California bill seeks to censor Palestine in public schools

By Lev Zeiger, In-Depth Editor | August 28, 2025

Proposed California Assembly Bill 715 seeks to redefine antisemitism to include any criticism of the State of Israel. By that measure, Jews like me who denounce Israel’s genocide in Gaza would be considered antisemitic by the state of California. Make that make sense.

A.B. 715 will be voted on by the California Senate Education Committee (CSEC) next week. It seeks to amend existing K-12 protections against discrimination around antisemitism by changing definitions of nationality and antisemitism and establishing a state-level Antisemitism Coordinator among other means.

The authors of A.B. 715 are all members of the Legislative Jewish Caucus, whose website claims that they “serve as a resource to, and advocate on behalf of, the… concerns of the Jewish Community.” In reality, their legislation explicitly ignores and endangers the non-trivial non-Zionist and anti-Zionist Jewish population in California by excluding them from their own religion and weaponizing it against them.

For context, Zionism—an ethnocultural nationalist movement to establish a Jewish homeland—is a political movement that has been around since about 1885. The religion of Judaism has been around for nearly 4,000 years. Their conflation disregards the spectrum of perspectives held by Jews.

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While it would fail to mitigate antisemitism in California public schools, A.B. 715 would succeed at silencing opposition to Israel’s crimes against humanity in Gaza, whose population has entered Phase 5 famine as a result of Israel’s months-long, near-total aid blockade and unrelenting bombing. Barring our criticism of this atrocity would restrict our moral duty to speak out against oppression.

Besides, this isn’t a meaningful way to combat antisemitism in this country. As Jewish-American political activist Lily Greenberg Call points out in her New York Times opinion opposing A.B. 715, “The majority of antisemitic violence in this country comes from the far right, not from student activists or faculty critics of Israeli policy.” In other words, the bill would allocate redundant resources, and in the wrong place.

Specifically, under A.B. 715, reports of antisemitism in California public schools would be reviewed by a newly instated Antisemitism Coordinator. This coordinator would then adjudicate based on a definition of antisemitism laid out by A.B. 715, which incorrectly equates Judaism with Zionism.

To be clear, this means that Jewish people like me would be considered antisemitic by the state apparatus—a self-hating Jew. This narrative fills me with anger and despair. I am proud to be Jewish—just as I unapologetically condemn Israel’s genocidal actions. A.B. 715 would discriminate against this intersectionality and silence discourse about Palestine and Palestinians.

A.B. 715 is unnecessary in the first place: California Ed Code already protects students against discrimination based on gender, race and religion among many other factors. This amendment would make antisemitism the only discrimination moderated by a state-level coordinator. Antisemitism is alive, but so are anti-Latino racism, homophobia and anti-Black racism, just to name a few.

If you’re still not sure how you feel about this bill, don’t take it from me. Take it from the hundreds of thousands of teachers and education advocates who also oppose A.B. 715.

The California Teachers Association—the largest statewide teacher union—opposes the bill, the ACLU has deemed it unconstitutional and the California Coalition to Defend Public Education includes more than 85 groups who criticize Israel’s genocide on Palestinians and thus oppose the bill. All this opposition led to the bill’s removal from the agenda of the July 9 CSEC meeting. After undergoing amendments, the CSEC will hold a meeting entirely dedicated to A.B. 715 on September 2, 3, or 4.

This unrepresentative and harmful piece of legislation must not make it to Governor Gavin Newsom’s desk. To help prevent that, you can call the following CSEC members and tell them to vote no on A.B. 715: