When Oregon music teacher Susan Lewis logged onto a Zoom meeting with her boss one afternoon in August 2024, she thought she would be preparing for a sixth year teaching at Valley Catholic School. Instead, she lost her job.

Lewis was shocked, she recalled in an interview with The Intercept, as were her colleagues and students. The school did not give any explanation for why they did not renew her contract. Unbeknownst to Lewis, the pro-Israel blacklist organization StopAntisemitism had recently launched an online campaign against her, framing her social media posts about the genocide in Gaza as “using her platform to spread vile antisemitic hate online.”

Lewis is one of at least 400 people StopAntisemitism has taken credit for getting ousted from their jobs in its online crusade, which has drawn widespread attention for targeting more prominent figures — including right-wing pundit Tucker Carlson, progressive actor-turned-activist Cynthia Nixon, and the popular children’s educator Rachel Accurso, known by her stage name Ms. Rachel. Lewis, without her own platform or mass audience, is one of only two recent StopAntisemitism targets pursuing active federal lawsuits against the blacklist organization.

“I really thought we had free speech and this wouldn’t be a problem — that’s what social media is for, is that you can vent,” Lewis told The Intercept. “It wasn’t like I was saying anything above and beyond what other critics of Israel were saying.”

She sued StopAntisemitism for defamation in an Oregon state court over the summer, and the case was elevated to federal court last month. Her suit faces long odds, legal experts told The Intercept, but serves as a rare chance to register public dissent in the courts against the group’s targeting.

Founded in 2018 by social media influencer Liora Reznichenko and funded by the California-based real estate millionaire Adam Milstein’s foundation, StopAntisemitism targets public figures and private individuals over their criticism of Israel or advocacy for Palestinian human rights — forming a single-issue Rolodex similar to Canary Mission. The blacklists supplement the fierce crackdowns and censorship against Palestine solidarity activism increasingly seen at schools across the U.S. since the outbreak of Israel’s war on Gaza.

StopAntisemitism elevated its own profile by targeting Accurso, who has used her platform to advocate for Palestinian children who have been killed, wounded, or starved by the Israeli military in Gaza, especially after she posted videos with a Palestinian 3-year-old who had lost her leg. In April, StopAntisemitism requested that the Department of Justice investigate her for alleged ties to Hamas, despite no evidence of such connections, and this month named her a finalist for “Antisemite of the Year,” on a list that also included Carlson and Nixon.

Accurso has faced an increase in online harassment, including physical threatening letters to her and her family members, she said in an Instagram post after StopAntisemitism released the “Antisemite” list. Her audience of nearly 5 million on Instagram and more than 18 million on YouTube has largely rallied around her — offering backing that hundreds of people like Lewis don’t have.

Reznichenko said that since October 7, 2023, her group has profiled 1,000 employees and students, often sharing their work or school information, encouraging their followers to contact their employers and at times calling for their firing, according to an October interview with the right-leaning Zionist media outlet Jewish News Syndicate.

When StopAntisemitism shared screenshots from Lewis’s personal Facebook page last August, it amplified the posts to a far larger audience than Lewis’s 2,000 Facebook friends. Lewis had criticized Israel’s apartheid rule over Palestinians, its genocide in Gaza, and Western support for the war. StopAntisemitism listed an email address for Valley Catholic School and encouraged its followers, who currently number more than 300,000 on X, to contact Lewis’s employer. “Warning to parents of students in Beaverton,” the post read. “Students at [Valley Catholic] are in grave danger under Sue Lewis.”

What followed was a flood of messages demanding her firing and a slew of personal attacks. “Their phones are ringing off the hook,” one........

© The Intercept