin, China, September 1, 2025. Iran’s Presidential website/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said on Saturday that his country would not bow its head to pressure from world powers amid nuclear talks with the United States.
“World powers are lining up to force us to bow our heads… but we will not bow our heads despite all the problems that they are creating for us,” Pezeshkian said in a speech carried live by state TV.
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Italy’s RAI Apologizes after Latest Gaffe Targets Israeli Bobsleigh Team
Milano Cortina 2026 Olympics – Bobsleigh – 4-man Heat 1 – Cortina Sliding Centre, Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy – February 21, 2026. Adam Edelman of Israel, Menachem Chen of Israel, Uri Zisman of Israel, Omer Katz of Israel in action during Heat 1. Photo: REUTERS/Athit Perawongmetha
Italy’s state broadcaster RAI was forced to apologize to the Jewish community on Saturday after an off‑air remark advising its producers to “avoid” the Israeli crew was broadcast before coverage of the Four-Man bobsleigh event at the Winter Olympics.
The head of RAI’s sports division had already resigned earlier in the week after his error-ridden commentary at the Milano Cortina 2026 opening ceremony two weeks ago triggered a revolt among its journalists.
On Saturday, viewers heard “Let’s avoid crew number 21, which is the Israeli one” and then “no, because …” before the sound was cut off.
RAI CEO Giampaolo Rossi said the incident represented a “serious” breach of the principles of impartiality, respect and inclusion that should guide the public broadcaster.
He added that RAI had opened an internal inquiry to swiftly determine any responsibility and any potential disciplinary procedures.
In a separate statement RAI’s board of directors condemned the remark as “unacceptable.”
The board apologized to the Jewish community, the athletes involved and all viewers who felt offended.
RAI is the country’s largest media organization and operates national television, radio and digital news services.
The union representing RAI journalists, Usigrai, had said Paolo Petrecca’s opening ceremony commentary had dealt “a serious blow” to the company’s credibility.
His missteps included misidentifying venues and public figures, and making comments about national teams that were widely criticized.