{"id":3100,"date":"2025-10-16T02:43:38","date_gmt":"2025-10-16T02:43:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/3100\/"},"modified":"2025-10-16T02:43:38","modified_gmt":"2025-10-16T02:43:38","slug":"lower-merions-school-board-race-is-heated-amid-complaints-about-antisemitism-trump-caricatures-and-unfair-endorsements","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/3100\/","title":{"rendered":"Lower Merion’s school board race is heated amid complaints about antisemitism, Trump caricatures, and unfair endorsements"},"content":{"rendered":"

Heavily Democratic Lower Merion<\/a> has not experienced the partisan battles that have increasingly dominated some local school board elections<\/a>. But this year\u2019s races have gotten heated in ways that also mirror national divides.<\/p>\n

Nine candidates<\/a> are on Tuesday\u2019s Democratic primary ballot, competing to appear on the November general election ballot for just four open school board seats. And tensions have emerged between candidates endorsed by the local Democratic committee \u2014 including the current school board president and another incumbent \u2014 and critics, including rivals who say the current board has failed to adequately combat antisemitism. <\/p>\n

A candidate forum was canceled earlier this month out of concern for \u201cdisruptive behavior,\u201d<\/a> though organizers did not specify the threats.<\/p>\n

Three of the candidates on the Democratic ballot are endorsed by the GOP; a mailer from the Democratic Party with cartoon depictions of President Donald Trump<\/a>\u2019s head next to their names angered some candidates and community members, who called it unnecessarily divisive.<\/p>\n

\u00bb READ MORE: Here\u2019s who\u2019s running in this year\u2019s Lower Merion School District board primary<\/a><\/p>\n

A pro-Israel, anti-Islam social media account that posts incidents it finds antisemitic also objected to the mailer\u2019s use of red stop signs next to two unendorsed Democrats<\/a>, calling it a \u201cshocking hate scandal\u201d against Jewish candidates.<\/p>\n

One of those unendorsed Democrats is challenging the official party slate with a flurry of mailers and lawn signs, saying the current board has not been sufficiently transparent or accountable to the public.<\/p>\n

Underlying the dissent are complaints that the district has not taken a hard enough line against antisemitism, echoing unrest within the Democratic Party nationally that has grown since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks on Israel.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of distrust among parents with the school district,\u201d said Rich Lester, the unendorsed Democrat mounting the opposition campaign, who faults the board\u2019s communication around a budget shortfall and complaints about antisemitism. \u201cIf you\u2019re cutting things, you need to tell people. If you\u2019re running education campaigns to combat antisemitism, you need to follow up and tell people what\u2019s going on.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00bb READ MORE: Lower Merion Republicans sent out a \u2018Democratic sample ballot\u2019 with GOP-backed school board candidates<\/a><\/p>\n

The board\u2019s president, Kerry Sautner, said in a statement that she and her running mates \u201cunequivocally condemn antisemitism.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of the board\u2019s handling of the $5 million budget shortfall \u2014 which administrators have said will require some schedule and busing changes \u2014 Sautner said the budget \u201ccan be complex.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe best way to stay informed,\u201d she said, is to attend or watch finance committee meetings.<\/p>\n

Sautner \u2014 who was briefly removed from the primary ballot<\/a> after a challenge to her financial disclosure forms \u2014 is running alongside fellow incumbent Anna Shurak<\/a> and newcomers Juanita Kerber and Jennifer Rivera.<\/p>\n

\u201cSchool board races across the country have become more heated, and Lower Merion is no exception,\u201d Sautner said in the statement, sent on behalf of the slate. \u201cWith real concerns about the future of public education, it\u2019s understandable that emotions are high.\u201d<\/p>\n

On its \u201cElect LMSD\u201d website, the slate frames the election as a fight to protect public education.<\/p>\n

\u201cPolitical groups and misinformation campaigns are working to divide our community, weaken DEI initiatives, and undermine the democratic values that define our district,\u201d the website says, adding that if the slate loses, the district risks rolling back equity policies<\/a> and \u201callowing external political agendas to influence local education decisions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked which groups and political agendas were at work in Lower Merion, Sautner referred to \u201cfederal threats,\u201d including to dismantle the federal Department of Education<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A controversial mailer <\/p>\n

The mailer that compared some of Sautner\u2019s opponents to Trump was sent out by the Democratic Committee of Lower Merion and Narberth<\/a>, Sautner said. She said that her slate \u201chas its own materials that have been shared with voters, focused on keeping our schools strong, inclusive, and accountable to the community we serve.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Democratic committee\u2018s chairperson, Jeff Scott, said the party wanted to ensure voters knew that three of the candidates on the Democratic ballot were backed by the GOP. (Candidates in local races are permitted to cross-file and run in both parties\u2019 primaries.)<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re just trying to convey information to Democratic voters,\u201d Scott said. He said the party had sent similar mailers in past elections, \u201cnot garnering any reaction that I\u2019m aware of.\u201d<\/p>\n

Scott added that the candidates \u2014 Talia Nissim, Deena Pack, and Jacob Rudolph \u2014 \u201cdidn\u2019t need to pursue or accept the endorsement of the Republican Party.\u201d<\/p>\n

The candidates are part of the \u201cImagine Better LMSD\u201d slate, along with Omer Dekel, who is running solely on the Republican ballot.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are not here to burn books, or ban DEI, or abolish the DOE,\u201d said Dekel, who objected to the Trump comparison. He said the candidates sought the Republican endorsement after being rebuffed by Democrats. (The Democratic committee said that Dekel never formally sought its endorsement and noted that Dekel is a registered Republican.)<\/p>\n

Dekel said he decided to run for school board after his son, a Welsh Valley Middle School student, experienced antisemitic bullying<\/a>. He said two other candidates on his slate \u2014 one of whom is a student at Harriton High School \u2014 also had personal experiences with antisemitism in the district.<\/p>\n

Echoing complaints from some other Jewish parents, Dekel said he felt the district did not treat antisemitism as seriously as other types of hate.<\/p>\n

He took issue with information a Democratic committeeperson distributed to door knockers that characterized his slate as using allegations of antisemitism to undermine DEI. Dekel said the message was \u201cbasically belittling all of us.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Democratic endorsement process<\/p>\n

Lester accused the Democratic committee of an unfair endorsement process after a party leader e-mailed members the night before the endorsement vote, describing Lester\u2019s answers to a question about how he would handle budget cuts as problematic. (Lester, who founded a business that owns veterinary hospitals, had said he would evaluate essential vs. nonessential spending, and suggested the district could consider increasing class sizes in older grades and cutting courses with limited enrollment.)<\/p>\n

The Democratic committee said in a statement that its endorsement process is open and transparent, with committeepeople who \u201ctake the time to speak directly with candidates and constituents before casting their votes.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe understand there\u2019s always room for improvement, and we welcome feedback,\u201d the committee said.<\/p>\n

It also said that it is \u201cfocused on running an objective, fact-based campaign,\u201d with candidates committed to \u201cstrong, inclusive public schools.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWith public education under growing pressure nationally, from efforts to defund the Department of Education to attacks on how history is taught, it\u2019s more important than ever to elect local leaders who reflect the values of our community and are prepared to protect our students,\u201d the committee said.<\/p>\n

Lester said the endorsed Democrats have wrongly injected national politics into a local election. In one mailer, he wrote: \u201cWe need a school board that puts our kids before their politics.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked what he meant by that, Lester said the board was \u201csometimes a little too left.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf a supporter of the Ku Klux Klan was asked to speak at the district, it would be a hard no. \u2026 If a supporter of Hamas comes to the district, it\u2019s not a hard no,\u201d Lester said. He then said he was \u201cnot going to opine\u201d on whether a Hamas supporter had spoken in Lower Merion schools, but noted recent controversy around some speakers<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Sautner said in her statement that under her leadership, the district \u201chas implemented antibias education, launched reporting systems and partnered with organizations like The Jewish Federation\u2019s community arm, JCRC, the Weitzman Museum and Stand with Us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lester said he has raised $10,000 from friends and is self-funding the rest of his campaign; he said he is \u201cputting a lot of money into the race\u201d but declined to comment on how much. Scott, of the Democratic committee, said he did not know how much the party had spent on the school board races, but said it was in line with past elections.<\/p>\n

In light of his disappointment with the campaign process, Lester said, if he loses, he won\u2019t get involved in local politics again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Heavily Democratic Lower Merion has not experienced the partisan battles that have increasingly dominated some local school board…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3101,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[183,185,184,186,2769],"class_list":["post-3100","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-lower-merion","tag-lower-merion","tag-lower-merion-headlines","tag-lower-merion-news","tag-lower-merion-township","tag-lower-merion-school-board-race-2025-democrats-antisemitism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3100","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3100"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3100\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3101"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}