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The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has reported a 26% decline in anti-Semitic incidents at primary and secondary schools, both public and private, from 1,162 in 2023 to 860 in 2024. Yet, this reduction offers little solace to Jewish families grappling with persistent Jew-hatred in independent K-12 institutions, as detailed in a sobering ADL report released on Wednesday.
The findings expose a troubling reality: independent schools, entrusted with shaping young minds, are failing to confront antisemitism with the urgency and resolve it demands.
Jonathan Greenblatt, ADL’s CEO and national director, minced no words: “These independent schools are failing to support Jewish families. By tolerating—or in some cases, propagating—anti-Semitism in their classrooms, too many independent schools in cities across the country are sending a message that Jewish students are not welcome. It’s wrong. It’s hateful, and it must stop.”
His statement underscores a betrayal of trust in institutions that claim to champion inclusivity while allowing antisemitism to fester unchecked.
The ADL’s report zeroes in on independent schools, which operate with greater autonomy than their public counterparts, often crafting their own curricula free from rigorous oversight. This freedom, however, has become a double-edged sword, enabling environments where Jew-hatred can thrive. To counter this, the ADL announced plans for a program to empower parents to hold these schools accountable—a necessary step to ensure institutions live up to their moral and legal obligations.
Shira Goodman, ADL’s vice president of advocacy and head of its center to combat anti-Semitism in education, emphasized the stakes: “School administrators and faculty have a duty to ensure safe, inclusive environments for all. ADL will fully invest in bolstering the families, who are demanding that their schools meet this obligation.”
Her words reflect a broader truth: schools cannot claim to uphold diversity while ignoring the systemic exclusion of Jewish students.
The report draws on focus groups and a survey of parents of Jewish children in independent schools across major metropolitan areas, including Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, and Washington. The findings are stark.
Since October 7th, 45.3% of surveyed parents reported their children had encountered or experienced anti-Semitism, while 31.7% noted problematic content about Jews or Israel in the classroom. Parents described administrators dismissing their concerns, often gaslighting them into believing they were isolated in their experiences—a perception the data soundly refutes.
Goodman, in comments to the outlet Jewish News Services, laid bare the crisis: “What we’re seeing in independent schools is deeply troubling—parents are telling us that their children face anti-Semitism, only to be met with silence or inadequate responses from administrators. Add to that the growing exclusion of Jewish identity from diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, and many parents are now making the painful decision to leave the schools they once trusted.”
This exclusion, cloaked in the language of progressive ideals, reveals a hypocrisy that undermines the very principles these institutions purport to uphold.
Shockingly, 21.3% of parents whose children faced anti-Semitic incidents or biased curricula did not report these issues to school authorities, a testament to the erosion of trust in institutional accountability. The report warns of the long-term consequences: “Failure to address anti-Semitism can have profound consequences on the educational journey, and personal, intellectual and social development of Jewish students during their formative years.” Some families, left with no recourse, have transferred their children to other schools after their complaints were ignored.
The ADL’s findings paint a grim picture of Jewish families being marginalized within institutions they pay to attend. “Parents described a growing fear that, while legally permitted to enroll in independent schools, Jewish families are being excluded in practice—made to feel like outsiders within institutions they are paying to attend,” the report states.
This is not mere oversight; it is a systemic failure that demands immediate rectification.
The ADL’s recommendations are clear and actionable: schools must define anti-Semitism explicitly, educate students and staff about the Holocaust and contemporary Jew-hatred, enforce robust policies against anti-Semitic incidents, and prohibit teachers from using materials that promote anti-Semitism or anti-Zionism.
Schools must also affirmatively welcome Jewish students by integrating their beliefs and traditions into the educational fabric. Without such measures, the report warns, “independent schools risk becoming spaces where Jewish students are technically included but culturally and socially marginalized, eventually leading to their quiet disappearance from these communities.”
This is a clarion call. Independent schools must confront the moral and ethical imperative to protect all students, including Jews, from hatred and exclusion. Failure to act is not just a dereliction of duty—it is complicity in allowing anti-Semitism to erode the integrity of education itself.
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