MINNEAPOLIS — Exactly one week ago, the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers shared a resolution on Israel and Palestine that's been met with plenty of criticism.
"My reaction was shock. My reaction was dismay," said Jeremy Cohen, who has an elementary-aged child enrolled in Minneapolis Public Schools. "
Abigail Loyd's kids are also in the district but in middle and high school. Both parents are Jewish and say they believe it wasn't MFT's place to take a stance on the war.
"I didn't understand why a teachers union who is tasked with the responsibility of educating kids and keeping them safe would weigh in to such a divisive topic," said Cohen.
"I'm also personally hurt that, as a family who is a union family actually and a family that was out there on the picket lines last year with the union, that this is kind of what this union is now coming out and standing for," said Loyd.
Their names are two of the nearly 800 signatures on a letter the Jewish Community Relations Council of Minnesota and the Dakotas sent to the district's superintendent and school board Monday, calling the resolution "anti-Semitic."
"The statement is anti-Semitic," Cohen said. "And had they come out on the complete opposite end of this topic, I would have just as much of a problem with it."
The letter also demands the district publicly distance itself from the resolution, and allow the JCRC to lead a district-wide conversation with educators on Jewish Identity and Antisemitism.
"And what's the tradition or the history of the union coming out for topics like this that aren't really in the purview of the teacher's union?" Cohen asked.
"As a labor union, we have been on the forefront throughout the history of this country, in attempting to guide this country into doing the right thing," said Marcia Howard, MFT acting president. "And so calling upon our government to divest from the machines of war I think is right in the same wheelhouse that this particular union has continued to maintain."
Howard says it was a member, not herself, who introduced the resolution and that it passed with a small group abstaining to vote, and an even smaller group voting no.
"I believe at least three members spoke to it and no one spoke against that resolution," Howard said.
While some argue full membership wasn't present, Howard says full membership is rarely present, even though meetings are always available on Zoom.
The parents say they're disappointed in the timing of the resolution.
"Three-hundred thousand Jews were gathered on the mall in Washington D.C. for a peaceful gathering, and right when that gathering was beginning, they blasted it across their social media," Cohen said.
"We had a regularly scheduled member meeting in October and that's when the resolution was brought forth," said Howard. "We have another meeting in November that we encourage our members to show up for. If they have resolutions, they know the procedures to put that on the agenda. So it wasn't as if that was intentional timing. At no point since October 7th will there be such a thing as good timing. People are hurting right now."
Minneapolis Public Schools has yet to respond to KARE 11's request for comment.
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