A federal civil rights complaint filed a month ago thrust Berkeley Unified into the national spotlight for its handling of antisemitism and brought more scrutiny to the district’s approach to teaching about the Israel-Palestine conflict.
The complaint, filed by the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law and the Anti-Defamation League with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights, alleges severe and widespread antisemitism in Berkeley schools, including teachers being allowed to “indoctrinate other students with anti-Semitic rhetoric, tropes and false information about Israelis and Jews.”
The complaint prompted swift pushback from some community members, who argued that it was a “harassment tactic” designed to clamp down on teaching Palestinian history in school. Students at Berkeley High organized a walkout and mural painting in part to defend their teachers’ right to do so.
After Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 and taking 250 hostage, and the war in Gaza, which has left 30,000 Palestinians dead, the question of the curriculum has become a focal point for the Berkeley schools community.
The debate came to a head earlier this month over a series of lessons about the war taught at Berkeley High.
Though community members have been flooding school board meetings for months on the topic, the set of lessons is the first organized attempt to teach about Israel-Palestine at BUSD.
The lessons, taught to some 9th graders in ethnic studies and to an upperclassmen history course, sparked a fierce defense at a school board meeting earlier this month, with over 150 community members coming out to support the teachers’ right to teach Palestinian history. Some Jewish students and their families said the lessons were biased, made them or their children feel uncomfortable or at worst, could lead to antisemitism.
Berkeleyside reviewed the slide deck for the lesson set taught to students and is sharing some of it here.
The curriculum
Created by a group of BUSD educators, the lessons were designed to teach “multiple perspectives” on Israel and Palestine over about five days.
The approximately 84 slides aim to take students through multiple historical and current perspectives on the conflict, ending with a description of the Oct. 7 attacks and the impact of the war in Gaza.
Slides for the lessons were designed by a group of teachers without the input of outside consultants. Each teacher approached the lessons slightly differently, adjusting the slides on a case-by-case basis. Some had whole-class discussions while in others, students did more independent writing and reflection.
Some 9th-grade classes have yet to receive the lessons and it’s possible they will be adapted for younger or older grades. Teachers were not required to teach the lessons and gave students and families the opportunity to opt out in advance, according to BUSD spokesperson Trish McDermott.
The slides start with community agreements that encourage students to consider multiple perspectives and promise to give them time to figure out their “own individual truth.”
An introductory slide tells students: “We cannot have hate speech on our campus.” Hate speech, the slide says, includes Holocaust jokes and terrorist jokes, while the slide describes calling Israel an apartheid state, saying “Free Palestine” or using the term “genocide” is free speech. (The Jewish Community Resource Center of the Bay Area includes terms like these in a list of “problematic rhetoric” that contains “harmful subtext” that can be used to “harass and attack Jews.”)
The first lesson walks students through maps of Israel and Palestine over time, describing how Jews, Muslims and Christians have lived amongst one another in the area for millennia, all sharing ties to the land, later showing maps of Israel’s growing footprint as a state from 1947 to 1982. An earlier version of the lessons included vocabulary like “Nakba,” “kibbutz,” “anti-Zionism” and the “Balfour Declaration,” but the definitions proved controversial and were removed.
The next lesson on historical perspectives starts with a 10-minute video from the website Vox summarizing the Israel-Palestine conflict. It includes a list of Jewish and Palestinian perspectives, including one that defines Zionist Jews as those who consider themselves Indigenous to Israel.
Then, more videos: a conversation among young Zionist Jews; a short news doc featuring Israeli siblings who refused to serve in the military; a conversation among three Israelis and three Palestinians produced for the show “Middle Ground” titled “Can Israelis and Palestinians see eye to eye?” The discussion questions prompt students to consider how intergenerational trauma or living in a conflict zone affects one’s identity and what role future generations might have in resolving the Israel-Palestine conflict.
The final lesson, the most substantial, focuses on current events, beginning with a summary of Hamas’s attacks on Oct. 7, “the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust.” It says the attacks started with a barrage of rockets used as cover for a ground attack on southern towns and kibbutzim and a music festival.
The slides describe Israel’s ensuing attack on Gaza, explaining Gaza’s population density and prompting students to consider whether the Israeli government gave enough time for the evacuation. The lesson includes death tolls for Israelis and Palestinians and the war’s consequences for both sides. In Palestine: no water, no food, no electricity. In Israel: ceremonies put on hold, travel advisories in place, cities shut down.
This lesson’s videos include interviews with Israeli survivors of the Oct. 7 attacks, a press conference organized by children in Gaza and an interview with a kidney doctor describing hospital conditions in Gaza. The curriculum includes discussion questions like “How do personal stories impact our understanding and empathy toward a conflict compared to statistical or factual information?”
The slides explain the term cease-fire, include a chart showing that “most voters want a ceasefire, but hardly anyone in Congress supports one,” and feature a quote from Rep. Cori Bush about why she introduced a cease-fire resolution. Also included are slides on the U.N. perspective, the hostage crisis and the situation in Rafah.
The lesson’s final question asks students: “What is your hope for healing and peace in Palestine and Israel? What do you wish for the children? The families? The land?”
Lessons meant to present ‘multiple perspectives’
Teachers said the lessons were intended to fill a vacuum and give students room to determine their own views around it.
“When the conflict broke out in October, it became clear that the students needed to make some sense of what was happening. And we could not just rely on what they were seeing on social media, which was the primary source for most of our students,” said Hasmig Minassian, an ethnic studies teacher at Berkeley High who helped design the lessons.
The social studies teachers who helped craft the lessons intended to expose students to “multiple perspectives,” a phrase the lesson set repeats frequently. It was the first time that teachers at Berkeley High put together any organized curriculum around Israel-Palestine, as far as Minassian, who has taught at BUSD for 23 years, can recall.
They generated a fierce defense at a school board meeting in March from students, who said they were grateful to finally learn about Israel-Palestine in school.
“Learning about the conflict through class has allowed me to really understand different perspectives, specifically ones that I hadn’t seen before in my family or in social media,” Hannah Slattery-Weisberg, a 9th grader at Berkeley High who is Jewish, said at a March school board meeting.
“I want to be taught the truth, even if it’s hard for some people to hear,” said Yasmine Nassar, a Palestinian 6th grader at King Middle School. “This is a history that needs to be known. Because Israel can wipe away girls like me but they can’t wipe away their story.”
Parents reached out to thank teachers for taking on a contentious topic: “They were a very similar flavor of, ‘We know you’re not going to get it perfectly, but we appreciate that you’re trying to get it right,’” Minassian said.
But teachers also began receiving emails from some Jewish families, who said the curriculum gives a biased portrayal of the Israel-Palestine conflict. They pointed out problems with individual slides, some arguing that, taken together, the inaccuracies reinforce tropes about Israel that could lead to antisemitism. Given the context of rising antisemitism, they worried how these lessons would impact student safety.
Some Jewish students and families say lessons are biased, inaccurate
Some students from the Jewish Student Union said the curriculum includes biased and inaccurate information that misrepresents the conflict.
“It’s an oversimplification of events,” said sophomore Nevo Naftalin-Kelman. “I don’t think it’s antisemitic, but it doesn’t need to be antisemitic to be biased and to create situations where people are feeling uncomfortable.”
Students and families pointed to a bullet point saying 5,000 Israeli settlers lived in Gaza prior to Oct. 7 that was wrong — there were no settlers living in Gaza — and has since been removed. Some said the definition of Zionism is inaccurate and conflates anti-Zionism with peace. Some said the lessons fail to explain the brutality of the Oct. 7 attacks, while exaggerating those on Gaza. For example, Berkeley parent Elena Naftalin-Kelman said that there has been limited access to food, water and electricity — not none.
One slide describing multiple perspectives on indigeneity “implies a false and harmful dichotomy that you must believe that either Jews or Arabs have historical claims to the land,” said Berkeley High senior Levi Steinman. “The basic fact that both people have deep history in and rightful claims of the presence of the land is critical to understanding of the conflict.”
Parent Naftalin-Kelman added that many of the slides in the lesson plan are set against an illustration of flowers, hands and red droplets taken from an artwork by Molly Costello. The original artwork includes the words “Rise Up Against Genocide” and “Free Palestine,” though those words have been cropped out of the illustration used in the lessons.
Teachers respond to scrutiny
Multiple teachers behind the lesson defended it as a good-faith effort to reflect multiple perspectives on the Israel-Palestine conflict. They fixed any factual mistakes, they said, and insisted that they weren’t promoting a particular agenda.
“This is the first time a topic like this has caused this much division,” Minassian said, adding that “the lack of trust” has made teaching about the conflict feel untenable.
“My heart hurts for our teachers and our staff, who are under constant scrutiny and are vilified for any perceived imperfections,” school board director Jennifer Shanoski said at a board meeting Wednesday. “And my heart hurts for our children… who often get lost among the adult disagreements we have.”
Others say the scrutiny is justified, particularly when they believe the classroom environment itself to be biased. Some Jewish students have transferred out of teachers’ classes, according to the federal complaint, due to anti-Israel or antisemitic content.
“In classrooms, there are Palestinian flags, imagery on walls, student artwork and books on shelves that portray only one side of this tragic, historic, biblical conflict — the Palestinian side,” Nancy Hsieh, a counselor at Berkeley High and the daughter of Holocaust survivors, said at a school board meeting Wednesday.
History teacher Becky Villagran, who is Jewish and often wears a “Free Palestine” pin, said she strives to make all students feel their opinions are welcome in class, even if they disagree with her — or others in the room.
“For 10 years I’ve had a “Free Palestine” [poster] … So, do they know my bias? Yes. Do they have to agree with it in order to get a good grade in my class? Absolutely not. Students do not have to agree with me — ever,” said Villagran.
“That’s our job as teachers — to be like, ‘There’s space for everybody in this classroom.’ And that’s what we tried to do with the Israel-Palestine lesson,” Villagran said. “There’s people with a close relationship to people who are victims in this crisis. There’s people who have never heard of this. And everyone belongs in this community together.”
In response to the feedback, some teachers chose to modify the slides. For example, after hearing complaints about insufficient mention of rape of Israelis, Minassian added a slide about sexual violence — toward both Israelis and Palestinians — before she taught the lessons.
Debate focuses on ‘Liberated Ethnic Studies’
The debate over the Israel-Palestine lesson set has turned into an ultimatum on whether the district should renew a one-year contract with the Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Consortium that is set to expire at the end of the school year.
The contract has become something of a rallying cry for parents in connection with the right to teach about Israel and Palestine. For months, speakers at public comment have defended the contract with Liberated Ethnic Studies, asking for it to be extended, while others calling for it to be severed.
However, the group has not provided any consulting services on the district’s Israel-Palestine curriculum, according to the district’s spokesperson and the teachers who drafted the Israel-Palestine curriculum.
The district’s contract Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Consortium, which provides free model lessons and offers consulting services for school districts, has a limited scope.
The group helps teachers develop lesson plans on abolitionism and multiracial democracy for 8th graders and on racial solidarity and Arab Americans for 9th graders, with a particular focus on Yemeni Americans. A districtwide ethnic studies advisory committee helped select the group as part of BUSD’s work expanding its ethnic studies offerings.
Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Consortium helped create a first draft of the state’s ethnic studies curriculum that prompted intense criticism from Jewish groups, over its exclusion of Jewish history and focus on Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, a global campaign to boycott Israel over its human rights violations against Palestinians.
The state’s ethnic studies curriculum was later revised to be more inclusive of Jewish Americans, as well as other groups like Armenians, and removed mention of the Israel-Palestine conflict.
Since then, groups involved in creating the first draft of the curriculum have been subject to scrutiny, including the Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Consortium. The Deborah Project, a legal group combating antisemitism, has filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the group, accusing it of indoctrinating students against Jews and Israel.
Chris Albeck, director of curriculum and instruction, said during a meeting with a committee that oversees the Berkeley Schools Excellence Program, or BSEP, a local schools parcel tax, that the district “has not been in conversations” around its renewal.
