MLK Day Celebration Backed by Top Teachers’ Union Disinvites Rabbi Over Support for Israel

Alliance San Diego acknowledged that it revoked invitations for pro-Israel speakers, citing concerns about ‘potential disruption related to Zionism and anti-Zionism’

A San Diego rabbi was disinvited from giving a benediction at a Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebration sponsored by the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) over his support for Israel, according to the rabbi, his synagogue, and the organization that hosted the event.

Tifereth Israel Synagogue announced on Sunday that the congregation’s leader, Rabbi Hanan Leberman, was cut from Alliance San Diego’s 38th All Peoples Celebration “due to his connection to Israel.” Leberman “served as a rabbi and cantor for the Masorti movement in Israel” before relocating to San Diego, according to the congregation’s website, and like the overwhelming majority of Jews is a strong supporter of the Jewish state.

The event—also sponsored by the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, San Diego City College, and the San Diego Community College District—aimed to help participants “lean into community, to recognize the many strengths we each carry, and to amplify our collective power,” its website states. Alliance San Diego acknowledged in a statement that it had revoked invitations of pro-Israel speakers, saying it did so because it was concerned about “potential disruption related to Zionism and anti-Zionism.”

“We made the difficult decision to ask two invited speakers to step away from their speaking roles,” the organization wrote. “At the time, we believed we were acting in the best interest of protecting attendees and preserving the spirit of the event.”

The group added that the “speakers remained welcome to attend the event, but declined,” and claimed its “intention was never to exclude Jewish faith leaders or Jewish voices from this space.”

Leberman, though, wrote in a letter posted on Instagram that he was “deeply upset by the decision to no longer have [him] speak.”

“When I agreed to participate in this event, I did so fully aware that I would be sharing a stage with individuals whose politics and ideas I do not always share,” he wrote. “That, to me, is precisely the work Dr. King called us to do: sharing space with those with whom we disagree, seeking common ground, and recommitting ourselves to the dream that all people are treated equally. Tragically, that dream is not being realized for Jews today.”

Leberman noted that King repeatedly spoke out in support of Israel and Zionism during his life, adding, “To exclude me from speaking runs counter to Dr. King’s message—particularly at this moment in history, when Jews are experiencing the most significant rise in hate crimes of any group.”

News of event organizers’ decision to remove Leberman as a speaker, and the AFT’s involvement in the event, come as the teachers’ union increasingly embraces anti-Israel activism. In October, a San Diego AFT guild sent a letter to its members defending the “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” chant as a “rallying cry for peace,” the Washington Free Beacon reported. The guild added that describing the slogan—popularized by terrorist groups and used as a call for eradicating Israel—as anti-Semitic means “silencing pro-Palestinian activists.”

Last summer, the AFT helped fundraise for an aid organization that has allegedly worked with Hamas-run agencies in Gaza and has leaders who have praised Hamas terrorists, the Free Beacon reported.

The United States’ other large teachers’ union, the National Education Association (NEA), has also leaned into anti-Israel activism since Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack against the Jewish state. Last year, the NEA erased any reference to Jews from the Holocaust remembrance section of its annual handbook and said it would educate members on how Israel was founded through “forced, violent displacement and dispossession,” the Free Beacon reported at the time. The NEA’s erasure of Jews led the House Committee on Education and the Workforce to open an investigation into the union.

The AFT, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, San Diego City College, and the San Diego Community College District did not respond to requests for comment.