Report: Combatting K-12 Antisemitism Demands Political Action, Not More Lessons About “Hate”
“We can’t fight a political problem with an educational solution,” says a recent report on the antisemitic rot running through K-12 schools.
America’s K-12 schools have an antisemitism problem—one no less concerning than the one wreaking havoc on college campuses. And like its higher ed counterpart, the antisemitic rot in public school education runs deep, driven by activist ideology that has turned the classroom against Western values, America, and Israel.
Today’s antisemitism in K-12 can’t be combatted with more education about “hate” or yet another trip to the Holocaust museum. It is the product of ideological capture, not ignorance, and will demand defeating the forces radicalizing the country’s school systems.
In other words, “We can’t fight a political problem with an educational solution.”
That is the forthright assessment of the North American Values Institute (NAVI) in “When the Classroom Turns Hostile,” a comprehensive report on extremism and antisemitism in K-12 schools.
“A loosely coordinated anti-American and anti-Western ‘red–green alliance’ of radical progressive and Islamist activists is rapidly expanding its influence through aggressive political operations that influence local elections, school boards, and district policy,” the group warns.
The problem begins in the teacher pipeline. Children as young as five are being taught to hate Jews by K-12 teachers who were themselves radicalized in leftist training programs that divide the world into the oppressors and the oppressed. Those teachers then bring their social justice activism into the classroom to indoctrinate students to see the world through the same racialized lens. And in this distorted world, America, the West, and last but not least, Israel and Zionists are the oppressors.
Legal Insurrection readers will recognize the drivers of extremism identified in the NAVI report, covered here over the years, including: teachers unions, foreign influence peddling, and anti-Israel “ethnic studies curricula,” to highlight a few.
Teachers Unions
Teachers unions once defined their mission as representing educators’ professional interests, but that has given way to fighting “perceived systemic oppression.”
And once again, Jews are the oppressors in the politicized narrative. The National Education Association, the largest teacher union in the country, promoted resources that “removed Israel from maps, amplified groups with extremist ties, and circulated narratives that defended the October 7th attacks,” NAVI reports.
At the local level, teacher unions push their political agendas into training and teaching materials. The NAVI report details how the Massachusetts Teachers Association, the largest union in Massachusetts—and a serial offender—escalated antisemitic propaganda following the October 7th Hamas attacks, circulating “deeply antisemitic materials to its approximately 117,000 members – including a poster of a dollar bill formed into the Star of David – and others that appeared to glorify Palestinian terrorism.”
Foreign Influence Peddling
Foreign influence peddling of anti-Israel propaganda in public schools has been linked to Qatar, NAVI reports. Part of the Marxist-Islamist red-green alliance threatening the West, Qatar has covertly sponsored teaching materials to delegitimize the Jewish state. As we covered here, the “Choices Program,” funneled through Brown University, taught millions of high school students across all 50 states that Israel is a “settler-oppressor” and an “apartheid state.” A staple in classrooms for over 35 years, Brown abruptly shut down the program after the watchdog group ISGAP revealed its links to Qatar.
Ethnic Studies
So-called “ethnic studies” curricula are anti-American, anti-Israel political initiatives in the guise of programs to study marginalized groups. In a racialized narrative linked to the red-green alliance, these programs cast Jews as “settler colonialists” and “oppressors.” NAVI reports over 27 states include ethnic studies in one form or another. In the Philadelphia School District, one of the largest in the country: “One lesson asks students to replace the national anthem; another asks them to write a letter in defense of critical race theory.” A third, “Teaching Palestine-Israel from the Perspective of Civil Rights and Black Power Activists,” “conflates complex global conflicts with ideological views of race and racism,” the group says.
The NAVI antisemitism report comes amid a historic academic decline that can no longer be blamed on the COVID shutdowns. Math and reading skills have dropped sharply, “leaving a generation of students less equipped to reason critically, evaluate evidence, or engage constructively with disagreement.”
Seeing how K-12 education is just as ideologically captured as higher ed, it can’t be fixed from within: “the Jewish community’s conciliatory instincts and community relations playbook” will not bear fruit, the report concludes. Those efforts reflect an outdated mindset, in today’s world where “the Jewish community, and the entire civic network that sustains Jewish life, are out of power and facing forces hostile to its interests.”
Instead, Jewish organizations should build new bases of power and take back control from the teacher pipeline, teacher unions, foreign influence peddlers and leftist advocacy groups.
Perhaps then, if K-12 schools would concentrate on teaching children the 3Rs instead of indoctrinating them with the latest social justice fad, academic excellence would be restored. Because, as the report suggests, the solution to antisemitism in K-12 is the same as the solution to antisemitism in higher education: a return to core values—and the meritocracy that once allowed all students, including Jewish students, to flourish.
Full link to “When the Classroom Turns Hostile”: https://navivalues.org/hostileclassroom/
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
Public Ed has tons of anti hate roles on the payroll.
However they are 100% anti semitic villains who hate Israel and as such are full throttle beating the drum for the alphabet and brown skin brigades.
Pete’s First Law: Everything government touches eventually turns to 💩💩💩.
(Don’t argue with me. It’s science.)
Monopolies are bad, public monopolies are worse, and those with public sector union members as employees are even worse still.
If public schools could be thought of as an apple on the teacher’s desk, that apple has thoroughly rotted away and fruit flies now infest the classroom.
And there’s no restoring the luster of days gone by when public schools churned out world class graduates. The current system must be abolished and a new, non-government model established.
In 2025, the North American Values Institute (NAVI) (who authored this paper) changed their name from “Jewish Institute for Liberal Values.”
(In this case “Liberal” means the classical definition of “liberal.”)
NAVI’s core mission is “to empower, train, and support parents in their efforts to promote North American values in K-12 education while combating radical DEI and extreme social justice ideologies.”
It seems odd that NAVI is saying their core mission does not work in the very arena they claim expertise.
That being said, people do not change their views because of politics or political pressure. You cannot legislate antisemitic thoughts out of people.
Only education – moral education – can do so.
.
The political element here seems to be electing a sane school board which is willing to fire Cray Cray Superintendents, Principals, staff and faculty who are steeped in the lefty/wokiesta orthodoxy of tribalism. Unfortunately many voters pay less attention to down ballot campaigns or in many cases ‘off ballot’ campaigns where school board elections take place in spring. This results in vastly lower voter turnout which then significantly boosts the effectiveness of the better organized ‘side’ aka teacher/public employee unions. Until folks show up to vote in local elections in the same numbers as a Presidential election its an uphill climb to get reform.
That’s not what they’re saying. They’re saying that children must be taught correct values, not merely facts. Children who’ve been indoctrinated to hate Jews aren’t going to change their minds by being told about the Holocaust; they’ll merely be taking notes on how to do the job properly.
“You cannot legislate antisemitic thoughts out of people.”
Actually, you can, although not 100%..
Many human beings are flock-following sheep, and it’s easily demonstrated that certain activities, including public expression, increase when such activities are considered acceptable or encouraged, and decrease when the same activities are illegal or discouraged.
Dope smoking is a good example; it ALWAYS increases hugely when decriminalized or legalized.
Jewhate is a learned behavior, now considered completely acceptable socially as long as it’s cloaked in anti-Zionist/anti-oppressor language.
Jew hate doesn’t start in the classroom. It’s ubiquitous, simmering under the surface, and merely periodically rises and becomes overt when some acceptable excuse for that appears to be socially acceptable.
Jew hate will continue so long as Islam exists, and so long as Christian churches teach that Jews betrayed and rejected Christ. Telling people not to “hate” what they learn as little kids is “bad” is foolish pretense that does not work.
Correct me if I am wrong, but Judas was Jewish. The crowd that demanded Pilate release Barrabbas was comprised of Jews and Jewish leaders. Peter, who was a Jew, denied Christ.
It is historically inaccurate to not say that Jews betrayed and rejected Christ.
The issue is not the history, but the religious significance of the history. First, the Jews rejection and calls for Christ’s death was a fulfillment of prophecies. No Jewish betrayal and rejection, no crucifixion.
Secondly, Paul admits that the Jews killed Christ in the physical sense. But Paul(a Jew) continued that while the act of killing Christ was a physical one, His sacrifice was an atonement for our sins. All people’s sins put Christ on the cross spiritually.
If you want to say that part of the teaching is left out of Christian churches, I’ll take your word for it. I have never heard hatred of Jews in a Christian church for the death of Christ except from Westboro Baptist Church and I think any discernment comes to the conclusion they are not a Christian church.
Jews put Christ on the cross physically. Our sins was the force behind His sacrifice.
“THE Jews…”
I stand by my comments. Jesus was Jewish. All the apostles were Jewish. All the original Christians were Jewish. There had been years of ongoing civil war, and some conspired and allied with the Romans.
Meanwhile, the broadbrush of “the” Jews continues because the descendants of those who did not, for whatever reason, become followers of the new Jewish sect, still are “rejecting” the teachings of an entire New Testament that did not exist when Jesus was alive. Historical nuance isn’t going to be taught to 5-year-olds.
Even according to the Christian story, Jews did not kill him. Jews did not put him on the cross, in fact crucifixion wasn’t a method of execution ever used by Jewish courts. Neither Judas nor the crowd killed him. The Romans did all of that. The story is deliberately told so as to deflect blame from the Romans to the Jews. And for most of the past 2000 years most churches have not only said “Jews killed him”, which even according to their own story is not true, but have said “the Jews killed him”, which is absolutely indefensible.
The example of drug use is an action, and not a thought.
However, an example of “thought” would be the banning of Nazi historical artifacts in Germany, but the Nazi’s are still alive and well. The KKK still thrives.
While I agree that “Jewhate” is a learned behavior, that means that it must be “unlearned” or addressed through education. There are lots of laws that prevent so called “hate crimes,” based on a variety of categories, but crimes against Jews and Asians continue to rise.
There is a groundswell of people and political ideas against gun ownership. How many criminals will turn in a gun because the government says they should?
The problem is when you have the government making laws and rules on what is acceptable or not acceptable in speech / expression it is the government that determines what is morally right and wrong. So when you have anti-American Muslims that are elected and legislate that drawing Mohammad is illegal, the way to combat that is through education.
You simply cannot legislate hate out of existence. It has to be “unlearned.”
I’m not sure why discriminating against Jews is ok since discrimination based on national origin is illegal in the United States – even against Jews. Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, prohibits discrimination based on race, color, or national origin in federally funded programs, including educational institutions.
It may seem obvious, but freedom of speech does not include violence or violating the civil rights of others.
Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, prohibits discrimination based on race, color, or national origin in federally funded programs, including educational institutions. It does, but that’s not the problem we’re discussing here. Title 6 doesn’t prohibit teaching students that {blacks, Jews, gays, cripples, whatever} are evil and that violence against them is justified.
No one claims it does; but it does include saying hateful things of others, and advocating violence or violating their rights.
Leave a Comment