As the Massachusetts Teachers Association wades into the Israel-Hamas war, divisions rise among members

Then in March, a union task force held an anti-Palestinian racism webinar that Garcia and others considered one-sided and antisemitic, which organizers dispute.

Garcia’s support for the MTA withered with each new action, as she and other Jewish members repeatedly raised concerns about antisemitism.

Fed up, Garcia left the union on March 31.

The division over the Israel-Hamas war is pitting members against one another in the state’s largest teachers union. Many Jewish members say concerns they have raised about antisemitism are being disregarded by union leadership and the union’s involvement in international affairs goes beyond its core mission of fostering the best workplace conditions for educators and learning environments for students.

Meanwhile, members advocating on behalf of Palestinians said they are trying to bring greater awareness to their plight in the Middle East and also provide educators with the information they need to teach about the issues in their classrooms. They contend the accusations of antisemitism are an attempt to shut down their advocacy.

Most recently, delegates at the MTA’s annual meeting last month also were slated to take up a resolution that called on the union to divest all pension funds from businesses that “provide arms or other forms of military assistance to the state of Israel,” but didn’t reach that portion of the agenda.

The MTA is far from being alone in contending with differing viewpoints on the Israel-Hamas war among its members. The war was triggered by the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas that claimed 1,200 lives and 250 hostages, and caused thousands of injuries. The ongoing Israel counteroffensive has resulted in over 35,000 deaths and devastating destruction in Gaza and has fissured public discourse from Capitol Hill to college campuses and to peoples’ homes.

For public schools across Massachusetts, the debate within the MTA can have immediate implications, potentially shaping how and what students are taught about the Arab-Israeli conflict, the political and personal views that enter the classrooms, and the comfort level of educators in guiding those lessons. One central question is whether the MTA should have any role in training teachers and developing curriculum in this area.

Garcia said her decision to leave the MTA was “extremely difficult,” but she now feels a sense of relief.

“We should not have to get involved in the international political arena and in geopolitical problems,” said Garcia, a Spanish and English as a second language teacher at West Springfield High School. “Our resources, our time, and our energy should be focused on making our classrooms as strong as they possibly can be and educating our students in the best possible way.”

Max Page, the union’s president, said any suggestion the MTA’s leadership is antisemitic is “ludicrous.” Page is Jewish and a former president of his synagogue. His father fled Nazi Germany, and 18 family members lost their lives during the Holocaust.

“There’s a real danger in our society today when we make sort of grand pronouncements about the essence of one person or another, and I just think that rarely helps develop a conversation,” he said.

The MTA’s actions represent a rare entry into international affairs for the state’s largest teachers union, which previously had waded into the Iraq War and apartheid in South Africa. It comes as a more progressive and activist faction, which has been leading the union for the past decade, has been increasing advocacy around social justice issues. The MTA represents 117,000 workers in most school districts and public colleges across Massachusetts.

Todd Bresler, a parent of two children who attend a public elementary school north of Boston, said he is worried the MTA is creating a breeding ground for antisemitism.

“They are trying to introduce inflammatory, divisive, and radicalized agendas into our classrooms,” said Bresler, who is Jewish.

But Merrie Najimy, who moderated the webinar and is a former MTA president, said lessons on the plight of Palestinians fits into the broader mission of what educators are supposed to be doing.

“Our mission as educators is to prepare students to be citizens who can fight for justice and defend democracy and human rights here and around the world, and we do that by providing multiple perspectives and teaching them both how to build empathy for other people and to think critically about events in their communities, in their nation, and around the world,” said Najimy, who is Lebanese and is an elementary school teacher in Concord.

The MTA first officially waded into the Israel-Hamas war on Nov. 4, when its executive board called for a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas.

Then in December, the MTA’s much larger board of directors passed a separate cease-fire resolution that went further, directing the union’s top leaders to urge the president of the National Education Association “to pressure President Biden to stop funding and sending weapons in support of the Netanyahu government’s genocidal war on the Palestinian people in Gaza.” The board also approved a motion that called for developing curriculum resources about the history and current events in Israel and Occupied Palestine.

The backlash was swift. Several local affiliates publicly criticized the MTA’s actions, including the Newton Teachers Association, which derided the December cease-fire motion as “antisemitic dog-whistling” and urged the MTA to retract it.

Public controversy erupted again in March when the union’s antiracism task force held a webinar on anti-Palestinian racism to help educators teach about it. Many Jewish members urged the MTA to scrap the webinar.

According to a flyer for the event, the webinar explored such questions as: “What is anti-Palestinian discrimination? How does Palestine fit into the larger framework of colonialism and imperialism? What are Zionism, anti-Zionism and their histories? Why is anti-Zionism not anti-Semitism?”

Sarah Horsley, who belongs to Jewish Voices for Palestine and is a sociology lecturer at the University of Massachusetts Boston, said the webinar helped her to understand the Palestinian perspective.

“This perspective’s too often missing from classrooms, congressional hearings, and mainstream media,” she said. “As a college instructor and parent of an elementary school student, I’ll draw upon key learnings from this webinar to help my students — and my son — build empathy and think critically.”

Criticisms persisted after the webinar. The Anti-Defamation League accused the webinar of reinforcing “antisemitic and anti-Israel falsehoods.”

Those involved with the webinar defended its content.

“The claim the webinar was antisemitic is a piece of a broader international campaign to discredit advocates for Palestinians and Palestine itself,” said Heike Schotten, who was a presenter during the webinar and is a political science professor at UMass Boston, noting there are scholarly works supporting that view.

The internal debate within the MTA has caught the attention of Beacon Hill. Last month, Senators Jason Lewis, who chairs the Joint Education Committee, and Rebecca Rausch sent Page a letter saying the MTA’s recent actions “have been neither anti-racist nor supportive of productive dialogue or meaningful strides toward peace.”

Brigitte Karns, an eighth-grade teacher in Marblehead, who is Jewish, urged the MTA to pull back from its current course.

“All we are interested in is defending the integrity of our classrooms,” she said. “But the MTA is pushing teachers to teach students what to think rather than how to think.”

James Vaznis can be reached at james.vaznis@globe.com. Follow him @globevaznis. Suchita Nayar can be reached at suchita.nayar@globe.com.