Welcome to Hamassachusetts By Frannie Block and Will Sussman
https://www.thefp.com/p/welcome-to-hamassachusetts?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
‘Rampant and ubiquitous antisemitism’ is making its way into the largest teachers union in New England, lawmakers say.
Inside the Massachusetts statehouse on Monday, State Representative Simon Cataldo displayed the image of a dollar bill folded into a Star of David in front of a packed audience of teachers, activists, and staffers. They were there to attend a hearing on the state of antisemitism in Massachusetts public schools.
“You’d agree that this is antisemitic imagery, correct?” Cataldo, who co-chairs the state’s Special Commission on Combating Antisemitism, asked Max Page, the president of the Massachusetts Teachers Association (MTA)—the largest union in New England, representing 117,000 members.
“I’m not gonna evaluate that,” Page responds calmly.
Cataldo pressed him. “Is it antisemitic?”
Page continued to sit stoically, before breaking into a smile. “You’re trying to get away from the central point,” Page said, “which is that we provide imagery, we provide resources for our members to consider, in their own intelligent, professional way.”
In fact, this image is referenced in materials recently made available to Massachusetts educators for teaching about the Middle East. Entitled “Resources on Israel and Occupied Palestine,” the union’s Training and Professional Learning Division developed the framework “for learning about the history and current events in Israel and Occupied Palestine, for MTA members to use with each other and their students.” Last December, the union published the resource document on a webpage accessible only to MTA members.
The person who created the document is Ricardo Rosa, an MTA director with a history of pushing anti-Israel rhetoric, including showing support for Leila Khaled, a terrorist who hijacked a plane headed to Israel in the 1960s. Two days after Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, Rosa posted “Free Palestine” on his Instagram account, The Daily Wire reported.
Page was asked by the Massachusetts commission about a series of posters contained in the MTA materials, which appear to display an anti-Israel bias. These materials include a poster of a militant wearing a keffiyeh and holding an assault rifle, that reads, “What was taken by force can only be returned by force.”
Another poster portrays George Habash, the founder of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a Marxist-Leninist group designated by the U.S. as a foreign terrorist organization. It, too, depicts a militant with an assault rifle.
A third poster calls for a “day of rage” to “decolonize this place,” and a fourth tells “Zionists” to “fuck off.”
Another shows a picture of Joe Biden, labeled a “serial killer” for his support of Israel during his presidency. Yet another displays “Unity in Confronting Zionism” beneath a snake—another antisemitic trope once used in Nazi-era posters.
Page was also questioned about a children’s book mentioned in the materials, called Handala’s Return, which was published last year by the Palestinian Feminist Collective. It includes lines like: “A group of bullies called Zionists wanted our land so they stole it by force and hurt many people.” The book ends with a call to action urging readers to “Help Handala Free Palestine,” asking them to fill in prompts such as: “I will raise funds for the children of Palestine by. . . ” and “I will chant this at a Palestine protest.”
The introduction of “Resources on Israel and Occupied Palestine” advises that its lessons are meant to “reflect diverse positions and are meant to aid pedagogy.” But many of the materials promote antisemitic viewpoints, said Robert Leikind, the regional director of the American Jewish Committee in New England. Leikind is also a member of the Massachusetts Special Commission on Combating Antisemitism and was present at Monday’s hearing.
Leikind said “it’s astonishing” that an organization “deeply embedded in the educational community” could “defend the idea that it’s legitimate to present one-sided content.” The materials don’t “even make a modest attempt” to show that there are “other ways of looking at the issues,” he said. The resources have led AJC New England to declare, in a December 2024 report, that the MTA has “a Jewish problem.” “The net result is to perpetuate anti-Jewish tropes that malign Israel and its supporters,” the report said.
The Massachusetts Special Commission on Combating Antisemitism was instituted in July 2024 in response to “the rampant and ubiquitous antisemitism that was exacerbated and injected with steroids as a direct result of 10/7,” State Senator John Velis told The Free Press.
Rep. Cataldo, who is Jewish, and Senator Velis, who is not, are both Democrats and co-chairs of the commission. Monday’s hearing, which Cataldo estimates was attended by 120 people, was the commission’s fourth on antisemitism in K–12 education. The legislative group is intended to be “the tip of the spear to push back” on “this world’s most ancient hatred, that mutates and shape-shifts so much,” Velis said.
Velis added that the MTA’s proposed materials “absolutely horrified” him. “The resources that they have put together are nothing short—and I said this a couple times during the hearing—than education malpractice,” he said. “If this material enters our K–12 schools, then shame on us, because we know about it right now, and we’re going to do everything we can to push back on that.” He said that he may consider legislation to keep the materials out of Massachusetts classrooms.
Page, who is Jewish, did not respond to a request for comment from The Free Press. But he testified at Monday’s hearing that “I understand the historical virulence of antisemitism, I understand the newly resurgent strains of antisemitism, and I’m too old and too confident in my experience and views to be lectured about the dangers of antisemitism.”
Cataldo, who questioned Page at the hearing, told The Free Press that “there were tense exchanges during the conversation”—which “all flowed out of Max Page’s visceral discomfort with being in a position to defend the indefensible.”
Will Sussman is a collegiate associate at the Manhattan Institute. Follow him on X @realWillSussman. Frannie Block is a reporter for The Free Press. Follow her on X @FrannieBlock.
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