ICAN - The anonymous website “BHUSD Watch” recently published a long, detailed article about the current BHUSD board and the upcoming school board elections.
Some have suggested that the content is being created by Dan Lifschitz, the attorney currently suing the district whose wife is a candidate for school board. The tone, tenor, wording, verbiage and arguments made by the website certainly would seem to support this hypothesis, and while I personally don’t see the need for anonymity (supposed fear of “reprisals” seems like a chickenshit cop out), I will have to take issue with one major element of the latest post, whoever wrote it and whoever stands behind it.
At the outset, I want to be clear about a couple of things. First off, I am not endorsing any candidates in this election. It is sad to see the mudslinging and lack of civility and reminds me of why the sorely missed Susan Mishler once described Beverly Hills as “Peyton Place in an Ibsen play” when we’re at our worst. Secondly, I unreservedly think the Board majority’s decision to bypass Mandy Stern was extremely wrong, should be rectified and have never tried to hide my thoughts on the matter.
My intent here is to respond solely to the recent post’s remarks about Israel, the Israeli flag, Jewish-American Heritage month celebrations and why I think the “anonymous” author gets it gravely - and dangerously - wrong on these subjects.
The “anonymous” author discusses the ICAN endorsement of one of the slates at length (I should also note that I am not a fan of electoral slates). ICAN is the Israeli-American Civic Action network, a bipartisan/non-partisan 501c4 dedicated to fighting Jew-hatred in all its forms, including antizionism and to strengthening the Israel-USA relationship. Full disclosure: I have been the Chief Policy Officer of ICAN for a couple of years, and while ICAN did make endorsements in the upcoming school board election, I was not involved in the process or the selection. Again, I am not endorsing any candidate(s) in this election.
I will restrict myself to the section titled “What’s Zionism Got to Do With It?” and perhaps even try to answer the question.
First off, the author’s suggestion that Zionism represents “inflammatory geopolitics” is completely off base; rather the issue is Jewish pride in a community he admits is predominantly Jewish, a community which for decades has had strong ties with Israel, and which the City’s Council, on which I served for more than 17 years, has always taken pains to underline and honor, for obvious reasons.
Zionism is the belief that Jews shouldn’t have to depend upon the kindness of strangers for their safety and security. Zionism is Jewish self-determination in our ancestral homeland. Zionism is Jewish liberation after thousands of years of pogroms, forced exile, dhimmitude, and worse.
Supporting Jewish students in a world in which Jew-hatred in its many forms, including antizionism, has run amok is more than simply “tribalism.” Zionism has a lot to do with it.
As Dara Horn has noted, anti-Jewish racism, including antizionism, is not just an ancient and rather nasty form of bigotry; it’s a lie. Schools should neither be teaching nor encouraging lies. So, no, looking to elect a Board that chooses to educate its children rather than brainwash them with various forms of the Big Lie about Jews in a predominantly Jewish district is not “Uno reverse card,” but perhaps the anonymous author fails to understand the true nature of Jew-hatred, which might reasonably call into question his perspicacity on a raft of other issues, including those he covers in his treatise.
ICAN is strictly non-partisan, but of course because of the endorsements, the author tries to smear our organization with a MAGA label, much as Gascón supporters tried to tag Nathan Hochman, who was a centrist Republican before he changed his registration, with the same label. For the record, ICAN supports candidates strictly on whether they support Israel (the country, that is; not any individual governments) and oppose all forms of Jew-hatred. ICAN loves John Fetterman, who is a Democrat. ICAN’s CEO Dillon Hosier is a Democrat, and I’m NPP, after having been a registered Democrat for 27 years and a registered Republican for 15 years.
Sadly, parts of the Democratic Party have become infested by raging antizionists who demand anti-Israel purity tests as their price for supporting candidates and who, unsurprisingly, refuse to understand that antizionism itself is a form of racism.
The author writes (in bold face, just to make a point) that the “BHUSD is a public, secular school district.” Then in an unbolded font: “Nor do they need to weaponize their Jewish faith for such a cynical purpose.”
In her latest book, “The Final Solution of the Jewish Question”, Dara Horn discusses at length how the notion that Judaism is merely a religion, a faith, became entrenched in America, which caused an important part of Jewish identity to be erased. The author’s statement falls into this trap and, intentionally or not, is nothing short of an erasure of Jewish identity and a denial of Jewish Peoplehood. No, Judaism is not simply a “faith.” We are a people, and the fact that we have individuals within our own Community (cowardly though they may be) who don’t recognize that fact is a damn good reason why we need schools that refuse to be complicit in the Big Lie, including any and all erasure of Jewish Peoplehood.
As a predominantly Jewish District (at least the author gets that fact right), Jewish history and civilization should be as much a part of the curriculum and district culture as Armenian culture in Glendale, Mexican culture in Downey and Filipino culture in Cerritos.
The red herring about the district’s board majority wanting to “fly the Israeli” flag was always a very red herring, and the board’s decision to ban all flags (except for the American, Californian, Beverly Hills and school flags) is both a matter of consistency and fairness. The Israeli flag was never going to be flown outside the schools next to the American flag; what was up for discussion was displaying the flag within the school as part of Jewish-American Heritage month.
The fact that this should have been a security concern at all is the elephant in the room that the author not only simply ignores, but seems to accept as some kind of understandable and acceptable fact of life. What’s worse, is that he included in his article reposts from some of the most vile anti-Jewish bigots (some of whom, it should be noted, like Stew Peters and Jake Shields come from the right-wing groyper school of Jew-hatred) as some kind of “proof” that displaying Jewish pride flags during Jewish-American Heritage month would be some sort of radical, absurd, dangerous concept.
By reposting these bigots he not only ignores the severity of the current wave of worldwide Jew-hatred and how it might impact our Community and our students, however secure we might feel in our Beverly Hills cocoon, he also actually sides with the bigots in supporting a hecklers’ veto, tacitly or otherwise.
What gives cause for further concern is the author’s evident lack of understanding that the Israeli flag for many Jewish students serves as the Jewish Pride flag.
If anti-gay bigots flooded social media with negative posts about the district’s flying the LGBTQIA+ flag during Pride month, or worse yet, threatened violence, thereby making it a “security issue,” what would he say then?
Personally, I think that the Pride flag should feature during Pride month, the flags of Hispanic countries during Hispanic-American Heritage month, and the Israeli flag during Jewish-American Heritage month, but the author doesn’t seem to have a problem excluding the Jewish pride flag, while using “security concerns” and the hecklers’ veto as an excuse.
That should not be acceptable to many within our community, and it does absolutely nothing to address the tsunami of Jew-hatred we are confronted with from all over the globe. Quite the opposite.
Whether the “anonymous” author is Dan Lifschitz, as it is reasonable to surmise, or someone else, there is absolutely no reason for this individual to lack the courage of his convictions. It’s not only democracy that dies in darkness; so does credibility.
This is not pre-revolutionary America in which one reasonably could fear a raid from imperial or loyalist forces. Hiding behind anonymity does not make someone a latter day Publius. In this case, anonymity isn’t just an act of cowardice; it is also being used to try to normalize a pernicious paradigm in which Jew-hatred is not only acceptable, but in which it has become - at least in some circles - the norm.
At a time in which academia has been poisoned by antizionism and anti-Jewish bigotry, and in which Wikipedia, Reddit and other sites that feed AI engines have become cesspits of anti-Jewish lies, it is more important than ever to have a school board that understands these issues and is willing to stand up and do something about it (I have suggested to individual school board members measures that can be taken to deal with how Wikipedia has been coopted by an agitprop bot army that puts Pravda to shame).
What’s Zionism got to do with it? The answer is that since antizionism is a racist lie, Zionism has everything to do with it.
Not only can I recommend that the anonymous author come out of the shadows, but maybe it’s time for him to also do a deep dive into the nonfiction works of the great and wise Dara Horn.
(John A. Mirisch is a three-time Mayor and longtime Councilmember of Beverly Hills, first elected in 2009. Known for his commitment to transparency and public engagement, he established the Sunshine Task Force during his first mayoral term to make Beverly Hills a model of open government. Before entering public service, John was a film executive with IMAX and Paramount Pictures. He is a regular contributor to CityWatchLA.com, writing on democracy, civic reform, and local governance.)
