Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) blasted the New Jersey Education Association on Monday over plans for an anti-Israel “Teaching Palestine” session scheduled during the union’s conference taking place this week.

“The individuals you have invited to teach our state’s educators about the Middle East and combating antisemitism have a clear bias against our key democratic ally, Israel, and the Jewish people,” Gottheimer wrote in a letter to NJEA President Steve Beatty. “The program presents a clear political narrative that promotes one side of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and a skewed view of antisemitism, while ignoring key historical facts. This type of biased content has no place in New Jersey classrooms, undermines our state’s values, and raises serious concerns about potential targeting of Jewish students and educators.”

According to Gottheimer’s letter, the instructor leading the session is affiliated with a group involved in pro-Hamas protests that have excused the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks and blamed them on Israel. 

According to Gottheimer, the program for the session is based on a book that accuses Israel of using U.S. tax dollars to “oppress Palestinians,” that supporters of Israel use “false accusations of antisemitism to silence supporters of Palestinians,” describes Israel’s creation as “a colonial war waged against the indigenous population,” explicitly urges educators to teach their students to support boycotts of Israel, instructs teachers to stage reenactments using students to accuse Israel of “apartheid” and “settler colonialism” and attacks the bipartisan Antisemitism Awareness Act, which is sponsored by Gottheimer.

One of the book’s co-authors was suspended by the Philadelphia school district after social media posts in which she “alluded to violence against Jewish parents,” according to the letter.

“These are not lessons in critical thinking grounded in fact, but the biased political stances of the book’s authors,” Gottheimer wrote in the letter. “The material itself reads less like an educational resource and more like an extremist political activist agenda.”

According to the registration page for the NJEA convention, teachers can receive professional development credit certificates for attending sessions at the conference.

Gottheimer and other New Jersey leaders have repeatedly criticized the NJEA over moves related to Israel, including appointing an individual with a history of antisemitic and pro-Hamas posts as the editor of the union’s magazine.

The NJEA’s parent organization, the National Education Association, has also faced scrutiny for anti-Israel and antisemitic moves including a vote — ultimately overturned — to cut ties with the Anti-Defamation League. 

“New Jersey educators have a duty to teach facts, not ideology. Programs like ‘Teaching Palestine’ replace facts with bias and use our classrooms to push divisive, politicized agendas,” Gottheimer wrote in his letter. “Our children deserve to learn history based on facts, not bias. I urge the NJEA to immediately review the materials for ‘Teaching Palestine’ and remove any programming that spreads misinformation or undermines the core mission of public education. Classrooms should be places of learning — not platforms for political propaganda.”