Jewish organizations are pushing back after the nation’s largest teachers’ union voted to cut ties with the Anti-Defamation League.
A letter from 375 civil rights groups, synagogues, museums and foundations urged National Education Association President Becky Pringle to combat “the growing level of antisemitic activity” within the union by squelching New Business Item 39.
The item passed July 6 by delegates to the NEA Representative Assembly would prevent the union from using or endorsing ADL educational materials, which focus on antisemitism and the Holocaust. The measure must still be cleared by the union’s executive committee.
“The effort to exclude ADL’s voice from educational spaces at a time of skyrocketing antisemitism — including in K-12 classrooms — speaks volumes about the climate within NEA that allowed this measure to pass, and the lack of understanding, if not outright hostility, behind it,” reads the Monday letter led by the ADL.
Those signing the letter include the Combat Antisemitism Movement, the Jewish Federations of North America, Hillel International, the Simon Wiesenthal Center, StandWithUs and the Zionist Organization of America, as well as Jewish congregations and synagogues.
“Excluding ADL’s gold-standard educational resources is not just an attack on our organization — it’s a dangerous attack on the entire Jewish community,” ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said in a statement. “We urge the NEA Executive Committee to reverse this biased, fringe effort, and reaffirm its commitment to supporting all Jewish students and educators.”
Backing the business item was the recently approved NEA caucus Educators for Palestine and delegates who argued that the ADL materials that support Israel are biased against the Palestinian cause.
The vote came as a boost to pro-Palestinian organizations like the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which has leveraged the measure’s passage to push other groups to shun the ADL.
The council’s New Jersey chapter urged the State Board of Education, local school boards and the state teachers’ union to end any formal or informal partnerships with the league, accusing the pro-Israel group of promoting a “racist approach to justice movements involving Palestinian human rights advocacy.”
The vote came with anti-Israel and antisemitic activity on the rise on campuses following the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on southern Israel in which 1,200 civilians were killed and more than 200 others were take hostage.
“Why is the NEA excluding ADL’s voice from educational spaces at a time of skyrocketing antisemitism?” the ADL said in an email blast. “The answer is clear: for a group of pro-Hamas activists inside NEA, their problem with ADL is our belief in the right of Israel to exist. Nothing less, nothing more.”
Ms. Pringle insisted after the vote that the union stands against “all forms of hate and discrimination, including antisemitism and anti-Palestinian bigotry.”
She also said there is currently no “partnership” between the NEA and the ADL, although the league said its anti-discrimination materials have been used in classrooms for four decades. They include No Place for Hate, an initiative focused on “bias, bullying, inclusion and allyship,” and Echoes & Reflections, a Holocaust education program that has reached more than 10 million students.
Ms. Pringle said the NEA assembly also featured a panel on combating antisemitism and honored educator and Holocaust survivor Maud Dahme.
“Although NEA currently does not have a partnership with the Anti-Defamation League, the NEA Executive Committee will consider the recommendation from delegates as outlined by our governing rules,” Ms. Pringle said in a July 10 statement. “As such, I will convene the NEA Executive Committee to deliberate. In fact, I already have begun outreach to inform that deliberation, by listening and engaging with a wide group of leaders in the Jewish and civil rights communities.”
Advocacy in Media last week released an undercover video from the 2024 NEA Representative Assembly with an unnamed Jewish teacher who said the union has weaponized diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives against Jews.
He said the NEA is “all about inclusion, diversity, equality, justice, access, and everything unless you’re Jewish,” adding that he stopped wearing his Star of David to avoid being targeted at school.
“It is alarming — but not surprising — that the NEA decided to terminate its relationship with the ADL when antisemitism is at an all-time high,” said Accuracy in Media President Adam Guillette. “The NEA has never been more transparent about its institutional practice of intolerance and antisemitism.”
His organization has called for Congress to revoke the union’s federal charter. The NEA is the only U.S. labor union that operates under a congressional charter, approved in 1906, which makes it a corporation under the District of Columbia.
• Valerie Richardson can be reached at vrichardson@washingtontimes.com.