The past few months have been scary ones for Jewish students at Redwood High School in Marin. Early in September, Instagram profiles titled “Students Organized Against Semitism” surfaced and started following Jewish Redwood High students, with a goal of creating a list of all the Jewish students within the Tamalpais Union High School District.
These accounts were continuously reported by students and taken down by Instagram, but new profiles have continued to appear. In October, a picture was posted of an anonymous student wearing a helmet with a swastika on it, holding a bullet — a clear threat of violence against the Jewish community.
“Seeing all these Jews being followed by the account was a very scary feeling,” said Sol Ladetzky, a senior at Redwood High, whose Instagram account was requested. “It never really felt unsafe to be Jewish until this experience.”
The Redwood High administration is now working alongside the Marin Police Department, which has launched a formal investigation, to find the anonymous student who created the accounts.
Many Jewish students are disappointed with their school’s response, however. The administration sent out an email to address the situation, but “it was so general that it felt quite automated, and it didn’t really feel heartfelt,” said Lindsay Felder, a senior at Redwood High. “When you’re a Jewish student in the community and you get this response, it feels more like the district felt obligated to send that email,” Felder said.
Felder, alongside Samantha Glickman, another senior at Redwood, has been working with the school administration to start conversations about anti-Semitism on campus. In their almost four years at Redwood, Felder and Glickman have noticed acts of anti-Semitism, “whether it be signs of graffiti drawn around the school or things that students say in the hallways that are heard by teachers and go without punishment,” Glickman said.
“I feel a lot of disappointment that admin isn’t really protecting us…and making it public that they support Jewish students at Redwood,” said Glickman. Although board members agree that anti-Semitism is not welcome at Redwood, “Seeing that it’s gone unnoticed makes us feel almost unwelcome in our own community.”
Students have recently been pushing for the school administration to “have a firmer stance on what they believe is not protected under free speech,” said Glickman. Establishing a groundwork for consistent punishment when people use anti-Semitic and other hate-based language is the community’s current goal.
Felder added, “We think that when those smaller acts go without punishment, it builds the confidence of the students who are doing it, and it escalates into these larger demonstrations; and that can get dangerous if it gets to a certain point. It’s better if we just shut it down when it’s small.”
While they don’t necessarily feel that they are getting the support needed from the administration, Glickman and Felder say that the school community has been extremely supportive. Fellow students have been active on social media, posting and signing a petition that Glickman and Felder made and sending emails to the administration.
According to Felder, student activism is crucial to shutting down anti-Semitism at Redwood. “If [the] administration isn’t doing what they should have done initially to shut it down, then having the support of the community and showing our peers that this isn’t okay will also have a really big impact,” she said.
As of now, the police investigation is still underway and there have been no major changes from the school administration. Redwood High did hold an online panel for community members to attend, featuring a discussion with Rabbi Stacy Friedman of San Rafael’s Congregation Rodef Sholom, Marin County District Attorney Lori Frugoli and a representative from the Anti-Defamation League.
After weeks of inactivity, on November 16, two more social media profiles appeared — one on Instagram and the other on TikTok. A day later, the Instagram account had been deleted, but the TikTok, under the username “redwoodsoashypehouse,” is still active and following Jewish students. It was “shock[ing] to see the same type of hate speech rise up again,” said Glickman. “[I was] frustrated that the same person is continuing to get away with it.”
Glickman and Felder hope that in the future, Redwood High students and community members will be comfortable calling out anti-Semitic acts when they see them. “We’re all humans and we all experience this hate,” Felder said. “It’s important that we work together to shut it down.”
