When Jewish teachers fight back: American Jewish teachers push back against antisemitism - opinion

OCTOBER 31, 2026 00:45I never experienced antisemitism growing up in Colchester, Connecticut.Our school system was a model of democratic education, with Jewish and black teachers and students well represented and fully accepted. My parents were both teachers there in the 1960s. They were also proud members of the Connecticut affiliate of the National Education Association (NEA), the largest teachers’ union in the US.Founded in 1857, the NEA has nearly three million members and exerts a major influence on American public education. The organization has long been lauded for its commitment to civil rights.I was, of course, distressed to hear that this venerable American institution is at the center of a national debate over antisemitism within its own ranks.Those rights have evidently begun to slip when it comes to Jewish teachers and Jewish students.KAREN BLOOM in Denver for the NEA meeting. (credit: COURTESY KAREN BLOOM)With the tsunami of Israel hatred and antisemitism in the US, is it realistic for Jews themselves to put up a fight?Here’s one example of success.My friend Karen Bloom, who teaches mathematics to middle school students in Piedmont, California, was among the leaders of a significant victory in July.Piedmont is a small, independent city entirely surrounded by Oakland, the Bay Area neighbor of notoriously anti-Israel Berkeley, California.Piedmont has its own school district, where Bloom teaches. She lives in Oakland, where anti-Israel activism has also become prominent.Bloom was in Jerusalem this week for Hadassah, the Women’s Zionist Organization of America’s Annual Conference, so I had the chance to talk to her about their victory.First, I was glad to see her safe and sound. Ever since another Hadassah member, also named Karen, was murdered while demonstrating for the release of our Israeli hostages in Boulder, Colorado, last year, I have been worried about our intrepid activists.The Boulder victim was Karen Diamond, 82, who died from injuries sustained in the antisemitic attack on demonstrators in June 2025.Jewish educators at the NEA were intimidated and jeered at when they tried to acknowledge the violent, antisemitic murders in Boulder, Colorado, and Washington, DC.NEA officials didn’t react.Bloom, 56, isn’t even five feet tall, but she’s a fearless state representative to the NEA. She’s been teaching in public schools for most of her adult life, while also helping out at her local synagogue, Temple Beth Abraham, where her husband, Rabbi Mark Bloom, has been the rabbi for a quarter of a century. They have two adult sons, also Zionists.Bloom is also president of Hadassah’s Central Pacific Coast Region and a co-founder of Hadassah’s National Educators Council, which brings together educators of all kinds: teachers, administrators, librarians and school counselors, from public and private, secular and religious schools, both active and retired.Bloom was elected first as a local delegate and later as a California state representative to the NEA Representative Assembly. She first joined the NEA’s Jewish Affairs Caucus around five years ago when it was “mostly for social gatherings.”Then things began changing.Even before Oct. 7, 2023, Bloom became aware of anti-Israel and anti-Jewish leanings among members. In 2022, she worked with the caucus to block one-sided resolutions criticizing Israel. They called out “subversive demonization of Israel and attempts to isolate Jewish teachers.” Their efforts helped defeat many proposed anti-Israel initiatives.Since Oct. 7, the fight has become more intense.In 2024, at the NEA Representative Assembly in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, members of the Educators for Palestine caucus were handing out keffiyehs to delegates, ostensibly inviting conversations about what they called the “genocide in Gaza.”'This is grassroots advocacy at its best'“They were also spewing lies and propaganda,” Bloom said.A keffiyeh-wearing delegate sitting next to Bloom accused Israel of genocide.“Let’s say I wasn’t scared, but I was uncomfortable. I didn’t experience being surrounded by people mocking me as some of my other colleagues did.”The following year, at the NEA Representative Assembly in Portland, Oregon, the confrontation further intensified.On the agenda was a proposal to bar the NEA from using materials developed by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). It would be voted on at the general meeting of some 6,000 delegates, part of what the NEA calls “the world’s largest democratic deliberative body.”“Lies about the ADL were propagated, like them wanting to see all the Palestinians killed.”A voice vote is usually sufficient in such a large room. But the first vote was indecisive, so delegates were asked to stand and wave papers. That was also inconclusive, and they had to repeat the procedure.“It seemed that those for the proposal against the ADL won by a small margin.”Because the proposal amounted to a boycott, however, it had to be referred for further consideration. Ultimately, the NEA’s Board of Directors voted not to implement it.The Jewish caucus had to get better organized.Through her Hadassah Educators Council connections, Bloom was in touch with Jewish educators throughout the country and helped strengthen the Jewish Affairs Caucus into a much stronger coalition of educators and allies.The caucus, chaired by Alyson Brauning, worked with NEA leadership and Jewish communal organizations, including the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, Hadassah, and StandWithUs, to address antisemitism and protect Jewish educators.By July 2026, at the NEA conference in Denver, Bloom and her colleagues were ready to take on the organization’s governing rules.Religion and ethnicity explicitly listed as protected categories against discrimination Their efforts helped secure landmark changes.For the first time in the NEA’s 169-year history, religion and ethnicity were explicitly listed as protected categories against discrimination. Delegates were guaranteed the right to participate in meetings without harassment, intimidation, or exclusionary targeting.New procedures also made it possible to enforce rules against harassment and intimidation, with electronic voting replacing the shouting that had accompanied contentious votes.In addition, the NEA advanced a resolution supporting the recruitment of Jewish American teachers, training to address bullying and hate crimes against Jewish students and educators, and recognition of Jewish American Heritage Month.Delegates also updated the union’s Holocaust resolution to name Jews specifically, recognizing the Holocaust as an attempt to annihilate the Jewish people.Rather than resigning from their union posts in the face of a hostile environment, educators like Bloom and her colleagues in the Jewish Affairs Caucus decided to stay, organize, and successfully write new anti-discrimination protections into the governing documents of America’s largest teachers’ union.“Fighting antisemitism right now can feel risky, exhausting, and never-ending,” Bloom said. “But this year, we know people finally listened.”This is grassroots advocacy at its best.Bloom recommends building relationships, particularly with the leadership, so that you can reach out for support. They need to know the Jewish story and our connection to our ancestral homeland, Israel.“We also realized how important it is to know Robert’s Rules of Order very well and how these formal meetings work.”Which made me think of my late father, who moderated the Colchester Town Meetings where town decisions were made. He conducted them according to Robert’s Rules of Order and knew every detail.My parents would have relished this fight.■ The writer is the Israel director of public relations at Hadassah, the Women’s Zionist Organization of America. Her latest book is A Daughter of Many Mothers, cowritten with Holocaust survivor and premier English-language witness Rena Quint.Follow us on Google