Teachers Unions Helping Antisemitism Gain Foothold In Public Schools

The union’s Education for Peace initiative guides educators in facilitating Israel-related dialogue through an online resource, Learning for Justice. The program contains “ready to use” lesson plans smearing Israel, along with links to organizations such as TeachPalestine and TeachMideast. For example, a video from the anti-Israel group Jewish Voice for Peace features Palestinians speaking about life under “Israeli occupation” alongside progressive Jews “grappling” with Zionism. Depicting an “Israeli settlement” bus route, the TeachMideast map dubbed “visualizing Palestine” is a chilling image given the recent surge of attacks on Israeli buses.

The behavior exhibited by national unions is emboldening school districts to adopt troublesome “culturally inclusive” curricula, often depicting Israelis as colonists. Reporting for CAMERA, Steven Stotsky notes that Massachusetts teachers unions are proposing an ethnic studies model similar to the one passed in California. A bill authorizing ethnic studies instruction in schools is under consideration in the Massachusetts legislature, with five Boston area schools piloting the lesson plans.

Last year, New York congressman and Republican candidate for governor Lee Zeldin requested that the Department of Education investigate anti-Semitism in New York City public schools after a cohort known as NYC Educators for Palestine called on teachers to follow the lead of other unions and support the BDS movement.

Educators forced to defend their Jewish identity include a 30-year veteran of the Department of Education who was told by a colleague, “you better check yourself” after sharing her family’s experience during the Holocaust. Yet unlike teachers, children lack the luxury of easily relocating when faced with antisemitism.

Perhaps most disturbing is the organizational response by some Jewish groups. Fox News recently reported that the ADL is peddling intersectional material steeped in critical race theory, along with praise for antisemitic activists, to thousands of educators. While it pledged to review its educational manual, the ADL is the most prominent example of Jewish institutional indifference to ethnic studies.

Following CAMERA’s revelation that Newton, Massachusetts high school students were being fed a one-sided diet of anti-Israel propaganda, Karen Hurvitz reported that the Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC), the American Jewish Committee (AJC) and the ADL issued perfunctory statements of alarm or expressed “mild definitional concern” about such educational guidelines.

Interestingly, some of these same institutions lobby against school choice. Their efforts will effectively prevent Jewish youth from finding refuge from a hostile learning environment.

While incidents of Jew-hatred aimed at young adults at universities are painful to digest, these acts of aggression will soon impact an even younger cohort should teachers unions and the Jewish groups supporting them continue their dual objectives of bolstering ethnic studies and removing school choice.