A New York City Teacher’s Testimony

I never imagined that one day I would be writing about antisemitism.

For thirty-one years, I taught in the New York City public school system. Like many American Jews of my generation, I believed antisemitism was becoming a relic of the past. I believed in public education, diversity, dialogue, and the promise that people from every background could learn to live together with mutual respect. I believed America had largely solved the problem.

I retired in 2019 proud of my career.

Then came October 7, 2023.

The following day, while Israelis were still counting their dead and families around the world were desperately searching for missing loved ones, crowds filled the streets of New York City, celebrating Hamas. Posters of kidnapped Israelis were torn down almost as quickly as they were hung. Chants of “Resistance is justified” echoed through neighborhoods I knew well.

Like millions of Jews around the world, I watched in disbelief.

How had we arrived here?

For me, the answer did not begin on October 7.

It began decades earlier, in 1993, in a Brooklyn public school classroom.

Today, I am stunned by how quickly history has been rewritten, how easily otherwise compassionate people have accepted narratives that erase Jewish history and question the legitimacy of the world’s only Jewish state, and how eagerly many young Jews have embraced those same narratives.

Looking back now, I see a pattern that I completely missed while I was living through it.

I grew up as a thoroughly assimilated American Jew. Israel mattered to me, but I believed its struggles were largely separate from Jewish life in America. I married an Israeli, traveled there often, and loved the country, yet I never imagined that antisemitism would again become a defining part of Jewish life in America.

I believed that if we embraced diversity, celebrated one another’s cultures, and worked toward equality, everyone—including Jews—would benefit.

Before I tell that story, let me be clear about what this essay is—and what it is not.

This is not a scholarly paper or an investigative report. It is the testimony of one New York City public school teacher who spent thirty-one years inside the system.

I know I cannot speak for every school or every district. I can only describe what I witnessed firsthand. But I suspect many educators across America will recognize parts of this story.

This essay is for anyone who has ever found themselves asking questions like these:

What exactly are our children learning? More importantly, what assumptions are they absorbing about history, democracy, Israel, and the Jewish people?

You don’t have to be Jewish to care about those questions. You can be Black, White, Hispanic, Asian, Indian, Christian, Muslim, secular, or anything else. You simply have to possess enough intellectual curiosity to wonder how so many thoughtful, compassionate people have come to embrace some of today’s most extreme voices in the name of social justice.

This is simply one teacher’s story.

The memories I had long dismissed as isolated incidents began fitting together into a much larger picture.

It is also the story of my own awakening.

I had recently left private education for what I believed was my dream job as a special education teacher in a middle school in Brooklyn. I was newly married, thrilled to have the security of a union position, and excited to begin building my career. Those early years were filled with teaching, traveling back and forth to Israel, and raising my young daughter, who had been born in 1991.

Black History Month had become an important part of our school’s programming, and I embraced it wholeheartedly. Like many young teachers, I was eager to learn and wanted my students to experience perspectives different from my own.

That year several new teachers joined the staff, fresh out of Brooklyn College. One in particular—I’ll call him Mr. B—immediately stood out.

He was........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)