Does it matter if kids learn about dead Jews?

Last week, Dara Horn was hosted on Haviv Rettig Gur’s podcast, “Ask Haviv Anything,” to discuss her past book and her soon-to-be-released book, both of which argue that Holocaust education in the United States commonly fails to teach about the Jewish people and antisemitism, with possible negative consequences.

As Horn has famously put it, our world seems far more invested in teaching about “dead Jews” than about Jewish life. She suggests that this approach may reinforce the very hatred it is supposed to inoculate against.

Within hours of that episode airing, Instagram accounts were using clips from the podcast to accuse the Holocaust education organization I work for of harming Jews. I am certain this is not what Horn intends, but one consequence of her argument is that it can easily be reduced to the belief that “Holocaust education does not work.”

That belief is the last thing we need at this critical juncture when distortion, denial and the erosion of the historical record are running rampant. The debate about Holocaust education is therefore not simply a squabble among scholars. It has real implications as state and local governments are debating whether to continue to fund Holocaust education, when only 30 states in the US mandate learning this history, and when Jewish students are being targeted at rising levels in K-12 schools. 

In addition, reality is quite the opposite: We now have findings that show students who receive updated, pedagogically sound Holocaust education are able to reject antisemitic stereotypes and show greater willingness to help Jewish peers.

Dara Horn is right about one thing that Holocaust educators should take seriously: teaching students how six million Jews were murdered is not enough. I agree with her that students need to understand how Jews lived, who Jews are today, and how Jew-hatred existed long before Hitler and continues long after him. However, the shortcomings Horn identifies in Holocaust education do not prove that Holocaust education itself cannot work. They demonstrate that the way Holocaust education has often been taught has not been sufficient to achieve all of the outcomes we need it to achieve. 

We should not be having a conversation about whether Holocaust education “works.” The conversation should be about what kind of Holocaust education works. In today’s world, we need Holocaust education that not only teaches memory, but also produces individuals who are able to identify the unique components of Jew-hatred in all of its forms. Therefore, Holocaust education that “works” is Holocaust education that increases knowledge of Jewish peoplehood while also building antisemitism literacy. While Horn sees antisemitism education as something that happens separately from Holocaust education, I believe it is something that can happen within Holocaust education. 

When Holocaust education is intentionally designed to develop historical understanding alongside antisemitism literacy and knowledge of Jewish peoplehood, measurable changes are possible. When we expand “what Holocaust education is” to include learning about Jewish civilization and the larger trajectory of Jew-hatred beyond 1933-1945, findings suggest that this approach can produce statistically significant changes in what students know about Jewish people, whether they agree with common antisemitic tropes, and whether they would be willing to stand up as allies in the fight against antisemitism.  

Horn claims that Holocaust education has always been “intended to inoculate people against antisemitism.” Unfortunately, that is not how Holocaust education was created in the United States. Holocaust education in the United States was originally shaped to focus on memory, act as civic education, and teach the Holocaust as a watershed historical event. In short, the Holocaust in American schools became about humanity and tolerance rather than about the Jewish people and antisemitism.

And, even if one accepts the premise that Holocaust education was originally intended to act as an “inoculation” against antisemitism, we have to distinguish between an aspiration and an intentionally designed educational outcome. Holocaust education guidelines from leading institutions suggest that, in the United States, Holocaust education has not historically been designed to address these goals. 

Building antisemitism literacy and increasing knowledge of Jewish people have rarely been identified as explicit learning outcomes in Holocaust education, and those are two areas of knowledge and skill that are paramount in the ability to resist antisemitism.  As educators, we know that education doesn’t automatically produce the outcomes we want simply because we hope it will. And, the failure to achieve an outcome doesn’t prove the educational framework itself is incapable of achieving it. So, yes, Holocaust education has not successfully inoculated younger generations against antisemitism, but that does not mean that it can’t.

I am not defending this claim simply because I am a Holocaust educator; I am defending this claim with empirical evidence. This year, as part of my work, I tested the question directly: Can Holocaust education serve as an intervention against antisemitism? The findings suggest that it can—when Holocaust curriculum is intentionally designed to develop not only historical understanding, but also knowledge of Jewish peoplehood and the ability to recognize antisemitism.

 One study took place in North Carolina during Holocaust units within traditional English language arts classes.  Middle school students who received the revised Holocaust education curriculum showed substantial gains in antisemitism recognition and knowledge of the Jewish people. In addition, students named antisemitism as a contemporary problem and noted that Jews today have an elevated safety risk as compared to non-Jews. Additionally, the students who received the revised curriculum showed measurable rejection of common antisemitism tropes, such as “Jews complain too much about antisemitism,” “Israel/supporters control the media,” and “Jews have too much power.”

In a separate study, we examined middle school students who had already completed a traditional Holocaust unit in their Social Studies class. After completing their unit, some classes participated in a lesson on the Holocaust aftermath. Students who received the lesson showed substantial gains in areas directly relevant to combating Jew-hatred today. Student self-reported knowledge of Holocaust history, Holocaust aftermath, knowledge of Jewish people, and antisemitism all increased by over 50%. The findings also show greater willingness to help others, even at a cost, increased comfort with Jewish people, and increased allyship intentions. For example, students were more likely to agree that “Jews share their values,” and that they would interrupt antisemitic comments, stand up for Jewish classmates, and report mistreatment to an adult.

The results from both testing environments represent measurable changes in students’ ability to understand Jewish people, recognize antisemitism, and understand the contemporary environment in which antisemitism operates. We do not need to abandon or replace Holocaust education. We need to build on it.

Of course, students in America should learn about Jews in many ways outside of a Holocaust education framework. But making this change at a statewide or national level as quickly as we need is not realistic. We need to push for these changes while also improving what we already have.

Horn is right that students need to know more than how Jews died. They need to understand how Jews lived — and how Jews live today — and use that knowledge to challenge antisemitism and change the way they think about and treat Jewish people. But that is not an argument for less Holocaust education; it is an argument for better Holocaust education. If we abandon Holocaust education because it hasn’t always accomplished everything we hoped it would, we may be throwing away an important educational tool precisely when we need it most. We don’t need to choose between Holocaust education, Jewish education, and antisemitism education. We need to stop teaching them as though they are separate subjects.