Jonathan Greenblatt
WSJ, July 15, 2025
“… this isn’t a debate over materials. It’s about meaning. It’s an attempt to erase Jewish experience from the conversation.”
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. ….SOURCE