Montgomery students lament antisemitism surging in their schools

Eliana Joftus couldn’t believe someone had spray-painted “Jews Not Welcome” on the entrance sign to her campus, Walt Whitman High School in Bethesda. Days before, she’d helped lead a lesson as president of the school’s Jewish Student Union on how to combat stereotypes and be an ally to Jewish students. The graffiti was clearly a response to that lesson, she suspected. “It could have been just coincidence, but chances are it wasn’t,” Joftus, 17, said. She added that teachers had also received antisemitic emails from a sender outside of the school system over the weekend, confirming that the action wasn’t random. “It really had purpose and motivation behind it.”