The Oakland Unified School District Board meeting is later today. Jewish educators and organizers with Jewish Voice for Peace are rallying outside of the meeting at 5:45 p.m.
Judy Greenspan is a retired OUSD teacher who now works as a substitute. They say that tonight's rally is to push back on the district's conflation of anti-zionism with antisemitism.
“I'm a Jewish educator," Greenspan says. "And there are many Jewish educators and parents and students who have been very upset with the conflation of criticism of Israel and criticism of the US-Israeli genocide against the Palestinians with antisemitism.”
In 2023, Jewish educators organized a teach-in at Oakland schools to push back on what they thought was a pro-Israeli curriculum.
“We felt like our students deserved both sides of the issue," Greenspan explains. "And then after that, teachers were sent notices that they were being investigated.”
Right now, OUSD is being sued by the Brandeis Center and by the California Department of Education for alleged anti-semitism. After that, Greenspan says that the OUSD interim superintendent, Denise Sadler, put out a notice to teachers and families, saying that antisemitism is the most important issue in the district.
“I think that there are many problems in OUSD. There's a tremendous amount of anti-Black racism against Black teachers and Black students. There's the threat of ICE raids. I mean, there are so many critical problems that this, to exceptionalize so-called antisemitism, which I don't believe is what it is, is really harmful.”
After tonight's rally, they plan to address the Board during the public comment section of the meeting. They want the district to drop the investigations of antisemitism.
