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The silhouettes of students from approximately 5 different San Francisco high schools are seen on the ground as they hold flags and signs outside Balboa High School during a walk out in October 2023.\u00a0SFUSD Students called for mass walkouts of high school students\u00a0 to protest the ongoing killing of Palestinians in Gaza by the Israeli military and to demand an immediate ceasefire. Such action has caused some Jewish students to allege they\u2019ve been harassed, with one student in San Leandro suing her school.<\/p>\n
Lea Suzuki\/S.F. Chronicle<\/p>\n
An East Bay Jewish teenager sued her principal, two former teachers and her school district this week, alleging \u201cpervasive and unrelenting\u201d\u00a0antisemitic harassment and discrimination over two years leading to panic attacks and a precipitous drop in her GPA.<\/p>\n
High school senior Eden Horwitz, along with her mother Montana Horwitz, filed the lawsuit in Alameda County Superior Court on Tuesday claiming the San\u00a0Leandro Unified School District administrators failed to protect her from taunts, antisemitic rallies and anti-Jewish course content, among other allegations during the 2023-2024 and 2024-2025 school years.<\/p>\n
District officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n
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The lawsuit is ongoing evidence of the fallout from the Israel-Hamas war in Bay Area schools, where accusations of antisemitism and Islamophobia<\/a> have pitted students, parents and teachers against each other for more than two years, at times leading to formal district complaints and appeals to state officials to intervene.<\/p>\n While Eden\u2019s case centers around perceived antisemitism, it is taking the case to Superior Court and challenging not only the district, but individual teachers and a principal who, attorneys claim, ignored the pleas of a bullied student to intervene on her behalf. Instead, the educators penalized her instead, according to the lawsuit.<\/p>\n San Francisco Chronicle Logo<\/p>\n Make us a Preferred Source to get more of our news when you search.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Add Preferred Source<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n The hostility not only had an impact on her high school experience, but her future, her attorneys said, and she is entitled to not only compensatory damages from the district, but compensatory and punitive damages from her teachers and principal as well.<\/p>\n Eden, now a senior at San Leandro High School, was part of the school\u2019s Social Justice Academy, an academic learning community, which took a pro-Palestinian stand following the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel and the ensuing war, according to the suit.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n In the classroom, teachers supported students who expressed support for Hamas and disparaged Jewish people and the state of Israel while promoting and participating in pro-Palestinian walkouts, with Eden increasingly ostracized because she is Jewish, the legal filing claimed.<\/p>\n Eden\u2019s classmates \u201cdemanded she answer for her entire people, wielded \u2018Zionist\u2019 as a slur, and held her personally responsible for \u2018genocide\u2019 \u2014 all because she is Jewish,\u201d according to the lawsuit. \u201cPeers with whom she had maintained long-standing relationships dating back to elementary school terminated their friendships with her.\u201d<\/p>\n She stopped wearing her Star of David necklace as a protective measure, the filing stated.<\/p>\n Attorneys for Eden and her mom said they were seeking \u201csystemic change.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThis case exemplifies a disturbing trend: schools that champion social justice while turning a blind eye to antisemitism,\u201d said attorney Jerome Marcus, of The Deborah Project, in a statement.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Eden\u2019s complaints to her teachers and administrators about the bullying were met with inaction and, despite a formal complaint filed by her mother, the district remained \u201cdeliberately indifferent to the reported discrimination,\u201d according to the lawsuit.<\/p>\n The case is the latest of dozens of administrative complaints and court challenges against Bay Area school districts related to antisemitism as well as Islamophobia in recent years, including cases related to biased instruction, classroom displays, participation in political actions or the failure to enforce state and federal laws to protect students from discrimination.<\/p>\n Examples have included Islamophobia or antisemitism in school-related graffiti or online postings as well as teacher union resolutions supporting Palestinian liberation or declaring Israel an \u201capartheid state\u201d where its leaders \u201cespoused genocidal rhetoric and policies,\u201d as was the case in Oakland.<\/p>\n In April 2025, following a formal complaint filed by parents and the Bay Area Jewish Coalition, state officials found two Cupertino ethnic studies <\/a>teachers violated California law and discriminated against Jewish students by failing to provide balanced instruction regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.\u00a0<\/p>\n Complaints In Berkeley alleged a student\u2019s hijab was ripped off during class, Arab and Muslim students were called terrorists while another student was told, \u201cYou have a big nose because you\u2019re a stupid Jew.\u201d<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n