A member of the Massachusetts Teachers Association executive board is also a member of the American Communist Party — a group with direct connections to Hamas and Hezbollah, Jewish Insider has learned. 

Several American Communist Party leaders attended the funeral of Hassan Nasrallah, secretary-general of Hezbollah until his recent assassination by the Israeli army, and met with Hamas leaders in person in recent weeks. 

In a Feb. 14 letter obtained by JI, the party wrote that it “strongly condemns recent attempts by Zionist politicians to intimidate the MTA and Palestine solidarity movement by singling out and fear-mongering about a member of our party, Comrade Joe Herosy.” The statement was referring to a Feb. 10 Massachusetts Legislature Special Commission to Combat Antisemitism meeting, where members expressed concern over a series of Herosy’s social media posts — including a photo he posted to Facebook on Oct. 8, 2023, that appeared to celebrate Hamas’ deadly massacre that took place the day prior. 

Herosy is on the board of directors of MTA, the largest teachers’ union in the state. On March 12, 2024, in response to a controversial MTA webinar on antisemitism, he claimed that the “Israel lobby” is “a tool of U.S. Imperialism as opposed to the common false idea that Israel is controlling U.S. policy.” In the same exchange, he accused Israel of “genocide,” “settler-colonialism” and “apartheid.” 

The webinar was scrutinized by parents and teachers who said that it portrayed “inaccurate historical events” and came as the union has been accused of frequently perpetrating antisemitism in the classroom since the Oct. 7 attacks. 

In December, a report by the American Jewish Committee’s New England branch found that the union has been actively encouraging members to introduce “overtly political” anti-Israel materials into K-12 classrooms, reducing “a complex struggle between two people” to an “extreme, one-sided narrative.”