The following letter was submitted to the City Council as public comment before tonight’s meeting. The writer is a member of the SMMUSD Board of Directors
Re: Item 16-B
Dear Mayor and Councilmembers,
I am writing to support the City Council sponsorship of the 2024 Mayors Summit Against Antisemitism. I fully support the City Council’s participation in events and educational activities that are intended to combat all forms of hate and prejudice in thoughtful ways, including antisemitism.
However, agendizing this item does not exonerate my former School Board colleague, Oscar de la Torre, from his offensive antisemitic statement that has now been shared publicly by School Board member Jon Kean and corroborated by School Board member Richard Tahvildaran-Jesswein. I’d like to share my account of the incident they have described in letters to the Santa Monica Daily Press.
During the summer of 2019, the School Board hired a consultant to facilitate and improve Board member effectiveness/communication/teamwork. The consultant’s first step was to interview each Board member individually. I was the Board member who met with the consultant following then Board member Oscar de la Torre.
When I walked into the room to meet the consultant (who I had never met before), she was extremely flustered. She apologized and acknowledged that she was very shaken. She said that she would never ordinarily share what was expressed in another Board member’s interview, but she felt compelled to share with me what the previous Board member had said. He had told her that the biggest challenge the School Board faced was that it was run by the Jews. I do not recall whether she named Oscar; she didn’t have to since he was the person scheduled to be interviewed immediately before me.
As I recall, I went immediately to look for our then- Superintendent, Dr. Ben Drati, to share what I had just heard. I also called Richard Tahvildaran- Jesswein and Jon Kean that afternoon, since they were President and Vice President of the School Board, respectively.
I subsequently learned that Dr. Drati, Richard Tahvildaran-Jesswein and Jon Kean had all spoken with Oscar de la Torre about his antisemitic statement, which he did not deny making.
Oscar de la Torre’s now infamous statement, “the biggest problem with the School Board is that it’s run by the Jews,” cannot be erased by a 16 Item, especially since he now claims that he never uttered these hurtful and disgusting words.
With respect to the other request addressed in this16 item, the attached 1991 letter is utterly repulsive. It is a loathsome example of “hate” speech. I believe that the Santa Monica Police
Department has investigated the circumstances surrounding it and has never been able to identify the authors. I can only imagine how this letter made Oscar de la Torre feel in 1991, then a young man who had recently served as student body president at Santa Monica High School.
Councilmember de la Torre, who has a personal relationship with the Superintendent, should share the letter with him if he has not done so already along with any suggestions he would like to make. The City Council, however, should not be giving direction to the school district about school curriculum.
Like the City Council, the SMMUSD stands united against hate, racism, religious intolerance, Islamophobia and antisemitism. As an educational institution, we deeply understand how harmful incidents like these can be on an individual level, within a school system, and on a societal level. We are committed to confronting, preventing and educating students about the harm caused by hate and prejudice. We would be more than willing to describe the SMMUSD’s robust approach to furthering this commitment in our schools at the convenience of the City Council.
In closing, I feel compelled to share a final observation about this item. We should all be united against hate and prejudice in any form. Count me in. But the fact that Councilmember de la Torre was harmed by hateful speech himself in 1991 and now seeks to promote a conference on antisemitism does not excuse his recent denial of the antisemitic statement he made in 2019, which he did not deny when confronted by his School Board colleagues shortly after he made the statement.
The path to redemption and recovery begins with telling the truth.
Sincerely,
Laurie Lieberman
