In the immortal and now dated words of The Monkees, I am a believer. My belief and optimism extend deeply into the work I do every day as an educator, a member of the teachers’ union and a Jewish activist here in the Denver area.  

I believe teachers’ unions are capable of bringing people together across lines of difference. I believe in solidarity and collective bargaining, in the promise of public education and in the resources needed to do my job well. I believe social justice movements have an important place in education and should lead the way for complexity, dialogue and human dignity. 

That is why the “Drop the ADL from Schools” campaign is so fundamentally disturbing.  

This is not simply a disagreement over Middle East politics or a criticism of ADL (the Anti-Defamation League). Criticism of organizations, including Jewish organizations, is healthy and necessary in a democratic society. What is happening here is something deeper and far more insidious: the growing normalization of the idea that mainstream Jewish voices are uniquely illegitimate in educational and activist spaces.  

The slanderous “Drop the ADL” campaign relies on distortions and falsehoods to argue that ADL is not a civil rights organization, an assertion contradicted by more than a century of fighting antisemitism, extremism and hate.  

Last July, the campaign appeared to influence delegates at the National Education Association’s Representative Assembly, who voted to prohibit the union from endorsing, publicizing, or using ADL educational materials. Following an outpouring of concern, including a letter signed by more than 375 organizations, the NEA Executive Committee and Board of Directors declined to implement the boycott, citing concerns about antisemitism, educational freedom, and the union’s responsibility to serve all educators.  

This year, the NEA returned to Denver under very different circumstances. The controversy surrounding the 2025 Representative Assembly hung over the convention, but to the union’s credit, NEA leaders took meaningful steps to ensure Jewish delegates could fully participate without fear of intimidation or harassment. Security was strengthened. Clear procedures were established for reporting threats. Voting was done by paper ballot to protect everyone’s voice. Delegates were reminded that disagreement is part of democracy, but intimidation has no place in a professional union.  

Those actions deserve recognition. They did not resolve every concern facing Jewish educators, but they sent an important message: Jewish delegates belong in this union, deserve to be heard, and deserve to participate without being shouted down or fearing for their safety. That should never be controversial; it should be the minimum standard for any organization that claims to stand for civil rights.  

Importantly, the assembly did not adopt last year’s unsuccessful resolution. 

But better security and paper ballots treat the symptoms, not the disease. They can protect delegates in the room; they cannot address the ideas that put those delegates at risk in the first place. Those ideas live in the language of the “Drop the ADL” campaign itself, and that language deserves the same scrutiny NEA gave its own procedures.  

The rhetoric makes that unmistakably clear. The ADL is accused of “stoking fear among Jews,” “silencing criticism,” “smearing educators,” “weaponizing antisemitism,” and “intimidating schools” through civil rights complaints.  

Think carefully about what those accusations imply. They imply that Jewish fears about antisemitism are manufactured for political gain, and that Jewish organizations raising concerns about discrimination are acting dishonestly. They imply that when Jews advocate for themselves, they are not doing civil rights work like every other marginalized community — they are manipulating. Despite our history, Jews are rarely included in conversations about diversity, equity and inclusion unless inside an anti-Zionist, anti-colonialist framework. No other minority group’s organizations are discussed this way except by racists and bigots.  

When organizations representing Black, Latino, LGBTQ+, Muslim or immigrant communities document discrimination and advocate for accountability, we recognize that as legitimate civil rights work. When Jewish organizations do the same, it becomes “fearmongering” or “intimidation.” That double standard should concern everyone.  

One of the campaign’s most diabolical strategies is to present a politically biased argument, then claim Israel and the “Zionist lobby” use pressure to silence critique. In reality, ADL does what it always does: presents factual information from a wide range of sources to refute the argument. Truth has a way of winning out, and the campaign’s complaints largely fail because they rest on misinformation, propaganda and bias.  

Another troubling tactic is a series of false binaries: either you support Palestinian freedom, or you advocate genocide; either you support intifada, or you support colonialism. This campaign demands allegiance to a position rather than nuance. I’ve studied this conflict most of my adult life, and the one thing it is not is straightforward, yet the campaign asks you to suspend disbelief. I am not arguing ADL is perfect; no organization is. But this campaign doesn’t stop at criticism. It seeks to push a mainstream Jewish organization entirely outside the boundaries of acceptable participation in public education, because ADL reflects mainstream Jewish perspectives that increasingly clash with orthodoxies emerging in activist spaces.  That is not inclusion; it is ideological gatekeeping, and it has real consequences. Jewish educators are afraid to speak in union spaces, and many are leaving. Jewish students report feeling isolated. Many progressives who once felt at home in these movements are now asking whether there is room for them at all.  

The tragedy is that this did not have to happen. Supporting Palestinian dignity and opposing antisemitism are not mutually exclusive. We are capable of holding multiple truths at once, unless ideological movements decide in advance that some communities’ pain matters less than others.  

Teachers’ unions should lead the country toward nuance and democratic dialogue. Instead, too many drift toward purity politics that divide the world into acceptable and unacceptable Jews. That path does not lead toward justice.  

From Baghdad to Bondi, from Dresden to Dearborn, violent attacks on the Jewish community have left us deeply wounded. The “Drop the ADL” campaign wants us to eliminate the leading organization fighting antisemitism. That path leads toward exclusion, and history has repeatedly taught the Jewish people exactly where exclusion eventually leads.   

Josh Hirsch is a public school teacher in the Denver area and the founder of the Colorado Education Association’s Jewish Affairs Caucus.