_edited.png)
NEA JAC Statement on ADL Report on Antisemitism in U.S. Teachers Unions
Updated: 14 hours ago
"My union has made me feel isolated, bothered, and [it has] perpetuated a hostile environment where antisemitism has flourished through microaggressions. This is the first time in 26 years of teaching that I have been so acutely aware of my Jewish identity at work.”
This is one of many experiences documented in the Anti-Defamation League's new report, Antisemitism in U.S. Teachers Unions. The findings are alarming. Nearly three-quarters of Jewish respondents reported feeling a need to self-censor in union spaces, while majorities raised concerns about inconsistent enforcement of anti-harassment standards, exclusion from union participation, and the treatment of Jewish and Zionist identity.
For the NEA Jewish Affairs Caucus, these findings are painful, but they are not surprising. Jewish educators across the country have been telling us versions of these stories for years, including how often their advocacy for their own safety and inclusion is dismissed behind accusations of trying to silence criticism of Israel.
We want to be equally clear about what this is—and is not—about. Criticizing government policy is not synonymous with any form of hate. All governments should be held to the same standard and held accountable when deserved. But holding a government accountable is not the same as holding a people accountable for that government. Criticism of Israeli policy cannot become permission to marginalize Jews, erase Jewish history and peoplehood, use Jewish identity as a slur, characterize Jewish refugees as colonizers or white supremacists, or demand that Jewish educators renounce a connection to their homeland in order to belong in progressive or union spaces.
Nor should Jewish educators have to prove that their experiences of hostility, exclusion, or harassment are legitimate before they are taken seriously. Too often, the standards of inclusion applied to other communities seem to shift when Jews are the ones asking to be heard.
That is unacceptable. Our caucus believes that inclusion must be for everyone in our union, even and especially when differing views on controversial topics make communication challenging.
Thankfully, there are educators and union leaders choosing to confront these problems rather than deny them. In Colorado, members with sharply different views on Israel and Palestine have worked together to condemn antisemitism and Islamophobia and to find language recognizing the dignity and safety of both communities. At the national level, NEA leaders have begun engaging with Jewish members around concerns about participation, safety, and belonging.
Those efforts do not erase the experiences documented in this report. They show that another path is possible.
What comes next cannot be defensiveness, dismissal, or another argument over whether Jewish educators are sufficiently harmed for others to care. It must include serious listening, consistent enforcement of anti-harassment and nondiscrimination standards, meaningful education on how antisemitism presents today, and room for political disagreement without turning Jewish educators into proxies for the Israeli government or shifting our union’s focus away from its mission. All 2.8 million members of the NEA need our unions to return to what they were built for—protecting our bargaining rights and our workplace conditions first. The ADL report should be treated as a warning. Jewish members are telling the labor movement that something is wrong. The question now is whether our unions will listen. The NEA Jewish Affairs Caucus will continue to speak clearly about anti-Jewish hatred while working with those willing to confront it.
We believe our unions can do better. We also believe they must.
