San Francisco teachers’ union embraces anti-Semitism By Andrea Widburg
Last week, United Educators of San Francisco (i.e., the San Francisco public school teachers’ union) issued a “Resolution in Solidarity with the Palestinian People” and voted to boycott Israel. San Francisco’s Jewish community is unhappy and Jewish parents are worried. Not only is the resolution disgraceful, but it also reflects everything that’s wrong with government unions.
Let me begin by stating my bias. I don’t merely dislike teachers’ unions, I absolutely despise them. As a public-school student in San Francisco in the 1960s and 1970s, I saw how the unions worked to protect bad, even evil, teachers, without regard for students. And as the daughter of a public-school teacher, I got the inside scoop on the increasingly leftist politics driving these unions. (Even worse, back in the day, they didn’t even get a decent salary for teachers. It was all about the predecessors to today’s woke politics.)
I also believe that government unions are inherently corrupt. In the private sector, both management and the unions have skin in the game when they sit down at the negotiating table. They’re negotiating for their own benefit (profits versus wages and job safety), and both have an interest in ensuring that the company survives.
However, when it comes to government unions, the only people with skin in the game – the taxpayers – aren’t at the table. The government representative ostensibly speaks for the taxpayers but the reality is that both the union negotiator and the government representative want to funnel as much money to the union as possible, in exchange for the union funding Democrats.
The Democrats, in turn, ensure that government employees get salaries and benefits far greater than those available in the private sector. It’s a massively corrupt system that has kept Democrats in power even as their policies fail whenever implemented.
So, as I write about the disgraceful, anti-Semitic San Francisco teachers’ union, you know that I come from a place of pure loathing. But even without that loathing, one ask to ask why teachers, whose job is supposed to be teaching San Francisco students reading, writing, and arithmetic are, instead, getting involved in international politics:
The San Francisco teachers union turned its attention away from city schools and toward international conflict, calling for a boycott of Israel in a strongly worded statement that has angered some families and outraged Jewish organizations.
Union leadership voted in mid-May to endorse a boycott, as well as official U.S. divestment and sanctions against Israel over what they called apartheid and war crimes against the Palestinian people. A prominent synagogue — in partnership with the Jewish Community Relations Council of San Francisco — called on members to protest the resolution this week, asking the union to rescind it and publicly condemn antisemitism.
The United Educators of San Francisco passed a resolution “in Solidarity with the Palestinian People,” calling on Israel to end the bombardment of Gaza, and urging President Biden to stop providing aid to Israel.
They were reportedly the first public school educators union to endorse the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel.
In a disgraceful act of hypocrisy, even while embracing Hamas, an organization that has as its primary goal Jewish genocide, the union “condemned antisemitism.” When you ignore the sins of every despotic nation in the world, and reserve all of your malice for a tiny Jewish dot in the midst of a sea of genocidal Muslim nations, you’re an anti-Semite.
One Jewish parent, Todd David, got it:
“The teachers union has failed in its most basic mission this year, opening schools and educating San Francisco’s children,” he said. “Instead of focusing on that, they are weighing in on an international political land dispute that experts have been unable to resolve for 70 years.”
David was referring to the fact that the San Francisco teachers’ union was yet another teachers’ union that, even while ensuring a continuous flow of paychecks to its members, put up every barrier possible to prevent teachers from having to return to the classrooms to do their jobs for the last year and a half.
What’s perhaps most embarrassing about the whole thing is that the same article highlights a self-loathing Jew whose leftism has left him with a form of Stockholm syndrome that sees him embracing the people who want him dead:
San Francisco elementary school teacher Max Raynard, a “proud Jewish man,” signed onto the resolution, saying he has personally experienced hate and prejudice and can sympathize with others suffering the same.
“Any rational person with empathy for other humans can see that the Palestinian people are suffering under injustice,” he said. “A boycott is a non-violent form of protest that has been used throughout the history of civil rights struggles. It was used by Gandhi, by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., by Nelson Mandela. I consider these people heroes.”
It’s high time for voters to do away with government unions. They are left-wing political activist groups that do not benefit the taxpayers who foot the bill and that provide a bully pulpit for haters.
IMAGE: United Educators of San Francisco justify refusing to return to classrooms. YouTube Screengrab.
If you would like to comment on this or any other American Thinker article or post, we invite you to visit the American Thinker Forum at MeWe. There, you can converse with other American Thinker readers and comment freely (subject to MeWe’s terms of use). The Forum will be fully populated and ready for comments by midday (Eastern time) each day.
Comments are closed.
