Antisemitism in teachers' unions is everyone's problem

There is a mistake Americans repeatedly make when antisemitism appears in one of our institutions. We treat it as if it’s just a Jewish problem. We expect Jewish organizations to respond, Jewish leaders to condemn it and Jewish families to worry about it. Everyone else expresses concern, and then we move on.

That is a dangerous misunderstanding of antisemitism. It is also why Christians, parents and every American should pay attention to what has been happening inside some of our nation's largest teachers' unions.

The North American Values Institute (NAVI) has spent considerable time investigating the National Education Association and American Federation of Teachers. What was found was not simply a few objectionable statements or rogue teachers. The research documented money, partnerships, curriculum, political activism, and relationships with outside organizations that raise serious questions about how far these unions have moved from their fundamental educational missions.

Now Congress is asking some of the same questions. Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Chairman Bill Cassidy recently released a report calling on Congress to reconsider the NEA's federal charter, which dates to 1906 and charges the organization with advancing the teaching profession and promoting education. The Senate report examines the NEA's political spending, activism and relationships with organizations including Rethinking Schools and the Zinn Education Project. Those important specifics matter.

NAVI's examination of federal filings found millions of dollars flowing from the NEA to political and advocacy organizations far removed from what most parents probably imagine when they think about a teachers' union. The spending included significant donations to the Sixteen Thirty Fund and money to organizations within the Tides network. That research received national attention earlier this year and is now part of a much larger conversation about whether teachers' dues are supporting education or an increasingly political agenda. 

The report also documents a longstanding relationship between the teachers' unions and Rethinking Schools, an activist education organization closely connected to the Zinn Education Project. According to NAVI's research, the NEA has provided $113,749 to Rethinking Schools, while both the NEA and AFT co-sponsor the Zinn Education Project’s annual Teach Truth Day of Action, demonstrating that this is not simply a loose association but an ongoing relationship between the nation’s two largest teachers unions and this activist education network. The demands of the Truth Day of Action have included teaching about Palestine and what organizers call the “genocide” in Gaza. Rethinking Schools employees have spoken at NEA events, its materials have been promoted through NEA channels, and the Zinn Education Project is an official partner of the AFT's Share My Lesson platform. 

This isn't guilt by association. These are documented institutional relationships, and the content matters. Rethinking Schools has published classroom materials that explicitly encourage students to see themselves as participants in political and social movements, including a “Teaching the Fight for Queer Liberation” simulation in which students role-play movement activists and debate organizing strategies. The larger concern is not that students learn about controversial movements or ideas; they should. It is whether organizations connected to the nation’s largest teachers unions are teaching students to examine competing ideas critically or encouraging them to see themselves as participants in particular political causes.

Then there is what has happened to Jewish educators themselves. The Senate report cites a 2025 letter from the NEA's own Jewish Affairs Caucus reporting that Jewish members experienced “shunning, harassment and antisemitic comments” at the union's annual assembly. This wasn't an outside conservative organization making an accusation. These were Jewish educators describing their experiences inside the organization that is supposed to represent them. That should concern Christians enormously.

The issue is not whether Christians agree with Jews about Israel. It isn't whether every criticism of Israel is antisemitic; clearly it is not. Nor is the argument that every NEA or AFT member embraces these positions. Millions of teachers belong to these unions, and many undoubtedly disagree profoundly with their leadership.

The question is what happens when powerful institutions entrusted with representing educators and influencing American education become comfortable with political activism, ideological conformity and an environment in which some members believe their Jewish identity or beliefs make them unwelcome.

Antisemitism is particularly instructive because history has repeatedly demonstrated that it is rarely an isolated hatred. It thrives on conspiracy, collective guilt and the belief that people can be assigned moral value based upon their membership to a particular group. Those principles aren't simply anti-Jewish. They are fundamentally anti-American.

America was built around almost precisely the opposite proposition. Our system protects freedom of religion, speech, and association. It recognizes individual dignity. It allows people with profoundly different religious and political beliefs to live together without requiring them to surrender those beliefs to an approved orthodoxy.

Christians should recognize the danger immediately. If an institution can decide that a Jewish teacher's attachment to Israel makes that teacher suspect, why should Christians assume their own deeply held convictions will always remain acceptable? If students can be encouraged toward predetermined political conclusions about one controversial subject, why should parents assume another subject will be treated differently? That is why antisemitism is an early-warning system for something much larger.

Teachers have every right to hold political opinions. They should be free to criticize Israel, support Israel, vote Republican, vote Democratic and disagree with one another. That freedom is part of what makes America. The problem begins when educational institutions stop protecting disagreement and start deciding which beliefs are acceptable and not giving students the opportunity to make decisions on their own. We don’t give students the answers to the math test, and we shouldn’t give them the answers to matters involving history and civics.

Parents cannot outsource responsibility for what happens next. They need to know what their children are being taught, what outside organizations provide curriculum, what professional development teachers receive and whether controversial subjects are presented through evidence and competing perspectives rather than predetermined conclusions.

Christians have another reason to pay attention. The relationship between Christians and Jews carries enormous historical and moral significance. Standing against antisemitism cannot depend upon whether Jews are politically popular or whether Christians agree with every position Jews take.

But this moment requires something more than solidarity. It requires recognizing the warning. When Jews are marginalized inside an institution because they do not conform to its prevailing ideology, the problem will rarely end with the Jews. When educational organizations become comfortable with collective blame, intolerance of dissent and ideological litmus tests, those habits eventually threaten everyone who thinks differently.

America's schools should teach young people to question, examine evidence, encounter disagreement and think for themselves. Teachers should never fear that their religious identity or beliefs make them unwelcome in the organizations supposedly representing them.

You don't have to be Jewish to recognize what is happening. You simply have to care about America.