Jewish organizations united to urge the National Education Association against severing its ties with the Anti-Defamation League.
The NEA received a letter from 378 Jewish organizations discouraging the NEA Executive Committee from following through with last week’s vote on the ADL curriculum. Members voted to stop using, endorsing, or publicizing “any materials from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), such as its curricular materials or its statistics.”
This vote comes four decades after the ADL began sharing a curriculum on the Holocaust with the NEA, along with anti-hate and antisemitism training, which members also voted the “NEA will not participate in.” Every year, the ADL publishes statistics on antisemitism.
In the letter, allies of the ADL expressed their concern that the vote, referred to as NBI 39, would boycott the ADL’s “anti-hate education” for teachers.
“It is our belief that the goal of those who introduced NBI 39 is to marginalize mainstream Jewish voices within this country’s public school systems and to limit the ability of educators to address the growing threat of antisemitism with their students,” the letter reads.
NEA President Rebecca Pringle and ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt discussed the vote in a meeting before the letter was sent on Monday. They are committed to “continu[ing] discussions,” per an ADL press release.
“Antisemitism is a very real and urgent problem in this country and throughout the world. It is an insidious hate and cancer,” Pringle said in a statement. “NEA is committed to combating this hate in our classrooms, on our campuses, and in our communities.”
Pringle made it clear that the NEA does not have a “partnership” with the ADL.
BARNARD SETTLES WITH JEWISH STUDENTS AFTER PRO-PALESTINIAN PROTESTS
Last year, the NEA meeting in Philadelphia was met with protests ahead of a vote to align NEA with boycott, divestment, and sanction initiatives on Israel. The proposal was rejected.
Pro-Palestinian movements had previously tried to gain steam within the NEA, the largest teachers union in the United States, with over 3 million elementary and secondary school teachers. Another failed proposal wanted members to vote to “support the Palestinian struggle” in 2021.