Teachers unions are fueling anti-Israelism. Here’s how

We Jews tend to have a deep appreciation for the role of teachers in our children’s lives. We want teachers to be adequately compensated and held up as role models. This is why it is so bewildering for many of us to reckon with the fact that many teachers unions have been captured by radical actors and have become vehicles for the spread of illiberal ideology and anti-Israel activism.

A casual observer might be surprised to learn that both the National Education Association (NEA) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) had the Israel-Hamas war front and center during their conventions this year. And they might be surprised that a concerted effort by activists has introduced radical, anti-Israel and antisemitic curricula and teacher training in K-12 schools across the country.

Where does all this hostility toward Israel come from? There has been for decades a concerted effort to establish a radical progressive agenda within teachers unions and associations that has conditioned teachers to be advocates for a simplistic oppressed-oppressor binary. Teachers unions such as the NEA and AFT have jumped on the “anti-racism” bandwagon. The NEA adopted Tema Okun’s White Supremacy Culture framework, which holds that “white supremacy culture” upholds “negative” values of “objectivity,” “worship of the written word”, “perfectionism” and “either/or thinking.”

The embrace of such binary oppressed-oppressor thinking has dire consequences for Jews and perceptions of Israel, as we’ve seen on full display since October 7th.

A network of progressive left organizations and activists are influencing unions to further their political agenda. In early July, the NEA was to hold votes on several resolutions hostile to Israel. These efforts were ended only by an unrelated NEA staff strike that brought the convention to a halt. The resolutions were publicized by “Educators for Palestine,” a group within the NEA.

At the AFT convention, seven resolutions on Israel, including a resolution against the “weaponization of antisemitism” to defend Israel were suggested but ultimately, for procedural reasons, not brought to the floor.

The Foundation for Defense of Democracies gives the example of Tania Kappner, an eighth-grade history and English teacher in the Oakland Unified School District, who is a member of Equal Opportunity Now/By Any Means Necessary and is standing for election to the NEA executive committee.

BAMN describes itself as a coalition ‘to defend affirmative action, integration, and immigrant rights’ by “any means necessary.” It states, “Our movement fights for open borders, for a definition of citizenship that says if you live here, work here, go to school here, contribute to this society, you are a citizen and should have full citizenship rights.”

BAMN is also preoccupied with Palestine. On October 15, 2023, BAMN published a statement declaring, “Victory to the Palestinian Struggle! By any means necessary, end the genocidal Israeli invasion and occupation of Gaza.” The document calls to “Renew the Palestinian intifada.” BAMN argues that “Zionists must either stand with the oppressed and defenders of democracy, or be recognized as oppressors and enemies of democracy.”

BAMN also had representatives at the AFT who are standing for leadership roles. Yvette Felarca, a representative of the BAMN caucus at the AFT and national organizer for BAMN, gave a speech at the AFT convention in which she claims that President Biden and Vice President Harris “normalize American Fascism” through their support of Netanyahu and Israel. She calls for the AFT to lead unions in the broader struggle of a liberation movement.

Groups like BAMN and Educators for Palestine use the unions as vehicles to push for a political agenda. These groups are supported by a cadre of activist organizations outside of the teachers unions that help them formulate and promote their agendas

For example, the Portland Association of Teachers used materials from an organization called Teaching While Muslim.

In its school and educator resources on Palestine, Teaching While Muslim shares an infographic on “why schools should reject the ADL.” Israel is surrounded in quotation marks or otherwise only referred to as the “Zionist entity.”

The NEA sponsored the annual “Teach Truth Day of Action” event run by Rethinking Schools and the Zinn Education Project.

Rethinking Schools and the Zinn Education Project have published explicitly anti-Israel material including an article titled “Israel’s War on Gaza Is Also a War on History, Education, and Children,” which asserts a connection between Israel’s “settler-colonial” policies and the United States.

Teachers unions have nurtured an ideological environment in which teachers have been primed to embrace all manner of ideological claims of oppressed versus oppressors as irrefutable truths. This same skewed logic is applied to the Israel-Palestinian conflict.

This process is supercharged by motivated anti-Israel activists who care more about their political objectives than your children’s education. Jewish parents had better get active in their kids’ schools and run for school board, lest we wake up one day and find the education system completely inhospitable to Jewish children.