A School Psychologist’s Stand on Zionism and Antisemitism

As a full professor, department chair, and former journal editor, I have been fortunate to have had success as an academic. For example, my research, broadly focused on bringing social justice principles into practice, has been widely cited in my field of school psychology. Early in my career, researching social justice was largely taboo. Along with others, I pushed ahead, considering it a small triumph when I would pass strangers at conferences and see them mouth the words “social justice” as they tracked who I was. By the late 2010s, social justice research had become more mainstream, to the point that my field created a definition of social justice, established a standing social justice committee, and began to incorporate social justice principles into their professional documents. I feel proud about my contributions—I care deeply about core social justice principles such as equity, cultural humility, and working to disrupt oppressive systems.

While I regularly talked about how my Jewish identity was central to my desire to focus on social justice, my impression is that many of my colleagues either never noticed this or did not take that part of my identity very seriously. As antisemitism increased and antizionism took deeper root, I began to speak up. This commenced in earnest in May 2021 when my daughter was in Israel, and I was shocked by how many people in social justice spaces seemed fine with Israeli citizens being bombed and with using social justice language to cheer on terrorist groups intent on genocide. I started to make clear in public and private that I am a Zionist, that I support the right of Israel to exist and for Jews to live safely and self-govern in their indigenous land. I do not think that these views should be particularly controversial or are in any way inconsistent with being associated with social justice. For example, like everyone I know in social justice circles I believe in indigenous rights, so of course I feel that indigenous rights apply to my own people.

Cue the professional betrayal. I am not so arrogant to presume that I am a big enough deal in my field for people to pay close attention to what I  say–on Israel, antisemitism, or anything else. However, as I spoke up more, the soft signs of change were apparent. People, especially younger people in social justice circles, were starting to distance themselves from me. After October 7, this intensified. I’ll spare the long story rundown, but in the United States, my field of school psychology has experienced largely the same fault lines and behaviors as evidenced  in so many other professions. For example, some social justice experts so capable of nuanced thought and critical reflection in other contexts began parroting Hamas talking points in public forums. I left a committee in the main organization in my field after it became apparent that they would not call October 7 a terrorist attack in a guidance document aimed at supporting Jewish and Muslim students (why neither Muslim students nor Jewish students were deemed worthy of their own guidance document is a topic for another column). My first published work on addressing antisemitism in schools, published in December 2023, was met with outrage and protest, ostensibly because I supported the IHRA definition of antisemitism endorsed by the broader global Jewish community. On social media, my wife, daughter and I (we co-authored the article) were called all kinds of names alongside some not-so-subtle antisemitic comments. Professionally, a subsequent “Letter to the Editor” (I have never seen a “Letter to the Editor” in this publication before or since) was published in which six non-Jewish and two antizionist Jewish authors chastised us for a lack of cultural humility and critical reflection and proceeded—without any apparent sense of irony—to claim the right to define both antisemitism and Zionism for Jews.

The kicker came when in February 2024, at my field’s national conference, a friend took me aside and relayed comments that they had been hearing about me from anonymous “social justice colleagues.” These comments had two parts. The first was that I was talking about antisemitism too much. The second was that I was defining antisemitism incorrectly.

Into the looking glass we go. A central idea of social justice discourse in my field is to give the greatest weight to individuals experiencing oppression when it comes to defining and seeking to understand that form of oppression (e.g., one should give greatest weight to the LGBTQ+ community in seeking to define and understand homophobia). This is not only a culturally affirming practice, but frankly common sense. But when it came to Jews and antisemitism, this core idea was being kicked to the curb. We were now past the “soft signs” stage—it was increasingly clear that the ground was rapidly shifting underneath me. For years I had considered myself welcome in and have valued my participation in social justice spaces in my field. Now, I realized that to stay in the good graces of many in this group, I would have to be the “right” kind of Jew, the kind of Jew who either is an antizionist or who is willing to throw his own values and people under the bus to be accepted. I am a people-pleaser—but I was never going to do that.

A Career Turn: Finding Jewish Community and Focusing on Supporting Jewish Students

This story has a happy ending. While I do feel hurt by some people I once considered either personal friends or at least friendly colleagues, I have not been totally shunned in my field. Sure, some people will not work with me, but many wonderful people in the social justice space will and do. My longtime professional friends have largely stood by me.

Most importantly, this experience has changed me for the good. First, I worry much less about how I am perceived professionally (having tenure certainly helps). That has been both scary and liberating. How much better my professional life would have been if I learned that lesson earlier! Second, I am focusing more on being in community with other Jewish school psychologists, allies, and Jewish faculty in other fields. Along with several friends, I launched an unofficial group of Jewish school psychologists and allies that now numbers about 100 people. We have been advocating for change in our field, presenting at conferences, starting research initiatives, holding monthly zoom drop-in sessions, and have recently created a student subgroup.

I have shifted my research energies so that now at least half of my research time—and growing—is focused on topics related to supporting Jewish youth, increasingly involving partnership with major Jewish organizations. I became a Faculty Fellow of the Academic Engagement Network, which unlocked participation in conferences, zoom meetings, and text chains with other Jewish faculty and allies who care about what is happening to Jewish students. I also am now a faculty affiliate of the Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism at Indiana University. For the first time, I am in professional communities where I can be my full religious and cultural self, and this is accepted. It is difficult  to convey fully what a profound positive difference this has made, both personally and professionally.

As my professional time and energies are shifting, I’ve become a part of a supportive Jewish professional community that I never really had and hadn’t realized how much I needed. I, of course, still believe in social justice and continue to do research in this area, but I am not willing to put aside my Jewish values and community to fit in with the broader social justice crowd, particularly with those who apply social justice principles to everyone except Jews. All I can do is be myself and do my part to support social justice in all forms, including ways that social justice impacts my own people.