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Is the old adage of the three R’s sufficient for a good education to properly provide a child with the tools to be successful: Reading, Writing and ‘Rithmetic? We continue to read about schools that cut back or eliminate arts education to save money, suggesting that the arts are unnecessary for a good education. On the contrary, I have seen much research over the years that demonstrates that the best students are the ones with a complete education, and that must include the arts. STEM is insufficient, which is why in some school systems they renamed it STEAM, the A standing for Arts. But yet that is not sufficient. Despite the beautiful imagery of the United States being a melting pot or a tapestry, we are not. We live in silos with those who are like us, and rarely build bridges to connect to other silos. Pittsburgh may have the most bridges in the United States, 446, but they are not the most necessary or important. We need to know our neighbors, to respect and value the differences while simultaneously acknowledging our commonalities as the bridges that can connect us. But that is still not enough. Holocaust Education should be a federal mandate applicable to every state, but it is not. When I checked the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum website, I found the following statement:

Holocaust education requirements vary by state. This list reflects those states that have provided the Museum with a link to their Holocaust education requirements. The Museum offers this list for informational purposes only, and it may not be comprehensive. State departments of education may complete this form to submit a request to be included.

After the above statement, there was a list of 23 states that had submitted the form to be included. Pennsylvania is not one of them. By filling out the list, it does not provide any details about the length and breadth of the state’s Holocaust education program. Is there a state-wide curriculum? If yes, who wrote it? If no, why not? If it is a state requirement, how is the requirement enforced? By what rubrics do we measure competency in the subject?

My granddaughter will most likely not meet a survivor, as most will have died before the opportunity arises. I worry that the absence of personal testimony from witnesses and victims may add an additional layer to the Holocaust deniers. The percentage of young people who have heard of the Holocaust continues to decrease. This blog provides insufficient space to discuss the values of a good Holocaust education, but I will endeavor to at least open the door a crack.

The Holocaust, despite the horrific nature of its goals, did not come to exist in a vacuum. It was a German conclusion based upon centuries of antisemitism, expanded upon by research done in the United States on race (which led to the eventual term “racism”), and modelled the capacity for human beings to perpetrate unspeakable acts upon other human beings who had been denigrated to sub-human levels. Antisemitism never went away post-Holocaust. It merely hid, taking a hiatus, waiting for the ripe moment to re-emerge, which it did with a vengeance on August 11-12, 2017, at the Unite the Right Rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. Seeing white men carrying torches shouting “Jews will not replace us” was terrifying. It opened the doors, giving permission for antisemites to be public with their H. 10.27 blew the doors off the hinges. The antisemitism that has permeated America infected dozens of college campuses post-October 7. Permission was seemingly granted to say and do whatever you wanted as universities were by and large unprepared and inept in handling what was transpiring. This was not anti-war sit-ins of the Vietnam Era. This was public antisemitism on display throughout the country.

Our work has gotten harder, which demands the necessity of Holocaust education in every state without exception. Every school district, of which there are 16,800 according to an article on education at Research.com, must have in place a Holocaust curriculum. It is only when students learn that it only begins with the Jews but doesn’t stop there, can America begin to demonstrate the promise of what was possible in the imagination of the founders in 1776. Right now I cannot state that the experiment is succeeding.