Back to school should not mean back to fear for Jewish students

Aftermath shown around the Children’s Center at Temple Israel synagogue in West Bloomfield, Michigan.An attacker rammed into the building on Thursday, March 12, 2026.(Temple Israel)

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Online platforms must enforce their own rules against incitement and threats.Research has found that 74% of Americans who encountered antisemitism saw or heard it online or on social media.Two thirds of Jewish adults who experienced this did not report it because they did not think anything would be done.

Imagine how much more profound this is for both Jewish and non-Jewish children.Students often carry what they see online into their real lives.A culture that excuses online antisemitism eventually meets students at the school locker, the bus stop and the classroom.

Schools cannot solve every social failure, but they can set the standard for how a free society responds to hate.

The U.S.Department of Educationissued a letter reminding schools “Title VI protects all students, including students who are or are perceived to be Jewish, from discrimination,” and that “schools must take immediate and appropriate action to respond to harassment that creates a hostile environment.”

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Administrators should say plainly that antisemitism is unacceptable, whether it appears as a threat, a slur, a swastika, harassment over Jewish identity or intimidation tied to Israel or Zionism.

Further, education must be more than a one-off assembly after an incident.Students should learn what antisemitism is, how it mutates across political movements, conspiracy theories and social media trends and why targeting Jews corrodes civic life for everyone.

Schools and law enforcement should coordinate before a crisis.Every school that servesJewish studentsshould have a clear plan for reporting threats, preserving evidence, communicating with families and protecting students who are targeted.This means treating credible threats and hate crimes as serious matters from the start.

Importantly, safety has to be treated as a public responsibility, not a private surcharge on Jewish families.My organization, Teach Coalition, has found that Jewish schools spend more than $400,000 a year on security, more than $1,000 per student, money that could otherwise support teachers, scholarships,mental health servicesand academic programs.

Jewish students at El Camino Real Charter High School during a walkout protesting antisemitic incidents at the Woodland Hills school in February 2024.(Sarah Reingewirtz/MediaNews Group/Los Angeles Daily News via Getty Images)

Public funding must meet the scale of the threat.The FEMA Nonprofit Security Grant Program (NSGP) helps nonprofits at high risk ofterrorist attack, providing $274.5 million for security measures last year.But only 27% of 2025 applications were approved.

If threats are rising and three-quarters of qualified applicants are turned away, Congress should quadruple NSGP funding to a billion dollars and make the process faster and more predictable.

Leaders should stop treating antisemitism as someone else’s problem.School boards, governors, mayors, clergy, union leaders, parent associations and cultural figures all shape the norms children absorb.

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A whole-of-society response means better education, stronger security, lawful accountability, responsible technology and the moral clarity to say that Jewish students should never have to hide who they are in order to learn.

Sydney Altfield is the CEO of Teach Coalition, working with Jewish, Catholic, Muslim, and nonpublic school partners to champion policies that put students and families first.