This article was originally published by The Times of Israel Blogs on July 18, 2025, at [https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/a-broken-trust-an-educators-reckoning-with-a-post-october-7-world]. All rights remain with the original author and publisher.

For twenty years, I didn’t just work in public education; I lived it. I had the profound privilege of building my career on a foundation of equity, serving as an educator and eventually a principal in a district that I poured my soul into. Here, the word “diverse” wasn’t a buzzword; it was our daily, beautiful reality. I was fully integrated into a vibrant tapestry of over 35 languages, a thriving community of students and families from countless countries, backgrounds, and socioeconomic statuses. It was a place where social justice wasn’t a committee meeting; it was in the very veins of how I taught and led.

This community was my life’s work. My commitment was unwavering because I saw the magic of our diversity every single day. I championed a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) task force long before it was mandated, not out of obligation, but out of a deep love for the students we served. I advocated for minority students, all of them, sometimes against the grain of popular opinion. I learned to put my own identity aside when it was necessary, humbling my role as a female leader when male parents would only speak to my male colleagues, even though I was the principal. A colleague once told me, with a tone I could never quite decipher, that they knew one thing about me for sure: I was “into equity.” They were right. I dedicated my professional life to the belief that public education was the great equalizer, the place where every child would be seen, protected, and valued.

Then came October 7th. And the world I had worked so hard to build, the world I imagined for all schools, crumbled.

The shock of the terror attacks was followed by a chilling silence, and then a deafening roar of justification from the very spaces that once preached tolerance. The principles of empathy and understanding I had championed seemed to vanish overnight. Suddenly, I felt a profound and terrifying isolation.

As part of my doctoral research, I began interviewing Jewish American public school educators about their experiences amid the rising tide of antisemitism. With each interview, a piece of my heart broke. The stories they shared were not just stories of discomfort; they were chronicles of institutional betrayal. Educators spoke of being silenced by their unions, of having their fears dismissed by their colleagues, and of watching their schools—the very places they had dedicated their lives to—become hostile environments.

They described DEI initiatives that meticulously included every group but their own. They recounted being told that their pain was too complex and to put it aside for the betterment of the classroom and school community, while other geopolitical issues were openly discussed and supported. The message was clear, whether spoken or unspoken: the safety and identity of Jewish people were conditional. The luxury—no, the basic human decency—of being seen and protected as a vulnerable minority was not afforded to us.

Each day since those interviews began, my heart breaks a little more. It breaks when children I love have to learn what antisemitism means, not from a history book, but from the sting of a slur thrown by a classmate in their own elementary school. It breaks when I see Jewish Americans senselessly murdered on American soil. It shatters when I see the National Education Association (NEA), a body meant to represent all educators, reject the invaluable work of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), inverting our history and forcing us to bear the emotional labor of fighting for our own safety, alone.

The system I gave my life to is not just failing us; it feels like it is actively erasing us. The fabric of public education, the very foundation upon which all learning lies, is being rewoven to exclude our story, dismiss our trauma, and deny our existence as a people worthy of protection.

The question that now haunts me, the one that echoed in the voices of every educator I interviewed, is one I have no answer for: How do we go on? How do we, as Jewish educators, continue to show up for a system that refuses to show up for us? How do we rebuild a trust that has not just been broken, but utterly decimated?

And yet, I believe the answer lies in our most sacred obligations: to bear witness and to begin the work of repairing the world (tikkun olam). So I will continue to capture these stories, because every single one is valuable. To my fellow Jewish educators reading this, navigating these same treacherous waters while holding the hearts of our children: please know you are not alone. Your experience is real, your voice is essential, and your story deserves to be heard. It is our life’s work to ensure it.