OUSD is hosting a series of professional development (PD) sessions this Fall, with the stated goal of addressing increasing “hate” in the district. The first session, “Grounding our Anti-hate Work in the Framework of Belonging and Bridging” was led by Reverand Ben McBride, an interfaith leader. The second is focused on addressing Islamophobia, Anti-Arab, and Anti-Palestinian racism, led by the Islamic Networks Groups (ING) . The third session is focused on Jewish Identity and Anti-Semitism in K-12 education. All three topics seem relatively innocuous at first glance. However, the Rank and File Caucus questions why the Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC) was chosen to lead the PD supposedly on anti-semitism, as a group that has consistently attacked groups fighting for Palestinian rights.

According to one Jewish teacher in OUSD, “the JCRC is an elite Zionist front group with a self-selected board.” She recommends we check out the website “JCRC Doesn’t Speak For Me” (www.jcrcdoesnotspeakforme.com/), which exposes the JCRC as another cog in the Israeli Hasbara engine. Hasbara is the Hebrew word for “explanation”, but also refers to Israel’s massive public relations machine, which has increasingly failed to “explain” Israeli apartheid, ethnic cleansing, and genocide.

Groups like the JCRC are working overtime to confuse the public and acclimate teachers to an eerie pro-war climate that silences and criminalizes anyone who dares to speak out for Palestine. Groups like this are especially dangerous as they classify any criticism of the Israeli genocide as “antisemitic,” an increasingly criminalized act that educators across the US have already lost jobs over. The JCRC likely called for the federal investigation on OUSD for “antisemitism” stemming from the statement put out by the Oakland Education Association (OEA) in October 2023 following the Oct. 7 raid on Southern Israel by Palestinian resistance fighters, which preceded the latest phase of Israel’s genocidal war on the innocent people of Gaza.

The Rank and File Caucus calls on OUSD to stop partnering with Israeli propaganda machines like the JCRC, which conflate opposition to the genocide with antisemitism. Instead, let’s have a PD led by the dozens of Jewish educators in our own District who have already stood together with our Arab staff and students against this horrific war, who know that Jewish safety doesn’t come from ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, but comes from mutual participation in the struggle for a world where all people are free.