England - Union Jack
England - Union JackiStock

A significant number of Jewish teachers have resigned from the UK’s main education union citing its open hostility toward Israel.

In the last four months, over 20 employees of London’s Jewish Free School have annulled their memberships with the National Education Union (NEU), reported the Jewish Chronicle.

A number of teachers at non-Jewish school are also reportedly resigning or contemplating leaving the NEU.

“Over the past year the union has become increasingly obsessed” with vilifying Israel in a one-sided way, Yvonne Greene a business teacher at a high school in Oxford, UK told the Jewish Chronicle. She said that the union and its magazine has said “horrible things” about Israel.

She said the “final straw” was when the joint general secretary of the union, Kevin Courtney, spoke to a pro-Palestinian rally last week where attendees where holding signs with anti-Semitic slogans on them.

The National Education Union responded, “The NEU (has) issued statements about the evictions at Sheikh Jarrah and subsequent developments, as have many other unions.”

While stating they “(speak) out against all forms of racism including anti-Semitism,” they added, “Policy in support of affiliation to the Palestine Solidarity Campaign has been agreed democratically at annual NEU conferences.”