ADL (the Anti-Defamation League), American Jewish Committee (AJC), Jewish Federations of North America and Prizmah: Center for Jewish Day Schools today expressed “deep concern” about remarks at a recent conference of the National Association of Independent Schools where several speakers used their time to accuse Israel of genocide and used extreme, biased anti-Israel rhetoric, including downplaying the Hamas terror attack on Oct. 7, 2023.

In a letter to the president of NAIS, the Jewish groups expressed concern that Jewish students and faculty attending the NAIS People of Color Conference were subjected to a hostile environment of extremely biased anti-Israel and antisemitic remarks time and again by multiple speakers, and had no choice but to watch as their peers applauded those tropes.

“It is alarming that a conference supposedly committed to addressing issues of inclusivity and embracing diversity was turned into a vehicle to spread baseless, one-sided and hateful views against Israel and the Jewish people,” said Jonathan Greenblatt, ADL CEO. “We believe the organization owes its Jewish students and faculty an apology. The NAIS needs to do a better job at selecting speakers and ensuring that Jewish voices are not being marginalized.”

“We were horrified to hear what transpired at the NAIS People of Color Conference (PoCC),” said AJC CEO Ted Deutch. “We must not tolerate any antisemitic rhetoric or exclusion and marginalization of Jewish identity in any education space. We are heartened by our conversations with NAIS leadership since learning what transpired and look forward to continuing to create and strengthen educational environments that refuse to normalize antisemitism in any form, are inclusive of Jews and Jewish identity, and are rooted in critical thinking, viewpoint diversity, and fact-based inquiry.”

“We cannot allow civic and educational organizations such as NAIS, which promise to promote safety and inclusion for students and educators alike, to become platforms for antisemitism," said Jewish Federations of North America President and CEO Eric D. Fingerhut. "If educators whose job it is to ensure a hate-free learning environment are themselves being exposed to hate, we cannot hope to make things better for the Jewish students being confronted with antisemitism every day.”

Prizmah CEO Paul Bernstein shared, “Many Jewish day schools and yeshivas in the Prizmah Network are actively involved in NAIS, and this has been a deeply hurtful and challenging time for our schools as we all struggle to understand how this could happen and why it has not been addressed.”

According to participants, various speakers, including the keynote speaker, Dr. Suzanne Barakat, presented biased one-sided views of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, erased the millennia-old connection between the Jewish people and the Land of Israel, and flattened Jewish identity by excluding MENA Jews.

In the letter, the groups call on independent schools to “champion nuanced and fact-based teaching of history and current affairs” noting that “students should learn that international conflicts are complex and easy answers and accusations are rarely a panacea.”