Antisemitism and the Teachers Union - Greenblatt WSJ oped

Anti-Israel and anti-American radicals have set college campuses afire in the past two years. In too many places, they turned quads into combat zones, harassed Jewish students in dorms, and shut down debate in classrooms. Now we have a new, even more terrifying problem: The radicals are turning their sights on K-12 classrooms.

Last week the National Education Association used its annual conference to adopt a measure that effectively prevents the union’s members from “using, endorsing or publicizing” any educational materials created by the Anti-Defamation League, one of the oldest and leading Jewish organizations in America. For decades ADL curricula has been the gold standard for helping students understand and navigate the complex issues of bigotry and prejudice. Our peer-reviewed programs have helped educators instruct pupils about how bias can grow and mutate over time if left unchecked. We developed our Holocaust education offering, “Echoes and Reflections,” in collaboration with Yad Vashem in Jerusalem and the USC Shoah Foundation. It offers lessons on the Holocaust and its eternal resonance for all people.

One of our main educational offerings, “No Place for Hate,” is a student-led program used in more than 2,000 schools across the U.S. every year. Through classroom content and extracurricular activities, the program offers a message of inclusion that is entirely apolitical. It’s designed solely to bring students together to better understand the differences that too often divide us. Against this backdrop, the NEA’s move is both insidious and vindictive. This wasn’t about the ADL. It was a clear and unambiguous statement to Jewish educators, parents and children: You don’t count. And it perversely takes this stance at a time when anti-Jewish hate is skyrocketing.

Their problem with ADL is that we are unwilling to stay silent in the face of a historic outbreak of antisemitism. We are also unwavering in our Zionism, a commitment to the right of the Jewish people to self-determination in their ancestral homeland. This is a value most Jewish-Americans share and the position held by every president since Harry Truman recognized the Jewish state 11 minutes after it was declared in 1948.

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Again, this isn’t a debate over materials. It’s about meaning. It’s an attempt to erase Jewish experience from the conversation. “Allowing the ADL to determine what constitutes antisemitism would be like allowing the fossil-fuel industry to determine what constitutes climate change,” said one NEA delegate. This is perverse logic. Just as the NAACP should have a say in what constitutes racism, and the AFL-CIO should weigh in on whether a policy is antiworker, for more than a century ADL has been respected for determining what constitutes antisemitism.

The good news is that the Jewish community isn’t sitting idle. Hundreds of organizations, from large national bodies to small individual synagogues, published a communal letter this week. They come from across the political spectrum and represent all points on the denominational continuum. This incident has united these groups in rare consensus, standing together to condemn the NEA decision.

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https://www.wsj.com/opinion/antisemitism-and-the-teachers-union-education-students-k-12-44cd1fa7?st=c6FVpW&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

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Mr. Greenblatt is CEO and National Director of the Anti-Defamation League.