Nearly three-quarters of Jewish members of teachers’ unions say they have censored themselves in union spaces because of anti-Jewish and anti-Israel hostilities, according to a new Anti-Defamation League report.
The report, released on Thursday, is based on a survey of 307 Jewish teachers’ union members in 24 states, as well as focus groups. Respondents were primarily current and retired K-12 teachers.
Among those surveyed, 73.6% reported feeling they had to censor themselves in teachers’ union spaces due to hostility against Jews, Zionists and Israel, and 47.6% said they had curbed their involvement in some union activities due to the hostility.
“Teachers’ unions were built on the promise of solidarity, fairness and dignity for every worker,” Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO and national director of the ADL, stated.
“This report makes clear that this promise is being broken for Jewish educators across the country,” he said. “What we found is not the work of a few bad actors. It is a structural and cultural failure.”
The report found that 53.4% of respondents said their unions had inconsistently enforced anti-harassment policies in cases involving Jews or Zionists over the past year. Nearly 52% said they had witnessed instances in which the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attacks of Oct. 7 were whitewashed or denied, while 43.7% said their unions had provided platforms to speakers who justified violence against Jews or Israel.
More than a third of respondents, 36.5%, said they had been accused of being “baby killers,” “genocide supporters” or “colonizers.” Another 36.8% said they had encountered union members justifying Hamas’s actions, while 27.8% said they had encountered comparisons between Jews or Zionists and Nazis.
The report also found that 73.3% of respondents strongly or somewhat agreed that their unions’ statements about the war in Gaza were problematic because they failed to condemn the Oct. 7 attacks or Hamas. Sixty-eight percent said calls within their unions to sever ties with mainstream Jewish organizations were problematic.
Among Jewish union members who considered the treatment of Jews, Zionists or Israel in their unions problematic and reported their concerns to leadership, 69.1% said they were “not at all satisfied” with the response.
Another 15.2% said they were “a little satisfied,” 12.9% were “somewhat satisfied” and 2.8% were “very satisfied.” None said they were “extremely satisfied.”
The findings come amid continuing tensions over Israel and antisemitism within teachers’ unions. At the National Education Association’s Representative Assembly in July, delegates adopted measures addressing Jewish education and other concerns raised by the union’s Jewish Affairs Caucus. Jewish organizations, including the ADL, welcomed the steps while saying they did not reflect the experiences of all Jewish educators in their local unions.
