Better education can combat discrimination against Jewish community, ABA House says
Mark Schickman introduced Resolution 606 on behalf of the Task Force to Combat Antisemitism. (Photo by Lee Rawles/ABA Journal)
The ABA House of Delegates on Monday overwhelmingly adopted a resolution urging K-12 public schools and teachers to provide age-appropriate Holocaust and antisemitism education to their students.
The Task Force to Combat Antisemitism submitted Resolution 606, which also calls on public schools and teachers to implement curricula about the Jewish-American experience in the United States.
Mark Schickman, co-chair of the Task Force to Combat Antisemitism, introduced the resolution at the ABA Midyear Meeting in Phoenix. He said many people who attended a listening session hosted by the task force the previous day shared the common experience of proving as children that “Jews did not have horns.”
“How do we deal with that, and the common experience also of Jews getting beat up at school because they were Jewish?” Schickman said. “Why do some Jews cover their heads? … Why won’t Jews travel or work on certain days? Why won’t they eat in certain restaurants? Without exploring these issues, the strangeness just continues. And with that, the antisemitic attitudes in America have grown.”
There has been a steady increase in acts of hate and bias toward the Jewish community in the United States in recent years, according to the report that accompanies the resolution. It cites data from the Anti-Defamation League, which counts more than 8,870 antisemitic incidents in 2023. This marks a 140% increase from the nearly 3,700 incidents the Anti-Defamation League recorded in 2022.

The Anti-Defamation League also tracked 1,162 antisemitic incidents at K-12 schools in 2023, which represents a 135% increase over the previous year, the report says.
Darcee Siegel, a special adviser to the Task Force to Combat Antisemitism, called these numbers “outrageous” and urged the ABA to “work hard to stop this hatred.”
“Addressing antisemitism through education is both [an] immediate security imperative and a longtime educational investment to promote human rights and global citizenship,” said Siegel, who also chairs the Standing Committee on Public Education. “Without an educated society, we have no tomorrow. Our children are our future, and we need to be and should be educating surrounding the history of the Jewish people.”
In 2023, the ABA resolved to take a leadership role in opposing antisemitism in the United States and around the world.
Resolution 606 additionally urges government leaders to enact legislation that supports and provides resources for expanded Jewish studies and Holocaust education in K-12 public schools.
Monte Frank, a delegate from the Connecticut Bar Association, shared a personal story with the House when speaking in favor of the measure. He said if they visited the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York City, they would walk by a photo of his grandmother and eight other family members. Of the nine people in the photo, he said, six were murdered at the Auschwitz concentration camp.
“You might ask, ‘Why did my family choose to donate that picture to the museum?’” Frank said. “My family thought it was important that that history be told to high school students. We wanted people to see what extreme hate looks like, what racism and xenophobia can lead to. It teaches us what can happen if we allow attacks on the rule of law to continue unchecked.”
Follow along with the ABA Journal’s coverage of the 2025 ABA Midyear Meeting here.
The Section of Civil Rights and Social Justice; the Government and Public Sector Lawyers Division; the Section of State and Local Government Law; and the Standing Committee on Public Education co-sponsored the measure.
This is not the first time the ABA has taken up policy that recognizes the importance of education in combating hate and discrimination and supporting students with different backgrounds and experiences.
In the wake of a rise in anti-Asian prejudice after the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the ABA passed a 2022 resolution encouraging K-12 schools and teachers to develop curricula that includes the history and experiences of Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders. The association adopted a measure in 2021 that urged legislatures, school boards and educators to include the historical and social contributions of LGBTQ individuals in public school curricula.
The ABA has passed additional policies that support including the experiences of marginalized communities in classrooms, along with access to books and resources reflecting their voices.
See also:
ABA’s Impact: Confronting anti-Asian bias through civics education
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