Jewish children enrolled in K-to-12 private schools across the country are exposed to significant antisemitism or hostility, according to an Anti-Defamation League study released Wednesday.
About 25% of parents interviewed in a focus group survey said their kids had seen antisemitic symbols such as swastikas in schools after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel.
Nearly half — 45% — reported that their kids had experienced or witnessed some form of Jew hatred.
One-third of respondents said children were exposed to “problematic” or anti-Israel school curricula.
“These independent schools are failing to support Jewish families. By tolerating — or in some cases, propagating — antisemitism in their classrooms, too many independent schools in cities across the country are sending a message that Jewish students are not welcome,” said Jewish ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt.
“It’s wrong. It’s hateful. And it must stop,” he added. “ADL is partnering with parents to demand change.
Antisemitism in K-12 schools has exploded, with 1,162 antisemitic incidents recorded in 2023 and 860 antisemitic incidents recorded in 2024, according to ADL’s audits on Jew hatred.
Since 2020, antisemitic incidents at K-12 schools have spiked by an alarming 434%.
Given the results, ADL’s Ratings and Assessments Institute (RAI) and Ronald Birnbaum Center to Combat Antisemitism in Education (CCAE) launched a new initiative to examine antisemitism within non-Jewish K to 12 schools.
To kick off the effort, the researchers conducted focus groups and a survey of parents of
Jewish children who attend independent K-12 schools, through ADL’s networks, including 25 regional offices.
The interviews were conducted with parents of private school children in the New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco regions as well as the Washington, DC/Maryland suburbs.
During the focus groups and open-ended surveys, parents voiced widespread concern that non-discrimination and diversity, equity and inclusion programs at their schools “systematically ignore Jewish identity and antisemitism,” the report said.
“This omission not only erases the lived experiences of Jewish students and families but also undermines the core mission of non-discrimination programming and DEI. Far from being a minor oversight, parents see this as a fundamental flaw – one that allows bias to go unchallenged and signals to their children that their identity does not matter,” the ADL said.
A New York-based parent described a situation where the school curriculum itself included the use of an antisemitic symbol:
“On Holocaust Remembrance Day, the seventh-grade history department decided to do a lesson about how the swastika isn’t only a hateful symbol … That was a Holocaust Remembrance lesson,” the parent said.
A California-based parent said, “Some desks were carved with swastikas in a history classroom.”
A New York parent also described writing in the school saying, “Free Palestine from the river to the sea.”
“We’ve had kids called k–e on the playground, numerous kids. We’ve had my daughter and another kid followed around after October 7th with a phone in their face saying, ‘You’re genocidal, your people are genocidal,’” a DC-area parent said.
Parents often described their school’s response to antisemitism as insufficient, and that many incidents go unreported.
The lax administrative response to antisemitism is fostering a “de facto system of Jewish exclusion from independent schools,” the report concluded.
