The room with the music stands
I began with the room rather than the post because the room is where Lewis’s working life can still be seen without interpretation. At the end of a private music lesson, a child puts an instrument back in its case. The stand is folded. The sheet music is gathered. A teacher writes down what to practice before the next visit. That small routine is the visible part of Susan Lewis’s work in Beaverton, Oregon. The less visible part is the confidence that accumulates over hundreds of such meetings: a student willing to play in front of other people, a parent hearing progress, a school trusting an adult with its children.
Lewis taught music at Valley Catholic School and also ran a private studio. Students and parents described her as a patient, committed instructor. Her studio’s public record shows lessons for children and adults, performances, theory, and a long queue of students. In 2024, a local account reported that she had been teaching for more than four decades, with about 100 students enrolled and former pupils returning as associate teachers. That is the working life the later label made difficult to see.
Lewis is also a musician. Her own account describes work as a jazz violinist, arranger, producer, and recording artist. Her album Reason to Live is part of that record. The details matter because the campaign reduced her to a set of screenshots and a charge about what kind of person she was. Before the campaign, she was not a public commentator whose job depended on being universally approved. She was an employee and a small-business owner whose professional standing rested on repeated, local relationships.
August 21
On August 21, 2024, Lewis says, StopAntisemitism contacted Valley Catholic and demanded that the school fire her. The group’s “Corrupting the Classroom” page described her as a “raging antisemite,” called her a “grave threat to the safety and well-being of your students,” and supplied a prewritten email for readers to send to the school. StopAntisemitism’s own page said she claimed Israel killed its citizens during the October 7 attack, called for Hamas to destroy Israel, denied atrocities against Israeli victims, and made claims about Jewish control and Zionism.
The school did not publicly explain the decision. Lewis says her supervisor told her in a video meeting that her contract would not continue. She learned the alleged reason later, when comments connected to her business page pointed her toward the online campaign. StopAntisemitism then presented the result as a victory, writing that Lewis was no longer teaching at Valley Catholic.
The sequence is documented, but the causal chain has to be stated carefully. Lewis’s account and the campaign’s own “thanks to our advocacy” language support the conclusion that the group sought to influence the school and claimed credit after her departure. They do not, by themselves, prove what the school’s decision-makers considered, whether they relied on the campaign, or whether other internal reasons existed. Valley Catholic did not answer The Intercept’s request for comment.
What the posts show, and what they do not
There is a real basis for criticism of some of Lewis’s posts. She shared material about the October 7 attack and the conduct of the Israeli military. She used provocative language about Hamas, Israel, Zionism, and the war. Her own fundraising statement acknowledges that she posted a sarcastic line about Hamas’s military capacity and that StopAntisemitism objected to a shared Haaretz report concerning the killing of Israeli civilians. A reader can regard those posts as ill-judged, inflammatory, or wrong.
That is different from the campaign’s broader claims. The public campaign did not establish that Lewis taught students to hate Jews. It did not show a classroom lesson, assignment, disciplinary complaint, or student account demonstrating that she brought these views into instruction. It did not produce the evidence for the claim that she called on Hamas to destroy Israel. It treated criticism of the Israeli state, discussion of Zionism, and an allegation about military conduct as proof of a personal disposition and then as proof of a threat to children.
The distinction is not a technical defense of every post. Antisemitism is real, and a teacher’s public statements can reasonably prompt a school to ask whether students will be safe and respected. A school is allowed to investigate. The record available here shows no public investigation, finding, or local complaint. It shows an outside pressure campaign that supplied its own conclusion and its own action mechanism.
The campaign also folded a factual dispute into a moral diagnosis. The Hannibal Directive is a contested subject involving Israeli military policy and particular events on October 7. Lewis shared a report about it. Whether a reader accepts that report, rejects it, or thinks the evidence is incomplete does not settle whether Lewis hates Jews. The accusation moved from “she shared a disputed claim” to “she is a danger to students” without publishing the intermediate proof.
The cost of being searchable
The material consequences were immediate. Lewis lost her school position after five years, according to her account to The Intercept. She continued teaching privately, but the school job and the studio were not interchangeable. One was an institutional post with a community and a regular wage. The other depended on families deciding that they wanted to place their children with her while search results carried the word “antisemite.”
Her business page became part of the campaign’s evidence trail. The online posts named her, located her, and directed attention toward her employer. Lewis says she received violent threats and filed a police report. No cited source ties a particular threat sender to StopAntisemitism, and it would be wrong to attribute every later message to the organization. The campaign did, however, create the predictable exposure that follows when a worker’s name, workplace, photograph, and alleged danger to children are published alongside a mass contact request.
In 2025, Lewis sued StopAntisemitism and associated defendants. The reported claims include defamation, invasion of privacy, interference with a work contract, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. The defendants argued that their statements were accurate or constitutionally protected judgments. A lawsuit is not a finding that Lewis was defamed, and a motion to dismiss is not a finding that the campaign was accurate. The unresolved legal question is whether the specific wording crossed the line from protected advocacy and opinion into actionable false statements.
The system around the accusation
StopAntisemitism’s campaign worked because it translated a political judgment into an employment message. “Antisemitism” named a serious form of hatred. “Grave threat to the safety and well-being of your students” converted that name into an institutional duty. The prewritten email removed the need for a local parent, colleague, or student to explain an actual incident. A recipient could be told that the teacher was dangerous first and asked to investigate later.
The employer faced an asymmetric choice. Defending a teacher publicly could invite more attention. Saying nothing left the online record uncontested. Ending a contract could be described as routine nonrenewal while also satisfying the campaign. That structure does not require a conspiracy. It requires only an organization that knows which words make an institution cautious and which channels make a private employee visible.
Lewis responded by preserving the parts of her life the label excluded. She pointed people toward her students, her studio, and her music. Her public fundraising page asks supporters to listen to her work and documents her version of the chronology. The response is not a claim that every post was wise. It is an insistence that a political disagreement should not be allowed to erase a vocational record.
What the record establishes: work, pressure, loss
Susan Lewis was a music teacher and studio owner with a long teaching history, a substantial student community, and a parallel career as a musician. StopAntisemitism published a campaign against her in August 2024, used severe language about her alleged views, and urged people to contact Valley Catholic. Lewis lost her school position and later reported threats. The organization claimed credit for the employment outcome. She filed a lawsuit, and the defendants disputed her legal theories.
Nothing in the cited material demonstrates that Lewis taught antisemitism, endangered students, called for Hamas to destroy Israel, or endorsed hatred of Jews. The school’s reason for ending the relationship is likewise not disclosed beyond the timing and the accounts of the parties. Those are not small omissions. They are the difference between an accusation being investigated and an accusation becoming the explanation.
What remains uncertain
The school’s internal reasoning has not been made public. The full set of Lewis’s posts, rather than the selected examples in the campaign, would be needed to assess their meaning in context. The court proceedings may test whether the campaign’s descriptions were factual assertions, opinion, or a mixture of both. The outcome is not known here.
Lewis’s public record still contains the more complete outline: a teacher, a studio owner, a musician, and a person whose political speech became the basis for an employment campaign. The unresolved questions are serious, but they do not turn a selected set of posts into a complete account of her work with students. That ordinary scale is where this file ends.
Sources and provenance
- The Intercept, “StopAntisemitism Takes Credit for Getting Hundreds Fired.”
- StopAntisemitism, “Corrupting the Classroom, Part III.”
- Susan Lewis Music Studio, public student and parent reviews.
- Vinton Messenger, “Thriving Susan Lewis Music Studio hosts three Spring Recitals.”
- Susan Lewis, “Support Sue Lewis in Her Fight for Justice,” public fundraising statement.
Editorial note: Lewis file
This essay reports a disputed employment and defamation matter. It distinguishes the organization’s allegations, Lewis’s account, reported institutional responses, and facts independently visible in the cited record. It does not treat the existence of criticism, or the filing of a lawsuit, as proof of either side’s complete case.
