JNS
“Singling out one country for removal, especially one so central to Jewish identity, sends a harmful message of exclusion to Jewish students and families,” Marc Levine, of the ADL, told JNS.
There is “substantial evidence” that the Oakland Unified School District discriminated against Jews by circulating a map of the Middle East that deleted Israel, the California Department of Education determined on Oct. 20.
The seven-page finding, which the Jewish News of Northern California obtained, states that in August 2021, during Arab American Heritage Month, a slideshow presentation in the district featured a map that excluded Israel. The map also appeared in a district guide that the district published in 2023 and in a resource guide that it disseminated in 2024, per the report.
Though the district determined that the map violated board policies, it “did not specifically address the allegation of discrimination in the form of antisemitism,” which the state education department said is “inconsistent with the law.”
“The material findings of fact, supported by substantial evidence, demonstrated a failure to include Israel in a map of the current Middle East, and instead, labeling the entire location as ‘Palestine,’” the department said. “This constituted discrimination toward Jewish persons.”
A spokesman for the district told JNS that the district “experienced two situations in recent years when celebratory messages for Arab American Heritage Month went out to our community with incorrect information.”
“In both cases, an incorrect map was used that excluded the nation of Israel,” the spokesman said. “That was an oversight on the part of the district team, and once the team became aware of this issue, it immediately replaced the map and issued a public apology.”
“The first time was clearly an oversight; the second time showed a lack of systems in place to ensure similar mistakes would not happen again,” the spokesman said. “Those systems have since been installed within the district.”
The district, whose 70 schools had nearly 34,000 students last academic year, features prominent links on its website for “reparations for black students” and for it being a “sanctuary district.”
The spokesman also told JNS that “one of the messages included a depiction of a mural that should not have been part of the message.”
“Its inclusion pointed to a lack of knowledge on the part of the district team and was also indicative of a lack of proper systems in place,” he said. “The systems now in effect will provide a backstop to prevent that kind of mistake, as well.”
‘Exodus of Jewish families’
Jewish groups praised the state education department’s findings. “Singling out one country for removal, especially one so central to Jewish identity, sends a harmful message of exclusion to Jewish students and families,” Marc Levine, director of the Anti-Defamation League’s central Pacific region, told JNS.
“Even more, the map presented to students is factually inaccurate, problematic and rooted in hate,” Levine said.
The district should “take this as an opportunity to rebuild trust with Jewish students and families, review classroom materials and provide educators with the training needed to prevent incidents like this from happening again,” he said.
Seth Brysk, director of the American Jewish Committee’s Northern California region, told JNS that the finding “confirms what we’ve been concerned about and what parents have been saying for some time, which is that there’s a serious issue of antisemitism in the schools in OUSD.”
“Year after year,” there were “apologies that were sent out” about the map, but “the following year, the same kind of material was appearing,” according to Brysk.
There has been “an exodus of Jewish families” from the district, according to Brysk. “Families who felt that they and their children were going to be subjected and had been subjected to discrimination and a discriminatory environment and felt they just couldn’t expect fair treatment or proper remediation on the part of the school district.”
Jeremy Russell, director of marketing and communications for the Jewish Community Relations Council Bay Area, told JNS that the finding is “a confirmation of the bias that Jewish families have experienced for years in OUSD.”
