The largest American teachers’ union, the National Education Association (NEA), voted last weekend to cut institutional ties with the pro-Israel Anti-Defamation League (ADL) of B’nai B’rith. The vote was from 6,000 delegates at the NEA’s 2025 Representative Assembly national convention and it states: “The National Education Association will not use, disseminate, or endorse any ADL materials, such as its curriculum materials or statistics, nor will it participate in its programs or disseminate its professional development offerings.”
During the debate prior to the vote, a teacher from Oakland, Judy Greenspan said, “The ADL is not what it seems.” The Forward, in its coverage said that the vote was clearly prompted by disagreements related to Israel’s actions in Gaza and the sense that “the ADL is not the social justice educational partner it claims to be.”
The ADL is expected to pressure the NEA’s Executive Committee and its Board of Directors to overturn the Assembly’s decision. In an official response, the Anti-Defamation League called the NEA’s endorsement “profoundly disturbing” and officially stated, “We will not be cowed for supporting Israel, and we will not be deterred from our work reaching millions of students with educational programs every year. It is our understanding there’s an internal NEA process that deals with issues like this and it is far from a completed process.”
