My kids’ yearbooks are a time capsule of antisemitism in progressive America
Two time capsules of the growing antisemitic stain on progressive communities sit on the bookshelves of my Jewish home in Berkeley, California, where I send my children to public school.
The most recent is Berkeley High School’s 2026 yearbook. On page 14, within a spread titled “Social Justice”, is a photograph of a student holding a sign stating: “October 7 was a response, not an attack. Do your f****** HW.”
The other is a 2024 Martin Luther King Middle School yearbook that included a photo memorializing a student walkout where kids chanted “From the River to the Sea” as the students marched out the school gate and nearly a mile into town, culminating their march with shouts in front of the local Jewish Community Center.
I imagine my kids 20 years from now, pulling their yearbooks off the shelf to tell their own children about what life was like in 2026 as a Jew in Berkeley, a city that so typified the rise in antisemitism that the U.S. Congress subpoenaed Berkeley Unified School District (BUSD) Superintendent Enikia Ford-Morthel to defend her failure to end the ongoing cloud of hate speech and harassment that hovers over the Jewish student experience on her watch.
To date, no school or district official has apologized or taken corrective action for either yearbook, and this latest Title VI civil rights complaint filed by several parents is just one of six active cases as a new school year begins this month.
As a former journalist, I believe deeply in freedom of the press and the media’s role in a healthy democracy. But school is not a democracy, and allowing student media to publish content that amplifies terrorism denial and targeted hate speech crosses the line.
Yes, the school should teach difficult issues and foster informed debate. But no, a school publication should not include messaging that legitimizes or excuses an act of terrorism. This is where responsible faculty oversight and clear school district publication guidelines should come in. Our students deserve an apology, a correction and a path toward student publishing policies that put appropriate guardrails in place for school-sanctioned publications to ensure they are fact based and uphold school values.
By printing a photo saying that “October 7 was a response, not an attack,” Berkeley High has glorified and effectively rubber stamped rhetoric that normalizes terrorism and minimizes grotesque violence against civilians.
Berkeley Unified is certainly not the only school district facing a rise in antisemitism, but it is unique in its refusal to recognize or rectify it.
Since October 7, antisemitism has crept into yearbooks across the country.
Pennsylvania’s Franklin Regional High School 2026 yearbook published a Holocaust denial conspiracy theory, and the district took swift disciplinary action against the responsible student. In 2024, East Brunswick High School in New Jersey recalled their 2024 yearbook after a photo stunt targeted the Jewish Student Union. At Eastbrook Middle School in Paramus, New Jersey, school officials recalled the 2026 yearbook after a baby picture of Adolf Hitler was discovered published among smiling baby faces of the graduating class.
Every one of the aforementioned schools apologized, took corrective action and doubled down on school publication policies to prevent recurrence. In fact, more than a decade ago, in a similar incident targeting a different minority group at the school, Berkeley High did the same thing.
In 2015, when a Berkeley High yearbook page referred to students in the Academy of Medical and Professional Studies (AMPS) program with a majority minority student body as future “trash collectors,” the school recalled the yearbooks within days. BHS’s response to uproar from Black students and their families was swift, if not stumbling, in its attempt to immediately demonstrate accountability and action – with several emails going out to the community to apologize and outline next steps for providing the student body with yearbooks that aligned with school values.
In stark contrast, many Jewish parents – again – find ourselves pleading with BHS and BUSD leaders to recognize that our kids are surrounded by daily microaggressions on their faith, heritage and community that are emotionally taxing, isolating and unjustifiably distracting from their educational experience. We have attempted to educate officials on Jewish culture and the generational trauma of antisemitism. In return, we have received performative posturing and an abdication of responsibility.
On the yearbook issue, BHS Principal Juan Raygoza won’t even agree to meet with parents to discuss our concerns.
The only conclusion I can reach is that Berkeley Unified’s inclusion policy has an asterisk of exclusion when it comes to Jews, and that the district has decided that Jewish kids’ lack of psychological safety and comfort in their identity at school is acceptable collateral damage for teaching an oversimplified oppressor vs oppressed social justice curriculum.
Importantly, because some teachers and BUSD School Board members have repeatedly mischaracterized parents’ effort to stamp out antisemitism in BUSD, let’s be clear about what we are NOT asking for. We are not asking for BUSD to stop teaching sensitive subjects. We are not asking for BUSD to not teach about both sides of the Middle East conflict. We are not stack ranking the needs of minority students. All children should feel included at school. All students’ identities, beliefs, heritage and lived experience should be honored and respected.
After fighting with the school district for nearly three years now to simply see our kids holistically, protect them in their religious and cultural identity and enforce their own rules against hate and harassment, I’ve decided to enter this new school year letting go of any notion that our community can somehow enlighten school district leaders with dialogue or publicly shame school leaders into having the integrity to treat our kids with kind compassion.
Perhaps these two yearbooks contain all the clarity my kids need about how the school regards them, their families and their community. Perhaps, rather than present a sanitized version of their formative school years, these two books will codify the experience and teach an important lesson about what it means to live as a Jewish American today.
For Jews, Berkeley-style peace, love and social justice comes with an asterisk.
