The nation’s largest teachers’ union found itself on the defensive recently when its Holocaust guidance made no mention of the Jewish people.
Just to get the history straight, Adolf Hitler’s “final solution” called for the systemic killing of all the Jews in Europe, and his Nazi regime managed to take the lives of six million of them, according to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
That was nearly one-third of the entire Jewish population worldwide.
However, the National Education Association 2025 handbook makes no connection between the killing of Jews and the Holocaust, the conservative Washington Free Beacon reported.
The handbook says the union will “promote the celebration of International Holocaust Remembrance Day” by recognizing “more than 12 million victims of the Holocaust from different faiths, ethnicities, races, political beliefs, genders, and gender identification, abilities/disabilities, and other targeted characteristics.”
The National Education Association’s handbook basically erases Jews from the Holocaust. pic.twitter.com/DcUNPqCsel
— Corey A. DeAngelis, school choice evangelist (@DeAngelisCorey) July 25, 2025
What?
While it’s true that the Nazis targeted other groups too, like people with disabilities and those politically opposed to the regime, the central thrust of the Holocaust was the elimination of the Jewish people, the Holocaust Museum said.
Should the teachers’ unions be disbanded for betraying our children?
The Free Beacon’s Alana Goodman noted the contrast with how the NEA dealt with the topic of the Holocaust versus the Palestinian Nakba.
“The Nakba, meaning ‘catastrophe’ in Arabic, refers to the forced, violent displacement and dispossession of at least 750,000 Palestinians from their homeland in 1948 during the establishment of the state of Israel,” the handbook said.
“Educating about the Nakba is essential for understanding the Palestinian diaspora narrative and experience, including the ongoing trauma of our Palestinian American students today. Teaching about the Nakba fosters critical thinking and empathy among students, promoting a deeper understanding of historical injustices and their contemporary ramifications.”
That’s not even the correct history.
There was never a country of Palestine. The region was part of the Ottoman Empire, which collapsed after World War I.
The British then oversaw the territory of Palestine, which included both Jewish and Arab people.
Following World War II and the Holocaust, the United Nations partitioned the land between the two groups, but five surrounding Arab countries declared war on Israel in May 1948, causing hundreds of thousands of Palestinian Arabs to flee the land.
Israel beat the coalition of nations and then defeated the surrounding countries again in the Six-Day War in 1967, gaining control of the West Bank and the Golan Heights.
In addition to the controversy regarding the Holocaust, the NEA’s leadership was forced to vote down a member-approved resolution to cut ties with the Anti-Defamation League, Axios reported earlier this month.
“NEA will not use, endorse, or publicize any materials from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), such as its curricular materials or its statistics,” the proposed resolution stated.
NEA President Becky Pringle said in a statement last week regarding the decision to reject the resolution, “The National Education Association has opposed antisemitism throughout its history and is deeply committed to ensuring the safety and inclusion of Jewish educators and students.”
“NEA regularly shares resources and supports educator workshops on Holocaust education, antisemitism, and ways to promote understanding of Jewish culture, heritage and history,” Pringle continued.
“This reflects NEA’s ongoing commitment to teach about Holocaust history and to counter the antisemitism that laid the groundwork for the systematic murder of six million Jews and the persecution and murder of millions of others by the Nazi regime,” she said.
Pringle also downplayed the importance of the handbook, saying it is not for classroom use, but a compilation of business items.
Further, “the NEA new business items also include calls to stand up against antisemitism, promote Holocaust Remembrance and education, and promote content to mark Jewish American Heritage Month.”
What the whole episode appears to reveal is that the NEA is already infected with what is seen on college campuses: increasing anti-Semitism masked in anti-Zionism language.
The NEA leadership made the right decision in the end, but it’s clear that a true understanding of the Holocaust and the history of Israel is needed among its ranks.
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