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US teen deported, Israeli rabbi wounded as tensions mount for Jewish activists in the West Bank
JERUSALEM — Having spent the night in an immigrant detention center in Ramle, Israel, Leila Stillman-Utterback, still handcuffed, began to daven shacharit, the morning prayers, as dawn broke.
“I think the police officers were very confused, because that was not the image of an activist that they had,” said the 18-year-old Vermont native.
Now, after being deported and banned by Israel for 10 years, she is unsure when she will be able to confuse people in Israel again.
In two separate incidents this past week, the right-wing Israeli government’s conflict with the Jewish left, both at home and abroad, reached new heights as American and Israeli Jews attempted to accompany Palestinians during their olive harvest in the West Bank. Harvesters have faced repeated restrictions by the Israeli military and a string of threats and attacks by local Israeli settlers.
In the first incident, Stillman-Utterback and another Jewish American were accused of violating the terms of their tourist visas and entering a closed military zone. The two were detained, deported and banned for 10 years from Israel.
Days later, armed Israeli settlers confronted a delegation of Jewish American activists. An Israeli dressed in partial military fatigues shot a live bullet into the air and a drone struck and injured a rabbi on the scene. The incident was caught on camera.
“These two incidents, one after another, are just evidence both of the danger of what’s happening, and that the Israeli government has made a decision that, rather than address the horrific violence by settlers, they’re going to … penalize American Jews who are here because they care about this land and the people who live here,” said Rabbi Jill Jacobs, the executive director of the progressive Jewish organization T’ruah, who was present at the second incident.
The clashes and deportations of American Jewish activists, most of whom with deep connections to their Jewish communities as well as Israel, left Jewish groups and those affected dismayed.
The rabbinical associations for the Reform, Conservative and Reconstructionist movements issued a joint statement saying they were “appalled by the attack on a group of rabbis, including members from all three of our organizations, by radical settlers” in the West Bank.
“We demand that the attackers be held accountable for their actions and that the Israeli government use its authority to end such provocations and attacks,” they said. An Israeli Reform rabbi and member of parliament, Gilad Kariv, plans to raise the issue in the Knesset.
This year has seen an uptick in Israeli and international activists providing a protective presence for Palestinians attempting to complete the all-important olive harvest, which is a cultural touchstone as well as an economic lifeline for rural Palestinians facing high unemployment.
Between Oct. 1 and Oct. 27, the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs documented 126 olive harvest-related settler attacks against Palestinians resulting in casualties, property damage, or both, a record pace. In addition, Palestinian farmers have been consistently presented with closed military zone orders for up to 24 hours in the areas they wish to harvest.
A drove hovers overhead as Jewish volunteers participate in an olive harvest in the West Bank on Nov. 4, 2025. (Courtesy Jill Jacobs)
In mid-October, Israel detained and deported 32 foreign activists who were accompanying Palestinian harvesters near Burin.
Stillman-Utterback joined 10 other Jews — seven Israelis, and three other foreigners — on Oct. 29 as part of a solidarity harvest in Burin organized by Rabbis for Human Rights.
When she graduated from high school this past spring, Stillman-Utterback knew she wanted to spend a gap year in Israel. Stillman-Utterback’s mother is a rabbi, and she worked as a Hebrew school teacher while spending her summers at Eden Village, a Jewish summer camp in upstate New York. She was also on the Jewish Youth Climate Movement’s executive board in high school, and she was named a Bronfman Fellow, a cohort of high-achieving Jewish teens, two years ago.
“My anchors in my life and a lot of my communities that are really important to me are all Jewish,” Stillman-Utterback told JTA.
Having gone on multiple summer trips to Israel over the years, Stillman-Utterback spent the 2022-2023 school year living in Jerusalem with her family. She attended many of the pro-democracy protests outside the Knesset that year, calling them “inspiring.”
“I learned about Israel through the perspective of Jewish values like tikkun olam and b’tselem elohim,” she explained, using Hebrew terms meaning social action and the concept that all humans are created in God’s image. “That every human being is made in the image of Hashem, and that is how I was learning about and looking at the conflict.”
Along with the other woman deported by Israel, Stillman-Utterback had come to Israel this fall as a part of the Achvat Amim program, which is connected to the socialist Zionist youth group Hashomer Hatzair. The five-month volunteer program in Jerusalem focuses on “self-determination of all people.”
Israeli forces intervene against Palestinian farmers harvesting olives in the village of Sa’ir in Hebron, West Bank on Oct. 23, 2025. (Wisam Hashlamoun/FLASH90)
Stillman-Utterback joined half a dozen harvests before the one that led to her deportation.
Before the latest and last action, the activists were stopped by Israeli soldiers at a “flying checkpoint” at the entrance of the village of Burin. An organizer was handed a closed military zone order, prohibiting the group from entering the area. According to one of the volunteers, they decided to take another route to join the harvest in an area that they believed was not included in the order.
Shortly after arriving at the new area, organizers learned that their bus drivers had been detained by the Israeli military, with their keys confiscated. Upon hearing this, they decided to bring the group to the soldiers, according to one volunteer present. The volunteer asked for anonymity because Israeli authorities later demanded the activists sign a statement promising not to speak publicly about the incident.
After the activists were held for 90 minutes by the soldiers, Israeli police arrived and announced they were detaining the entire bus because the participants were aware they had entered a closed military zone. The volunteers were escorted to the police station in the Israeli settlement of Ariel. Those with Israeli citizenship or with visas other than a student or tourist visa were released shortly thereafter.
According to Michal Pomerantz, the lawyer for the deported women, Stillman-Utterback and another Jewish-American woman on tourist visas were brought to an immigration tribunal in Ramle. With the proceedings carried out in Hebrew, they were unaware that it was a deportation proceeding and that the man they were speaking to was a judge, according to Pomerantz.
Israeli authorities say the participants ignored the initial warning and were aware they were in a closed military zone. One of the other detained participants said the group believed they had moved to an area that was not under the order.
“The policeman asked [Stillman-Utterback], ‘Why didn’t you get off the bus?’” recounted Pomerantz. “I mean, it was an 18-year-old in the middle of the West Bank. She had no idea where she was.”
Palestinian farmers and foreign volunteers harvest olives near the Palestinian village of Silwad, northeast of Ramallah in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, on Oct. 29, 2025. (Zain Jaafar/AFP via Getty Images)
The head of Hashomer Hatzair wrote a letter to Israeli authorities vouching for the two women while asserting they were engaged in a Zionist program oriented around “coexistence.” Pomerantz says this plea didn’t make a difference to immigration officials. Neither did telling Israeli officials that they were Jewish.
Faced with either appealing the decision and spending the weekend in an immigration prison or accepting a flight out of Israel, both women accepted the offer to be flown out, leaving the country on Friday.
“They basically are getting deported over being in a closed military zone for a couple of minutes,” said Becca Strober, the executive director of Achvat Amim.
The deportation of foreign Jews engaged in solidarity activism with Palestinians is a relatively new phenomenon. Strober recalled one such action she and others took in 2016 in which they deliberately entered a declared closed military zone. In that case, while six Israeli activists were detained, the American citizens were left alone.
The closest example to the case in Burin is that of Leo Franks, a British Jew who arrived in Israel last year on a tourist visa with plans to immigrate. After being detained for pro-Palestinian activism work in the West Bank, Franks had his immigration application denied and was ordered to leave the country within seven days.
“For a state that claims to be a Jewish state for all Jews,” said Strober, “if you just show up one day and stand in support of Palestinians by doing something as basic as picking olives together, actually, then your Jewishness is irrelevant.”
Jewish and other groups organizing solidarity harvests this year complain that while there were previously mechanisms for coordinating harvests with the military, this year they are largely unable to do so.
Organizers for Rabbis for Human Rights say they have been presented with closed military zone orders the majority of the time they arrive at Palestinians’ olive groves. Pomerantz and a team of lawyers have been involved in an ongoing case with the Israeli Supreme Court for the last three years, claiming that military zone closures are being misused by the army for political instead of security purposes.
“Our ability to be protected by the army has really broken down,” said one of the other Jewish volunteers who was detained in Burin. “And especially with this Netanyahu-led coalition, we’re treated as traitors. We’re treated as suspects, as anarchists, as people coming with some kind of foreign agenda.
“But we affirm that we’re doing this for the sake of Israeli society, as much as we’re doing it for the liberation of Palestinians.”
In a joint statement made by the IDF and Israeli police after the incident, authorities said they had conducted an operation in Burin together with the Population and Immigration Authority after discovering activities by Israeli and foreign activists in the area that were “endangering public security and causing friction on the ground.” Subsequently, they worked to “locate and stop foreign elements involved in incitement and provocations which create disturbances of the public order.”
The statement went on to say that the two women had violated the terms of their tourist visas. Though at first promising to do so, a spokesperson for the IDF did not comment further to JTA.
Rabbi Jacobs said she organized a trip to the West Bank this year in response to the changing conditions on the ground.
“Settler violence has just gone up extraordinarily in the last couple of years during the war,” Jacobs told JTA. “When we’ve been watching it from afar, as many of our Israeli and Palestinian colleagues have been affected by it, it seemed appropriate that even if we can’t as Americans be here every day, that we would at least find a time for a group of us to be here.”
Working with Rabbis for Human Rights on the ground, Jacobs and eight other rabbis — several of whom had already flown to Israel to attend the World Zionist Congress — first went out picking olives in the Palestinian village of Battir before staying overnight with Palestinian shepherds in the Jordan Valley. Such shepherds report an onslaught of physical attacks by Israeli settlers while being mostly prevented by settlers and soldiers from grazing their flocks in lands now often located in military firing zones or nearby Israeli settlements or outposts.
On Tuesday, the group then went to fields near Deir Istiya to pick olives with local Palestinians, joining other solidarity activists, a few of whom wore markers of Jewish observance such as tzitzit and kippot. The local Palestinians had been unable to reach their olive groves this year due to restrictions from Israeli soldiers and local settlers. The rabbis and Palestinians managed to pick the olives for a short time as a drone buzzed overhead. At times the drone came close to the harvesters.
At one point, the drone swooped down and struck Rabbi Dana Sharon from Rabbis for Human Rights, leaving a deep gash on her shoulder.
Soon after, two armed Israelis arrived, dressed in partial military fatigues and claiming to be a part of the security coordinator team of the nearby settlement of Revava. “The drone is a property of the [settlement security guards]!” shouted the men. Though the drone was returned, shouting ensued, with one of the harvesters shouting back. One of the men then shot a live round in the air before retreating.
Soon after, Israeli soldiers in uniform approached the group of olive harvesters, saying they were told by the two armed Israelis that the group of rabbis and olive harvesters had taken their drone and attacked them. These soldiers relented when shown videos by the harvesters suggesting otherwise.
The shock of the encounter was palpable among the group of visiting American rabbis, who hailed from a combination of Reconstructionist, Reform and Conservative congregations. One stunned rabbi asked an Israeli working for Rabbis for Human Rights about the gunshot, “That was a blank, right?” It was not.
The men have not been identified but appear to reflect a blurring of the lines between settlers and soldiers in the West Bank.
In a statement to JTA, the IDF identified the men the group thought were armed settlers as soldiers.
“IDF soldiers operated a drone that hit harvesters,” the statement said. “The incident is under review.”
According to the IDF, the soldiers arrived “to collect the drone, during which they fired shots in the air.” The incident was “unusual” and ”included unprofessional behavior” by the soldiers, said the IDF, which said without offering specifics that “disciplinary action” would be taken.
According to Jacobs, different IDF soldiers in uniform were present from the beginning when the group began the harvest. By Jacobs’ account, these soldiers did nothing as the drone came closer and when the armed men confronted the group.
“I don’t think this [incident] is unusual, though,” she said. “Settlers in IDF uniforms harass Palestinians every day and sometimes wound and kill them. What was unusual was that this group included American and Israeli rabbis, which is likely the reason the IDF is responding at all [to requests for comment].”
Rabbi Sarah Reines, of Temple Emanu-El in New York, looks back on her three-day trip in the West Bank heartened by the Palestinian communities she visited and committed to continued solidarity.
Reines praised “these people’s resilience and their ability to discern the difference between Israelis who threaten them and cause them harm, those who are neutral, and those who are friends.”
She added, “The rising danger only increases my resolve to represent the highest Jewish values of respect, lovingkindness, peace and preservation of life in the land Jews call home.”
In the case of Stillman-Utterback, her deportation and banning left her with “a sense of betrayal,” one that she is now processing from back in the United States.
“It sent me the message that, despite being Jewish in a state that was created for Jews, I’m not the right kind of Jew, or maybe not even Jewish at all, in the eyes of the state and the army and the police,” said Stillman-Utterback.
—
The post US teen deported, Israeli rabbi wounded as tensions mount for Jewish activists in the West Bank appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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In seismic party shift, nearly half of House Democrats vote to end aid to Israel
Cutting off U.S. military aid to Israel came closer than ever to becoming the majority position among House Democrats on Wednesday, a striking sign of how swiftly the party has shifted just months before the midterm elections that could determine control of Congress.
As many as 103 of 212 Democrats supported a measure to eliminate the $3.3 billion in annual military assistance to Israel, while 98 joined all Republicans in opposing the amendment proposed by Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, a fierce Israel critic who lost the Republican primary in May. Another 10 Democrats abstained. It received more support than the Block the Bombs Act, which would only prohibit the sale of certain offensive weapons to Israel and has 77 co-sponsors.
The vote underscored that support for ending U.S. military aid to Israel is no longer confined to the Democratic Party’s progressive left.
Less than three years ago, only 37 members opposed an emergency defense package for Israel following Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack and the start of the war in Gaza. Opposition to U.S. aid to Israel has now moved toward the Democratic mainstream, fueled by voter anger over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s handling of the wars in Gaza and Iran, a string of progressive primary victories and growing frustration with the influence of election spending by the group AIPAC in Democratic politics.
The vote marks a break from one of the last bipartisan consensuses on foreign policy: stalwart support for Israel as a U.S. ally.
Leadership and Jewish Democrats split
The Democratic leadership, Jewish members and Jewish organizations were split over Wednesday’s measure, which supporters described as an urgent message to the Israeli government to change course.
House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, hoping to become the chamber’s next speaker, opposed the amendment, arguing that cutting off all U.S. assistance to Israel would go too far and could also affect humanitarian aid for Palestinians. Still, he declined to pressure members to vote against the measure, and acknowledged the deep divisions within his caucus. Rep. Katherine Clark of Massachusetts, the Democratic whip, and outgoing Rep. Nancy Pelosi, the former House speaker, supported the measure.
That balancing act and the overall vote may foreshadow an even bigger challenge should Democrats reclaim the House in November. A Quinnipiac University poll released on Wednesday found that 49% of Pennsylvania voters in the key presidential election battleground state believe the Democratic Party has moved too far to the left.
Ahead of the vote, Jeffries called to renegotiate the next memorandum of understanding between the United States and Israel to reflect what he described as a changed reality — a move welcomed by many Democrats. And he wasn’t humiliated by the outcome. But allowing nearly half the caucus to support even a symbolic vote to end aid could further empower the expanding democratic socialist bloc that may seek greater leverage in his upcoming speakership bid.
The vote also highlighted the growing diversity of views among Jewish members.
Jake Auchincloss of Massachusetts, Becca Balint of Vermont, Sara Jacobs of California, Seth Moulton of Massachusetts, Jamie Raskin of Maryland and Jan Schakowsky of Illinois all voted in favor. Rep. Jerry Nadler of New York, co-chair of the Jewish Caucus, did not vote due to a family medical emergency. Nonetheless, he said in a lengthy statement, had he been present he’d have voted against the measure because it would have also cut funding for U.S.-backed peacebuilding programs.
Rep, Brad Schneider of Illinois, the other co-chair of the caucus, echoed Nadler’s concerns and added, “We must work to rebuild a bipartisan consensus that supports Israel’s security and sovereignty as a Jewish and democratic state, while also recognizing the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinian people to self-determination, and ultimately statehood.”
Jewish organizations were similarly divided.
Democratic-allied groups, the Jewish Democratic Council of America and Democratic Majority for Israel, called Massie’s bill a “cynical political ploy” by Republican leaders to allow a vote to “drive a wedge within the Democratic Party.”
J Street, the pro-peace advocacy group, likewise opposed the amendment, while saying the level of support among Democrats reflected a dramatic shift in the old consensus in Washington.
The Union for Reform Judaism lobbied lawmakers to oppose the amendment, arguing that eliminating aid outright would undermine Israel’s security.
The New Jewish Narrative welcomed the vote. “The level of support for this amendment reflects a sea change in how Americans view the actions of the Israeli government,” the organization said in a statement. “We hope that our Israeli brothers and sisters take notice of this loud and clear statement and will take the necessary steps to change what their government is doing.”
What happens to AIPAC?
The vote presented one of the biggest strategic tests yet for AIPAC.
In recent years, the pro-Israel campaign fundraising organization and its affiliated super PAC invested heavily in Democratic primaries, aiming to elect and protect candidates supportive of military aid while drawing clear lines around who it considered friends of Israel.
Wednesday’s vote raises new questions about whether that approach can still hold.
One early sign came from Rep. Pat Ryan of New York. Ryan, who has represented a competitive swing district and was once among the most outspoken pro-Israel Democrats — including voting to censure Rep. Rashida Tlaib in 2023 — announced after the vote that he would reject future support and return contributions he had received from AIPAC.
In a statement following the vote, AIPAC proclaimed that “AIPAC members will be actively engaged throughout this election cycle, and future election cycles, to support members of Congress of both parties who support a strong U.S.-Israel alliance and oppose those who don’t. “
Whether Wednesday’s vote proves to be the high-water mark of Democratic frustration with Netanyahu or another step in a continuing realignment may depend less on Congress than on events in Israel itself.
Netanyahu, who is running for reelection in October, has himself suggested that Israel should eventually phase out its reliance on American military aid when the current 10-year memorandum of understanding expires in 2028. That possibility could make positions once viewed as politically risky increasingly acceptable even among traditionally pro-Israel Democrats.
The post In seismic party shift, nearly half of House Democrats vote to end aid to Israel appeared first on The Forward.
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Delightful recording of children’s songs by Melbourne’s Yiddish day school
די באַקאַנטע ייִדישע טאָגשול אין מעלבורן, די „שלום עליכם שול“, האָט לעצטנס לאַנצירט אַ רעקאָרדירונג קינדערלידער דורך דער דיגיטאַלישער מוזיק־פּלאַטפֿאָרם „ספּאָטיפֿײַ.“ דער אַלבום איז מלא־חן.
די רעקאָרדירונג, „אונדזער קינדערגאָרטן שײן“, איז אַ זאַמלונג קינדערלידער, װאָס מע זינגט טאַקע אינעם קינדערגאָרטן פֿון דער „שלום עליכם שול“ — די איינציקע טאָגשול אין דער וועלט, וווּ מע לערנט די תּלמידים יעדן טאָג ייִדיש.
די רעקאָרדירונג באַשטייט פֿון 31 לידער. זיי נעמען אַרײַן באַקאַנטע ייִדישע קינדערלידער; נײַע שאַפֿונגען פֿון לערערינס אין דער שול, און איבערזעצונגען פֿון ענגלישע קינדערלידער. ס׳רובֿ פֿון די לידער ווערן געזונגען פֿון דער קולטור־טוערין און פֿײַנער זינגערין פֿריידי מראָצקי אָבער עס זענען אויך דאָ קינדער סאָליסטן אויפֿן אַלבום, ווי יוני רינגלבלום, וואָס זינגט דאָס באַקאַנטע אַרבעטליד, „מיטן זעגעלע“.
בײַ געוויסע קינדערלידער האָט די שול אַ ביסל דערהײַנטיקט די ווערטער. אין „מיטן זעגעלע“ טאַקע האָט מען געביטן די לעצטע שורה — „אַרבעט מאַכט דאָס לעבן זיס“ (אַ פֿראַזע וואָס האָט מיר תּמיד אויסגעזען איבערגעטריבן און אַפֿילו פּראָפּאַגאַנדיסטיש) — מיט אַ מער שׂכלדיקער שורה: „קינדערלעך אַרבעטן אַזוי זיס.“
דאָס ליד „זונטיק בולבעס“, וואָס באַשרײַבט ווי אַן אָרעמאַן עסט בלויז קאַרטאָפֿל אַ גאַנצע וואָך, האָט מען אויך געביטן. אין די אַמאָליקע שטאַרק אָרעמע געגנטן אין ווילנע איז טאַקע געווען אַזאַ געוואַלדיקע אָרעמקייט אַז געוויסע ייִדן האָבן אפֿשר געגעסן דאָס זעלבע עסן יעדן טאָג. אין דער מאָדערנער וועלט אָבער קענען אַפֿילו די אָרעמסטע ייִדן באַקומען שפּײַזקופּאָנען פֿון דער רעגירונג, אַזוי אַז קיינער דאַרף זיך נישט האַלטן מיט אַזאַ נעבעכדיקער דיעטע. דערפֿאַר האָט מען אינעם ליד פֿאַרביטן דאָס וואָרט „בולבעס“ אויף „אַרבעט“: „זונטיק — אַרבעט, מאָנטיק — אַרבעט, דינסטיק און מיטוואָך — אַרבעט… שבת איז די צײַט צו זײַן מיט משפּחה; זונטיק — ווײַטער אַרבעט.“
די רעקאָררידונג, פּראָדוצירט דורכן מוזיקער גדעון פּרײַס, און פֿרײדי מראָצקי, איז געשטיצע געוואָרן פֿונעם קרישטאַל פֿאָנד.
כּדי צו באַשטעלן דעם אַלבום, גיט אַ קוועטש דאָ.
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ADL and JCPA clash over teachers union, exposing a divide over how to fight antisemitism
(JTA) — Two leading Jewish civil rights groups stepped up after Jewish teachers reported antisemitic harassment last year at the National Education Association’s annual convention, only to devolve into disagreement ahead of this year’s convention.
The unusual public dispute between the Jewish Council of Public Affairs and the Anti-Defamation League brought to the fore a simmering tension over how to fight antisemitism within schools and unions. Should Jewish groups promote collaboration with the institutions on solutions — or prioritize confronting them over their failings?
Two days before the assembly, the JCPA and the NEA’s Jewish Affairs Caucus heralded new rules and policies it had developed in collaboration union leaders to “ensure the safety of Jewish members and educators at the [Representative Assembly] without undermining the union’s vital commitment to free speech and democracy.”
A day before the assembly, the ADL, which had worked with caucus members over the past year, told Jewish Insider in an unusual line of attack that it was “extremely frustrated about a so-called ‘agreement’ with JCPA that was reached without all NEA JAC leadership and delegates at the table.”
It also took aim at union leaders: “NEA’s inconsistent enforcement of its own protections has sent an unmistakable message: Jewish educators are not a priority. That must change now.”
Amy Spitalnick, the CEO of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, responded to the ADL’s criticism in an interview with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
“When you can’t criticize substance, you find reasons to criticize process,” Spitalnick said in an interview. “In this case, we’re both very proud of the substance and the process, and the results underscore that.”
JCPA has emphasized working directly with school leaders and public officials to combat antisemitism, and opposed the Trump administration’s crackdown on campus pro-Palestinian protests.
“It is both possible and necessary to fight antisemitism — on campus, in our communities, and across the country — without abandoning the democratic values that have allowed Jews, and so many other vulnerable minorities, to thrive,” the group wrote in an April 2025 joint statement condemning the crackdown.
That letter spurred behind the scenes pushback from another legacy group, the Jewish Federations of North America.
The ADL, meanwhile, has taken on a more confrontational approach to universities, assigning them “report cards” for campus antisemitism and also empowering Jewish educators to advocate for themselves.
Notably, progressive-leaning groups like the JCPA and centrist groups like the ADL and the JFNA flip strategies when it comes to addressing Trump administration policies that undercut Jewish civil rights advocacy. The centrist groups have at times retreated from confrontation with the government, while the JCPA has been more directly critical. In one instance, the JCPA was more outspoken about a Trump administration attack on the ADL than the ADL was.
“There are absolutely those on the right who think that we should just be burning it all down, and that is not an approach that’s going to make you safer or democracy safer,” Spitalnick said. “We believe deeply that the only path forward is one that confronts antisemitism wherever it exists, and does so in a way that recognizes our safety as Jews is tied to our democratic institutions, which includes unions and public education.”
The ADL and the JCPA found common cause last year after the NEA delegates narrowly passed a measure barring the union from using, endorsing or publicizing any materials from the ADL, which boasts a comprehensive library of anti-bias education materials. (The measure was ultimately rejected by the NEA’s board of directors.)
The JCPA at that time signed onto a letter led by the ADL describing “deep concerns about the growing level of antisemitic activity within teachers’ unions,” including reports that Jewish teachers were verbally accosted during the proceedings.
The harassment, including a reported case of NEA members appearing to cheer at a mention of the 2025 attack on a march for Israeli hostages in Boulder, Colorado, during the convention last year, last month sparked a new antisemitism investigation into NEA by the Trump administration.
Shira Goodman, the ADL’s vice president of advocacy, said in an interview the group “immediately had to take an adversarial advocacy position to address” last year’s conference.
The ADL centered its approach on engaging with Jewish teachers who had sought their help, including the incoming president of the Jewish Affairs Caucus. Goodman said that while the ADL had “some ongoing conversations with leaders at the NEA,” the bulk of its advocacy had been to “support teachers who are doing their own advocacy.”
“Working just with leadership wasn’t going to do it, but we also wanted to be there to support grassroots folks who felt like they wanted to be and remain within their union,” Goodman said.
Goodman added that she did not feel that JCPA and the ADL were working “in tandem.”
“JCPA has said publicly that they have relationships with AFT, with NEA. Different organizations in the Jewish community have different lanes and do different things,” Goodman said. “I just want to make sure that the teachers are represented, and that if somebody is speaking for the teachers, that the teachers have been part of that.”
Spitalnick said JCPA had engaged with JAC leadership and other Jewish organizations, including the ADL, throughout the negotiations with NEA. Last year, JCPA also led a workshop at NEA’s annual convention about antisemitism.
“All I could speak to is our approach, which has been to — instead of hammering the union with constant critique and framing a sort of zero sum dynamic in which it’s the union versus the Jewish community — making clear that the union’s success and Jewish safety, inclusion, are one in the same right, and that has led to the partnership we have with NEA,” Spitalnick said.
The ADL and other legacy groups have in the past expressed qualified support for Trump administration disciplinary actions targeting educational institutions. Spitalnick was adamant that was the wrong course, including in the most recent government investigation into the NEA.
“The question that everyone should be asking is what is motivating this, and at a time when we’re seeing – whether it be Republicans in Congress or others — use our real fears of antisemitism to fundamentally try to kill the unions by going after their charter and their fundamental existence, I would ask real questions about the motivation for this investigation,” Spitalnick said.
The ADL, meanwhile, wrote in a post on X that the federal government’s investigation “underscores what many Jewish educators have been saying for the last two years: no union member should be made to feel excluded, targeted, or unwelcome because of a core part of their identity.”
Alyson Brauning, the outgoing chair of the Jewish Affairs Caucus, who had collaborated with JCPA ahead of the convention, said the difference between this year’s conference earlier this month and last was “night and day.”
“I actually got to enjoy parts of the [Representative Assembly],” Brauning said. “Our table did not experience any harassment or intimidation in the hall at all. It was actually enjoyable and fun, and we got to do the business of the RA on the floor.”
Naomi Rodriguez, the incoming chair of the Jewish Affairs Caucus who had participated in the ADL’s “Hazak” program, said she “wasn’t aware” of all the work that JCPA had done behind the scenes ahead of the assembly.
“Maybe Alyson was, and she is the chair of the caucus,” she added. “As the incoming chair, I’ll be more on top of those things.”
Rodriquez, who is currently participating in a JCPA cohort to support teachers, said that as the incoming chair she would “accept support from anybody who wants to support us.”
‘This issue with antisemitism is a huge problem, and it’s only getting worse, and I really think we all need to work together, and collaborate and coordinate to ensure that we are as effective as possible in fighting it,” Rodriguez said.
In a statement to JTA, an NEA spokesperson said that the union had “enhanced our work to counter antisemitism and ensure all of our members are respected and supported.”
“That effort included extensive consultation with the Jewish Affairs Caucus, Jewish NEA members, and partners in the Jewish community, including the JCPA,” the spokesperson said.
Following the assembly, which took place in Denver from July 3 through 6, the ADL as well as several other prominent Jewish groups that had also lent support to the Jewish Affairs Caucus published a statement saying that the results of the assembly “provides reason for optimism.”
“We commend the important steps the NEA took to foster a more inclusive Representative Assembly this year,” the groups wrote.
They added a caveat: “Yet that experience does not yet reflect the reality facing many Jewish educators in their own communities. We continue to hear from educators across the country who report marginalization within their unions, hostile rhetoric, intimidation, and exclusion…That reality requires continued attention and action at every level.”
The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations also joined the ADL’s statement, which did not include JCPA.
The JCPA “chose to have their own press release in the beginning and kind of break with what we had already decided as a group, and so that was why they weren’t part of this press release,” said Stephanie Hausner, the Conference of Presidents’ chief operating officer. The JCPA, like the ADL, is a constituent member of the conference.
Hausner said she felt the dispute between the organizations ahead of the conference “took away from the real issue at hand, which is how do we support Jewish teachers.”
“For the last year I’ve been working with all the organizations on this work, and I really thought we were in that place, and I hope that tomorrow we can get back to that place where everyone’s working together because I do think that it is better for the Jewish community,” Hausner said.
The ADL and JCPA “sometimes reach out to different audiences,” she said, but “in an ideal world, we all speak from the same notes and be able to to move together and work together on a regular basis, and we wouldn’t have some of this going on, some of this back and forth.”
“There are no two organizations that operate in this space and do things exactly the same,” Hausner added. “Hopefully, some of their efforts can complement each other moving forward.”
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