30-03-2025
Opinion/Guest column: MTA must stop antisemitic bias
With more than 117,000 members in 400 local associations throughout Massachusetts, the Massachusetts Teachers Association is a prominent and influential force in the commonwealth's public education system. For more than a decade, the MTA has allowed and promoted the dissemination of defamatory material maligning people of Jewish faith and the sovereign state of Israel.
The Jewish War Veterans Department of Massachusetts condemns the MTA's distribution of biased pedagogical materials based on foreign-generated falsehoods and propaganda, its perpetuation of antisemitic bias in commonwealth schools, and its consistently inadequate responses to legitimate concerns of the Jewish community.
Since being established in 1869, Jewish War Veterans of the USA has battled discrimination in all forms with the same vigor, commitment, motivation and selflessness demonstrated by the hundreds of thousands of Jewish Americans who have served and continue to serve in our nation's armed forces and conflicts dating back to the Revolutionary War.
It is in this spirit — and to honor all military service members — that JWV fights antisemitism, especially in its most insidious form: from institutions entrusted with educating our children.
The MTA must be held accountable for using its prominence and influence as a 'bully pulpit' to spread falsehoods, bias and antisemitic rhetoric. Examples of the MTA's perfidy are plentiful and troubling:
The MTA endorsed and distributed in Newton Public Schools (2011–2019) a curriculum containing content sourced from Saudi and Qatari channels. The curriculum features false narratives about Israel and Islamic history, and cloaks virulent antisemitic propaganda in a veil of 'pedagogical content.'
Despite receiving numerous complaints about the biased curriculum, the MTA and the Newton School Committee repeatedly failed to acknowledge or address the serious and legitimate concerns raised by parents, students and community leaders.
Recent findings of the American Jewish Committee reveal that the MTA continues to fuel anti-Israel sentiment by organizing workshops on 'anti-Palestinian racism' and distributing antisemitic flyers thinly disguised as educational resources.
MTA leaders pay lip service to calls for change: Most recently during President Max Page's dismissive testimony before the Massachusetts Legislature's Special Commission on Combating Antisemitism on Feb. 10 ('Discussion on Countering Antisemitism in K-12 Education').
Holding the MTA accountable for disseminating antisemitic propaganda in Massachusetts public schools isn't just a 'Jewish matter." Because it concerns the education of allour children, it demands a response by all Massachusetts residents and our elected officials.
We call upon our elected representatives in the commonwealth government to quickly and decisively address and correct the MTA's misconduct. Until the organization reverses its anti-Jewish policies, we urge legislators to sever formal ties with the MTA.
Upon joining the military, every service member vows 'to protect and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and to bear true faith and allegiance to the same.'
Bearing true faith and allegiance to the same demands that we identify and seek to fix injustices — especially when an institution entrusted with educating our youth indoctrinates them instead. In demanding accountability for the MTA's deleterious dogma, members of the JWV Department of Massachusetts muster our fellow veterans and service members, community leaders and elected officials to join this important battle.
Sydney L. Davis Jr., U.S. Navy retired, is commander of Jewish War Veterans Brookline-Newton Post 211. Bruce R. Mendelsohn, U.S. Army honorable discharge, is interim commander of the Col. Irving Yarock Jewish War Veterans Post 32 in Worcester.
This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: Opinion/Guest column: MTA must stop antisemitic bias
