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‘We’re Jewish schoolteachers — our union’s vote against the ADL attacks us too’
The following is an excerpt from a powerful op-ed by teachers Rebecca Kotok and Brenda Green in the NY Post.
As veteran public school teachers and longtime members of the National Education Association teachers’ union, we believe deeply in the transformative power of education — to inspire empathy, build bridges and create safer, more inclusive communities.
That’s why we were appalled by the NEA’s recent decision to adopt a measure that would prohibit use of educational materials from the Anti-Defamation League.
The ADL’s “No Place for Hate” program, a student-led program aimed at fostering schools free from hate and bias, has been implemented in more than 2,000 schools across the country.
It has made a measurable, positive impact on school climate...
The NEA’s move to cut ties with the ADL doesn’t just reject an organization; it sends a message to Jewish students and teachers across the country that their safety and belonging are somehow less important, or worse, politically inconvenient...
We don’t get to cherry-pick which forms of hate are politically palatable to denounce.
We fight them all — or we fail our students.
Meanwhile, the most urgent issues facing teachers remain under-addressed: overcrowded classrooms, stagnant wages, inadequate funding and widening equity gaps.
These are the fights our unions should be waging — loudly and relentlessly.
Instead, this decision to boycott a group that has supported educators and students for decades is a distraction that divides us and weakens our collective moral clarity.
ADL RESOURCES
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Join ADL’s School Action Network: A committed group of parent advocates, dedicated to combating antisemitism in K-12 schools. Through the School Action Network, parents will engage in a series of workshops to deepen their advocacy skills and prepare them to be effective advocates for change. You will be joining parents from across the country who will engage with and learn from each other, and lead advocacy efforts in your own schools and community.
Click here to sign up for the School Action Network.
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Best Practices for Addressing Antisemitism within Unions: If you have experienced antisemitism in your union, you are not alone. This ADL toolkit will empower you to use your voice as a union member to fight back against antisemitism and help strengthen your union by making it a truly inclusive space for all members, uniting members around the issues central to the union’s purpose. Click here for guidance on how to respond.
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Speak up now with ADL! It is shocking and disgraceful that the largest teachers union in the country, the National Education Association, is calling for a boycott of ADL and our decades of education materials and data. This biased and one-sided resolution would keep our vital lessons about antisemitism, about the Holocaust, and about hate, bigotry and bias out of K-12 classrooms. Why is the NEA excluding ADL’s voice at a time of skyrocketing antisemitism?
Click here to tell the NEA Executive Committee members to vote to reject the radical anti-Israel advocates within the NEA who are trying to marginalize Jewish voices.
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Unjust UN Report:
ADL and its affiliate JLens strongly condemn a new report issued by UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese titled “From economy of occupation to economy of genocide.” The report’s extreme recommendations seek to further the goals of the antisemitic Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) campaign. The report even goes so far as to call on governments to investigate and prosecute corporate executives whose companies do business in Israel for so-called complicity in “international crimes and the alleged laundering of related profits.” JLens believes that this is not a serious human rights assessment but rather a politicized attack on the Jewish state and
the businesses that operate within it. ADL’s CEO Jonathan Greenblatt adds that “Francesca Albanese has a long record of antisemitic rhetoric and abuse of her UN platform… Her work undermines human rights and fuels hate, not accountability.” Read more about this biased UN report here.
→ For more on this issue, read ADL’s newly updated article about “Francesca Albanese in Her Own Words.”
Hidden Hate:
In a new report called ‘Coded Hate,’ experts from the ADL Center on Extremism explain how antisemites and other extremists are weaponizing seemingly innocuous phrases, symbols and numbers to promote hate, particularly on mainstream social media platforms where harmful ideologies can reach larger audiences. By doing so, extremists can hide behind plausible deniability and evade content moderation efforts while still boosting antisemitism, racism and other forms of hate. This strategy allows potentially violative content to fly under the radar on mainstream platforms, where moderation safeguards may not pick up on this coded content.
Read the report for a list of innocuous phrases, symbols and numbers that extremists frequently use to spread hate on both fringe and, worryingly, mainstream platforms.
Khamenei ‘In His Own Words’:
The Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has been one of the biggest propagators of anti-Zionist, antisemitic and anti-US rhetoric in recent decades. Following the brutal Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, Khamenei’s inflammatory rhetoric further escalated — reaching new and dangerous heights in both tone and volume. Read examples from Khamenei’s official English X account since 10/7.
‘Safer Social Media’ Workshop for Parents and Educators:
Join ADL experts and representatives from TikTok to gain practical tools and insights to enhance online safety for the young people in your lives. In this important discussion on July 29 at 1 pm ET / 10 am PT, learn more about the current landscape of antisemitism and other forms of online hate and their impact on young people. TikTok platform representatives will demonstrate crucial safety features and privacy tools, offering practical ways to make online life safer and more secure. And get practical strategies for initiating conversations with young people about the risks they face online.
Sign up for this free ADL online workshop.
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A Sunshine State Victory:
In a win for Florida’s Jewish community, the state has signed into law Senate Bill 1678, which strengthens Florida laws against anti-Israel boycotts. ADL joined with Jewish Community Relations Councils and Jewish Federations, AJC and others as part of a coalition of organizations that pushed for the law’s passage. ADL professionals and volunteer leaders advocated alongside coalition partners in Tallahassee to ensure that the law made it across the finish line. ADL’s staff also provided policy suggestions for the bill.
The bill expands Florida’s 2016 anti-BDS statute, which previously only applied to commercial entities. It now includes public universities, K–12 school districts, teachers’ unions and nonprofits. SB 1678 responds to increasing antisemitic activity and aims to ensure that state funds are not directed to entities participating in discriminatory boycotts against the Jewish state.
BACKGROUND: Read an ADL breakdown on antisemitic incidents in Florida last year, and the growing number of those incidents that are Israel-related.
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