The NEA’s antisemitic ADL split: Letters to the Editor — July 11, 2025
The Issue: The National Education Association cuts ties with the Anti-Defamation League.
The National Education Association’s outrageous decision to cut ties with the Anti-Defamation League — the nation’s oldest civil-rights organization — is a triumph for anti-Jewish bigotry and hate (“NEA ax on ADL,” July 9).
In the aftermath of the worst mass slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust, it is profoundly disturbing and offensive that the NEA would say that a respected Jewish civil-rights group should not have a say in defining antisemitism because it supports Israel’s right to exist.
Stephen Silver
San Francisco, Calif.
The largest teachers union cutting ties with the ADL is the most outrageous action taken by so-called educators.
It is blatant antisemitism, which has no place in our schools.
It is a license to bully, ostracize and harm Jewish students across our country.
If these are the people who are in charge of our children’s classrooms, then it is time to restructure the entire education system in the United States.
Betty Schwartz
Livingston, NJ
The NEA declaring that the ADL is persona non grata in any of its schools shows who controls the public-school systems in this country, and where their priorities are.
US public schools continue to embarrass this country with their Third World-level performance on testing metrics.
At least we can be assured that, through the radical left unions, students will continue to develop into future liberal activists — while simultaneously performing three grades behind where they should be on standardized tests.
Joseph Grassi
Port St. Lucie, Fla
NEA delegate Stephen Siegel compares the ADL to the fossil-fuel industry in the following way: “Allowing the ADL to determine what constitutes antisemitism would be like allowing the fossil-fuel industry to determine what constitutes climate change.”
Maybe he should instead compare the NEA to the fossil-fuel industry, as follows: Allowing the NEA to determine what constitutes education “is like allowing the fossil-fuel industry to determine what constitutes climate change.”
Joseph Novick
Monroe Township, NJ
The Issue: Zohran Mamdani checking the “African American” box on his Columbia University application.
Zohran Mamdani’s admission that he falsely identified as African American on his Columbia application isn’t about a complex background — it’s about calculated deception (“Left’s ‘racial identity’ ploy,” July 9).
Mamdani, born to privileged Indian parents in Uganda, claimed an identity that wasn’t his to gain admission advantages meant for descendants of American slavery.
Now this same man campaigns on reparations while Black voters reject him.
This wasn’t confusion — it was fraud.
People see through his performative progressivism.
Todd Pittinsky
Port Jefferson
Mamdani will utter pure lies to get what he wants, be it educational or political goals.
Now he is saying he is for New Yorkers, and that everything under the sun will be free if he is made the next mayor.
His mode of operation has not changed — he is a conniving liar.
Susan Cienfuegos
New Rochelle
Mamdani explains that he checked off “Black or African American” on his Columbia application to indicate that he’d grown up in Africa and was now a naturalized US citizen.
To most people, African American means a black American, usually multigenerational.
By Mamdani’s logic, a white South African who became a naturalized US citizen should check off that box as well.
Lawrence Bodenstein
Manhattan
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