Beverly Hills school board candidate Kim Lifschitz faces antisemitism accusations after nearly year-old chat screenshots surfaced mocking a trustee’s personal trip to Jerusalem’s Western Wall.
Messages labeled with Lifschitz’s name in a private group chat ridiculed BHUSD trustee Russell Stuart’s New Year’s Day visit to the holy site and his wearing of a kippah, turning a religious observance into a punchline about costumes and airplane snacks.
Fox News Digital reported the screenshots this week as Lifschitz campaigns for one of two seats on the Beverly Hills Unified School District Board of Education in the Nov. 3 election. Stuart, whose family is Jewish, condemned the remarks as crossing a bright line.
“I found them deeply offensive,” Stuart said. He described his Western Wall visit as personal and meaningful.
"My visit to the Western Wall was personal and meaningful to me. Seeing a kippah described as something from a 'dress up trunk' turns Jewish religious observance into a costume and a punchline."
The chat lines attributed to Lifschitz responded to local coverage of Stuart’s trip. One read: “Maybe he can bust out the kippah from his dress up trunk.” Another added: “He probably used it to store his complimentary in-flight nuts.”
Stuart told Fox News Digital that political disagreement is fair game. Mocking religious practice is not.
"Anyone is welcome to challenge my votes, my positions or my work on the school board. Mocking my religious observance crosses a very different line."
He called the remarks antisemitic because they ridicule Jewish religious observance and an identifiable symbol of Jewish faith. “I cannot speak to what was in her heart, but I can speak to the words,” he said, and he urged Lifschitz to address them.
A separate screenshot attributed to Lifschitz targeted Board Vice President Sigalie Sabag. It said: “Love that Sigalie is talking about holocaust survivors like she collected the most Pokémon.” That message referenced Sabag’s discussion of Holocaust survivors who had spoken with district students, per local reporting noted in the coverage.
Lifschitz, who identifies as Jewish, rejected the antisemitism label in a statement to Fox News Digital. She insisted she criticized Stuart for disrespecting Jewish culture and observance by turning sacred symbols into internet content.
"I said nothing antisemitic at all. In fact, I criticized Russell Stuart for disrespecting Jewish culture and observance."
She claimed Stuart treated a kippah like a costume used in a performance and gave it “the same amount of respect one would give a container for airplane snacks.” She said she did not attack him for wearing a kippah or visiting the Western Wall. She expressed disgust that he turned those things into online material.
Lifschitz pointed to her own experience with antisemitism and to her son, who she said cannot protect himself from it. She said that background led her to assume the worst about Stuart’s intentions based on the evidence she saw. In an October interview with the Beverly Press, she stressed that adults must model the conduct expected of children: “You have to be a role model.”
She also defended the private nature of the chat. “Adults are allowed to dislike each other and talk about it amongst themselves in private chats,” she said. Seeking out critics and then painting them as monsters, she added, is “the equivalent of putting a stick through the wheel of your own bicycle.”
Elizabeth Barcohana, California GOP Jewish Engagement Chair and an attorney, condemned Lifschitz as “prejudiced, rude, and unserious about education or the well-being of children.”
Barcohana told Fox News Digital that Beverly Hills parents worked hard to take control of their children’s education back from the teachers’ union and other special interests that, in her view, let taxpayer money be squandered without proper oversight. After that shift, she said, unpopular principals, teachers, and the superintendent were replaced; test scores and achievement improved; budgets came under control; teacher pay rose to record highs; and enrollment increased.
Her point was plain: school board seats are about kids, academics, and stewardship, not private ridicule of a trustee’s faith practices.
The controversy also revived scrutiny of Lifschitz’s husband, Daniel Lifschitz. In September 2025, Twitch streamer Hasan Piker replayed Fox 11 Los Angeles footage featuring Daniel. In that earlier report by Chelsea Edwards, the district reversed a proposal to display Israeli flags during Jewish American Heritage Month. Daniel had publicly criticized a district antisemitism resolution.
Piker praised the comments and, as reported, compared displaying Israeli flags to displaying Nazi flags in a hypothetical German-American heritage event. After the clip aired on the stream, Daniel posted on Instagram: “I just wanted to make some MAGA folks on the school board feel bad and now I'm on [Hasan Piker's] livestream...”
Barcohana circulated related material on X. Lifschitz disputed any claim that her husband had been an invited guest on the stream.
The pattern matters in a district already wrestling with how it handles Jewish heritage, Israeli symbols, and antisemitism resolutions. A candidate who lectures about role models while private messages reduce a kippah to a prop and Holocaust survivors to a collecting game hands opponents a ready record.
Stuart asked for an answer to the words on the screen. Lifschitz answered by reframing the target and protecting the private chat. Voters in Beverly Hills now get to decide which standard belongs on the school board.
Parents deserve board members who treat Jewish faith and Holocaust memory with seriousness, not as material for group-chat punchlines.
