To meet a legislative deadline on Saturday, a California state bill addressing Jew-hatred in K-12 schools that passed two committee votes this week will need to get through two more.
AB 715, which would bar discriminatory teaching materials and create a state civil rights office with a coordinator focused on Jew-hatred, passed the state Senate’s Education Committee (6-0) on Wednesday night and its Appropriations Committee (4-1) on Thursday.
Rick Chavez Zbur, a Democrat and member of the state Assembly who co-authored the bill, told JNS that it aims “to give parents and families of kids who are facing bullying and hate in schools tools to address it.” It also calls for teacher training on antisemitism, he said.
“We have seen an alarming level of hate and antisemitism directed at kids in our schools, not only over the course of several years but in particular since Oct. 7,” he told JNS. “In many, many school districts, these acts of hate are going unresponded to.”
The coordinator would “monitor levels of antisemitism and the extent to which they’re being responded to in school districts” and advise districts and the legislature, including the governor, on fighting Jew-hatred, Zbur said.
“The crisis is urgent, and we need to act now,” he told JNS.
Zbur’s state Assembly colleague Dawn Addis, a Democrat who also co-authored the bill, told JNS that it “is about making sure children and families know there are guardrails in place to prevent and respond to antisemitism.”
“The classroom must be welcoming, affirming, safe and supportive for children to thrive,” she said.
David Bocarsly, executive director of the Jewish Public Affairs Committee of California, told JNS that the bill will likely go to the state Senate floor for a vote on Friday evening. If it passes the upper state chamber, it would return to the Assembly for a final vote.
“That’s two more votes in about 50 hours,” Bocarsly told JNS.
Addis is “optimistic that our colleagues will see the value in fighting antisemitism in our schools,” she told JNS. Zbur told JNS that he’s also optimistic.
“We’ve been working hard on the bill now for two years, and we’ve been counting the votes,” he said.
Robert Trestan, vice president of the Anti-Defamation League’s Western division, told JNS that votes to advance the bill are “an important recognition of the impact antisemitism has had on California’s K-12 students.”
“The establishment of a statewide antisemitism prevention coordinator is a first step towards making classrooms safer and more conducive to learning for Jewish students,” he said. “We urge the Senate and Assembly to expediently pass AB 715, because our students cannot wait.”
Jeremy Russell, director of marketing and communications at the Jewish Community Relations Council Bay Area, told JNS that Jew-hatred has “surged” in California schools, and the bill is an “important step toward more inclusive classrooms, where Jewish students feel safe.”
Every major Jewish group in the state has shown “strong support” for the bill, according to Tali Klima, a spokeswoman for the Bay Area Jewish Coalition.
“We sincerely hope the bill will pass the two remaining votes during this legislative session,” she told JNS. “Even as the bill has made its way through the legislature, the Bay Area Jewish Coalition has received new reports of antisemitic incidents against students.”
“No child should have to feel unsafe and unwelcome in their own school,” Klima said.
Bocarsly is “cautiously optimistic” that the bill will make it to the governor’s desk.
“Jewish students are being targeted at extremely high levels,” he told JNS. “We need to make sure that a targeted problem has a targeted solution, and this bill does that.”
