A yearbook at a Southern California high school is the subject of controversy after an article about the Israeli-Hamas war was included in the printing, prompting some students and parents to say the editorial is harmful to the local Jewish community.
The student-written and teacher-approved article entitled, “Whose Land is it Anyway?” was printed on a single page in the Palos Verdes High School yearbook.
For PVHS student Kayla Epstein, the article is problematic and upsetting.
“There’s just so much that’s in this that is incorrect,” Epstein told KTLA’s Gene Kang as she held the yearbook open to the essay.
Critics of the article say it contains misinformation and victim blaming against Israel for the atrocities committed by Hamas in the bloody Oct. 7 attack. Additionally, they feel it has raised safety issues for Jewish students and the South Bay Jewish community.
“Reading things such as ‘the Jewish problem’ or ‘original sin,’ that terminology…it’s heartbreaking to see people who are in my school that genuinely think and believe these things,” Epstein said.
Students, parents and members of a local Jewish congregation have been meeting with school district officials about the issue, but so far, their demands have not been met.
“When I saw this article, I went home quite literally sobbing. I couldn’t get a word out to my mom because this is my senior yearbook,” Epstein added. “This is my lasting memory of high school. I graduate in two days. This is what we’re dealing with and I don’t know how it made it to press.”
Tzvi Graetz, Rabbi at Congregation Ner Tamid of South Bay, told KTLA that he hopes this incident can be used as a teaching moment.
“We hope that this incident, as sad as it is and traumatic for all of us, will be able to be a stepping stone for all of us to start an education process where we’re able to train teachers on what is antisemitism, how to identify it to make sure that never again an article like this appears in a yearbook,” he explained.
A rebuttal of the article written by the group speaking with district officials reads in part:
“While yearbooks in the Palos Verdes Unified School District do include editorial sections that often highlight significant world events of that year, this should not be used as a platform to promote any form of bias.”
On the other side of the spectrum, some have said that the student who wrote the editorial has a right to free speech. At a school board meeting Tuesday evening where some 80 people were given time to make comments, some said the student who wrote the editorial is being unjustly singled out.
“I have never seen a situation where students were harassed, treated unfairly for expressing their views,” one speaker said during public comments. “My heart goes out to the PV high school student who published an article in her high school publication and as a result faces bullying on and harassment on our campuses.”
KTLA has reached out to the student who wrote the article and the teacher who approved it but has so far not received a response. The school district has also not responded to a request for an interview.
In the meantime, administrators at the high school sent out an email to families addressing the controversial article and its negative impact on the community, essentially saying the editorial does not represent the district’s position on these issues.